TV Guide (October 2, 1954)

POLLY BERGEN CAN AFFORD A MORE VARIED DIET NOW “In fact,” she says now, “I was un¬ usually unemployed. I was the most unemployed person I knew. I was also nine months behind in my rent and I lived, for the most part, on soup.” Today, in happy contrast, Polly is quite possibly the busiest girl on TV; she lives in a Manhattan apartment equipped with a husband, some potted palms and a pet ocelot (a large jag¬ uar-like animal); and she has no trouble at all paying her rent. As for soup, she rarely touches the stuff. “Soup!!” she says, somewhat bitterly. “Tomato, split pea, chicken gumbo, mulligatawny — I’ve had them all. Clam chowder, mock turtle, asparagus, vichysoisse; I’m an expert on soup!” Being an expert on soup isn’t Polly’s only accomplishment. She is the host¬ ess on Pepsi-Cola Playhouse. She is starting her own variety show on ABC, is cutting discs for Decca, is a panelist on I’ve Got a Secret. In 1949 Polly was in Hollywood, broke and making a vain attempt to crack the movies. She had moved to the Coast two years before with her father, a construction engineer, whose peregrinations led Polly through 28 states after her birth in Knoxville, Tenn. Along the way Polly learned to sing, dance, play the glockenspiel and imitate Wendy Hiller in the tea-drink¬ ing scene from “Pygmalion.” In Hollywood, Polly moved into a flat and began phoning agents. “Then,” Polly recalls, “one day I was sitting in the kitchen, eating a can of cold minestrone and wondering how I would ever pay the rent. Sud¬ denly the phone rang again. Luckily, I had paid the phone bill.” On the other end of the line was an agent, offering a two-week turn at one of the better Hollywood spots. Did she want it? “Did I want it! I got so excited I couldn’t even finish my soup!” The job didn’t amount to much. But Polly looks back upon it as the most important job of her career. “While I was singing in this spot— at $75 a week—I met another singer, Jerome Courtland. The first time I laid eyes on him I said to myself, ‘That’s the man for me.’ We were mar¬ ried April 15, 1950, and we’ve been going up the ladder ever since.” Singing with Jerry, a big, handsome man who is building a solid reputation as a TV actor, Polly was spotted by a talent scout and signed as a guest star on the Alan Young show. Then ■she made a record, “Honky-Tonkin’,” with Joe Venuta, which was released in a jacket emblazened with an almost three-dimensional picture of Polly. An enlargement was offered to any serv¬ iceman who liked the record. “I don’t like the record,” one sailor wrote. “Send Polly Bergen instead.” Producer Hal Wallis heard the disc and signed Polly to play opposite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in “That’s My Boy.” That did it. Martin and Lewis signed her again for “The Stooge.” Then she joined them in a wild per¬ sonal appearance at New York’s Para¬ mount Theater, landed a part in John Murray Anderson’s “Almanac” and made triumphant guest appearances on practically every major TV show. Then a couple of months ago, it was decided someone was needed to fill Dorothy Collins’ spot on Your Hit Parade while Dorothy was having her baby. This “someone” had to be some¬ thing like Dorothy—but different. She had to be “wholesome” and “alluring.” “Demure” and “sophisticated.” And, oh yes, able to sing. To fulfill these requirements many were called, and one was chosen: Polly Bergen. After that, the offers poured in. No more soup for Pretty Polly.