Silver Screen (May-Oct 1939)

60 Silver Screen for July 1939 Marriage and Hedy Lamarr [Continued from page 19] and the necessity for such economy as she need never have known. There is courage and stamina sheathed in the sumptuous sheath of Lamarr. When Hedy took up golf and, on her first tour around the Bel-Air golf course, had such redoubtable golfing companions as Robert Ritchie, Bruce Cabot and Victor Fleming, she asked no handicap. She never asks for special privileges, not Hedy. When they were making cafeteria scenes, also for the defunct "I Take This Woman," Hedy and Spencer Tracy got free lunches for three days. And Hedy ate the free lunches and loved them. The only picture that hangs in the new portable dressing room of the Glamour Queen is a framed water color of — Dopey! Famed for her fabulous jewels, Hedy's favorite collection is her collection of dolls. Her mother recently sent her a new doll from England and Hedy displayed it to her friends with far more enthusiasm than ever she has displayed her emeralds, her diamonds, her matchless pearls. She's crazy about the movies. She's such an insatiable movie fan that she is one of the few people in the world who adores double features. It must both amuse and amaze Gene Markey to find that Hedy's idea of a Big Night is to go to a neighborhood movie. It must both amuse and amaze him to find in her just about the only person in the business who really loves pictures. No movie bill is too long for her. When Hedy and Gene go to see, say, "Wuthering Heights," and, the feature over. Gene begins reaching for his hat, he turns to see Hedy already lost to the world in "Cactus Bill's Challenge" or whatever the second feature may be. She is, Myrna Loy once told me, the greatest audience in the world. She cries unashamedly at the "sad" scenes, and screams and laughs at the "funny" scenes. She has seen "Pygmalion" four times. "Because," she says, "I can learn, something from that picture." She is unreservedly generous about other women's performances. When she watched Irene Dunne in "Love Affair" she kept murmuring: "She is won-der-ful . . . she is won-der-ful ..." And so it is not surprising to be told that Gene Markey uses the word "incredible" in referring to Hedy, uses it more often, my informant informs, than he himself realizes, and, in using it, he is paying, unconsciously perhaps, a tribute to his own delighted astonishment. In .her incredible beauty, of course. For incredibly beautiful she is, her personal maid told me, even when she first awakens in ihe morning, quite without benefit of powder puff or lipstick. But more incredible to her husband than the beauty which is manifest at first glance must be her incredible gifts as home-maker, her contentment and utter simplicity of living, her undemandingness, her graciousness, her keen, discriminating intelligence. She has, in addition to these qualities, an excellent "story" mind, a remarkable story sense, which add up to the Perfect Wife — for a producer. When, recently, a v.e'l known writer came to confer with Producer Markey on a story, Hedy happened to be present. Far too well-mannered to intrude her presence in a conference, she remained silent until her opinion on a certain situation was asked. And then, when asked, Hedy gave such a constructive angle to the story, suggested such extraordinarily worth-while situations that the entire script was revised according to her concept and the well-known writer went away saying earnestly: "I wish / had her to work on stories with me." As man and as producer, then, Gene Markey's cup of conjugal happiness is, indeed, pressed down and running over. No wonder it is incredible to him to find in a person so beautiful, a wife, a companion, a friend who is as interested in his career as she is in her own . . . the most feminine woman he has ever known. One does not expect to find all the qualities in one person. Even a new husband, even a man in love is prepared, however subconsciously, for some disappointments. Gene Markey has not met with any disappointments. Quite the contray. And so he, like Hedy, is not only ecstatically happy, as a man in love is happy, but he is, also, contented and supremely comfortable in the home Hedy is making for him. He has never, he has gratefully admitted to friends, known a Career Woman so unobstrusively a Career Woman as is Hedy — one of his special satisfactions is he.r acceptance of his bachelor-day friends, her liking for his friends. These are, I think, some of the reasons for that word "incredible" rising so often to the lips of Hedy's husband. The word comes straight from his amazed — and grateful — heart. Not that Hedy's ambition is softly suffocated under the aura of peace which mantles her. The flame burns just as brightly as before. All the more brightly, perhaps, because it is now nourished on the hearthstone. Hedy, now, has someone of her very own to whom she can turn for advice, for help in her work, for understanding. Hedy is still ambitious, of course. Her career is still important to her. And she fully intends to go on with it. But — she gives her home the first break. I have her word for this. It seems to me — it also seems to them — that the important thing to consider in this marriage of Hedy Lemarr and Gene Markey is that neither of them wanted to marry again. Neither of them had planned to marry again. Hedy told me, less than a year ago, that she hoped she would not fall in love, hoped she would not want to marry "for at least five years." She had every intention of remaining single. She had even bought a new home, redecorated it, refurnished it, settled into it. Gene Markey made no secret of the fact that Freedom could ring for him for the rest of his life and still be sweet music in his ears. Therefore, Hedy and Gene married for one reason and one reason only — love. And not the love which is adventure, excitement, headlines, fit II ful and feverish — but the love whij wants marriage, home, children, pi petuity. If it had been excitement they we seeking, excitement sprang to life unci their feet wherever they walked. Men ha died for the beauty which is Hedy's. Ge: had dated most of the glamorous, attffl tive young women of Our Times. He< had been married once, unsuccessful! Gene had been married once, unsucce; fully. Which adds up to two people no too eager to date Hymen again. Hedy was in Hollywood, the goal all her dreams, the goal for which she h left the safe, the sumptuous, the "gild, cage" of her former marriage. She w at the beginning of her exciting caret Shewas everywhere known, billed, pu licized as The Glamour Girl to end ; Glamour Girls. It was expected of herperhaps her studio rather hoped that si would enhance this glamour' by addii sensational scalps to her girdle of scarl and gold. For her career's sake, perhap Hedy should not have married. But si did marry. She married because she is woman and fell in love with a man. SI married because she is the kind of woman who likes married life, home lif She married because she is a one-m; woman. She proved this, I think, by tl five years she gave' to her first marriag By the fact that she gave up her caree then, for that marriage. By the fact tha unhappy for the greater part of that fi\ years — and five years is a long, long tin when one is very young — she did not c what so many young girls do do fling it overboard with petulant, pa sionate haste. No, she gave time to i she tried to work it out, she curbed hi own restlessness, submerged her own an bitions out of respect for the instituti of marriage, which she does respect. She proved her singular singleness heart again, I think, when, after her r rival in Hollywood, both before and aft her fabulous rise to fame, she went 01 with one man and one man only, Reginal Gardner. Hedy, who could have had s many romances as there are hours in th day, who could have been feasted an feted wherever the lights are brightes found one friend and stuck to him, unt1 j she found the man who was friend — an i more besides. There is no inconstancy i\ V Hedy. Gene Markey, on the other hand, a joyed his new bachelorhood. He like: I living on his yacht. He had every expetl I tation of continuing his life of freedon I A successful producer at Twentieth Cenj I tury-Fox with such signal successes aill "Kentucky," "The Little Princess." "TT Hound of The Baskervilles" as his mo> recent credits, his life, in every depart I ment, was satisfying and successful. Then I were no economic reasons for the man I riage. There were, indeed, no reasons a all for the marriage save only that one that one which does not need to be re stated. Hedy and Gene have evolved no delib, | erate formula for making their marriag I last, no little "laundry list" of things ti ; do, things to avoid doing to insure it, / "until Death do us part-ness." The.' , feel no need for such artifice because both say that they feel "closer" to eacl other than they have ever felt to anyoro [Continued on pose 66]