DRW50
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Claudia and Chappie bought the farm in a Christmas blizzard. A friend, who had once been a guest at the farmhouse and had fallen in love with it, took them out to look at the then-unoccupied house, because he wanted to see it again. It was only partially furnished at the time, but the Chappells gave each other a what-we-could-do-with-this place look and the following March they moved in, and have been proving ever since what they could do. That's almost seven years ago. The farm has 130 acres, and they rent an additional 170. They grow their own grain, their corn, oats and wheat, much of it to feed the chickens and bugs. Chappie is a director of the New Jersey Yorkshire Breeders' Association and they own one of the finest herds of Yorkshire hogs in the state. In season, they have a couple of thousand chickens and hope by next year to have several thousand more. The 200-year old house, made of field-stone with green trim, is set on top of a ridge. Behind it the hills rise dramatically, and below the valleys and rolling land spread for many miles. Three acres of smooth green lawn surround the house - enough grass to require a light tractor and a golf course mower. They built a fieldstone bungalow, which their good friends, the John McEvoys, rent. The stone garage has been turned into another tenant house. The original barn, of the native fieldstone, is still in use. The old wagon house is now a completely equipped toolhouse, where Chappie works on his carpentering and mechanical projects. "At which he's a whiz," Claudia assures you. Chappie, by the way, is the Ernest Chappel you hear on radio and TV - as commentator and announcers on such programs as The Big Story, Quiet Please and the Armstrong Circle Theater. The original portion of the main house on Breezy Hill has twenty-two inch thick walls, and the foundation still has the old musket placements which go back to the days of Indian attacks. Chappie points out an interesting architectural note in the different levels on which the house is built. The ground level in back, for the dining room and kitchen, is a whole floor lower than the front ground level, for the living room, and in between is a third level, for the library. Interesting, too, are the original fieldstone inside walls of the living and dining-rooms and the dark old beams that were put there when the first rooms were built. Everything that was old and lovely in the house has been carefully preserved, no matter how much new has been added. Fine old wood has been rubbed and coaxed back to its original lustre. The two huge fireplaces in the living room and those in the dining room and den are just as they were when the house was young. Claudia has always loved antiques and her New York apartment, a high-ceilinged place in the East Sixties, with spacious rooms, was filled with them. Now many of her finest pieces have been trucked out to the farm, which is on the outskirts of the little town of Glen Gardner. She and Chappie haunt the small shops for good buys, and go to as many auctions as their crowded radio schedules permit. The blue and white B&G Copenhagen Christmas plate collection is now at the farm, with only one plate missing. "Buyers all over Europe are keeping their eyes open for that missing plate," Claudia says. "It's one of my dreams to have the complete set." She has a souvenir spoon collection that her grandmother started and to which her mother added, and two windows full of chickens, mostly china and glass ones. Color schemes all though the house are soft, rather than striking. Greens predominate in the living room, and the blue and white Delft china sets the blue and white scheme for the dining room. Gay chintzes dress up the bedrooms and the cozy corners that abound in every old house. An extremely handsome and gaily decorated horse which once rode an old German merry-go-round, has been converted into a bar. "I got it for Chappie last year and brought it home through the town in our truck, and we very nearly stopped traffic. Mr. Poop, our Sealyham, was a little puzzled by the strange new animal at first but he got used to it," Claudia explains. Mr. Poop's welfare became a matter of such concern to a frequent visitor to the farm, Harry Oldridge, that he built a little bridge over the pond when Mr. P goes frogging so the dog's feet wouldn't always be wet. Now Mr. P stands dryly on the bridge for his frogging forays. The two cats get no such special attention, although the big black farm cat has been hopelessly spoiled by the city cat Claudia brought out. City Cat does all the mousing and brings the hapless victims in to Jack-Jack in loving tribute. There's a two-acre pond on the farm which they hope to fill with fish next season, and a swimming pool that uses the foundation of a milk house built in 1786. A brook had run through the basement of the old structure and the same spring now feeds the pool. Chappie and Claudia worked out all the plans, and he did some of the masonry work and supervised the construction. In the back orchard there are five hundred peach trees which they themselves set out. This year, wonder of wonders, they took off their very first peaches - the sweetest they've ever eaten, naturally! Next year they'll be even more plentiful. There are about a hundred and fifty apple trees, and plenty of tangy wild grapes. Much of the output of orchards and truck garden goes into their deep freeze. Actually, it's Chappie who is the family chef, when the housekeeper isn't around. He specializes in steaks, chickens, and barbecues, performing his culinary miracles in the summer on the terrace just off the dining room, where they sit in the shade of a huge horse chestnut tree. In winter, the big dining room fireplace sets the scene. From the terrace you see a great bell hung on top of a white post. Claudia explains: "It came fro ma church built by the Hessians in a little town that was somewhere in this neighborhood, called Slab Hollow. The old building had seen the Revolution through, had seen the town change constantly, but had itself remained changeless because interested folks in neighboring communities had kept it in repair. Then one night a fire destroyed the building completely and only the bell remained. We were antique hunting one day when I realized I had lost Chappie. Of course my own purchases were forgotten and we could hardly wait to get it home and use it. Now it hangs silent on its white terrace post. We think it deserves a rest." On another side of the lawn is a dashing old sleigh which Harry Oldridge discovered neglected in the barn and promptly painted. If Claudia gets her wish, they may yet use it for transportation. It seems that there were a few rough winters at first, so they invested in a snow plow to take care of the roadway that extended through the property to the house. They have been all ready for blizzards, but hardly more than a sprinkling of snow has fallen since the plow was delivered. "Sometimes," muses Claudia, "I find myself wishing for a good old-fashioned New England winter, so we can justify all the money we put in that plow!" If any New Jerseyites who read this find the snowfall heavier than usual this season, they can now blame Claudia Morgan. She wished for it!
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Susan is not only heard but seen in The Guiding Light - in the exacting role of Kathy Grant, who already has a baby and just couldn't, under present circumstances, be expecting another. Jan is a rising singer, with a split-second schedule of operas, concerts and recording dates. And Jan has to make weekly trips to Canada for his radio show, Songs Of My People - the most popular show in all Canada. That they are facing the problems, making the adjustments, is only a footnote to the fulfillment of their dreams. The coming baby - expected in May - is really their second miracle. The first was that Susan and Jan ever met at all. "We had to cross an ocean just to get introduced," says Jan. But behind that simple statement is a world of paradox, of exciting personal history. For both Susan and Jan were born in Czechoslovakia, both studied at the Conservatory and worked in the National Theatre in Prague. But each followed an individual career, and each made a separate escape to the New World - Susan arriving in the United States with her mother, in 1941, and Jan reaching Canada on New Year's Eve of 1950. The meeting of Jan and Susan came about in Toronto in 1950. Susan was there to make the movie, "Forbidden Journey." The man chosen to play a Czech stowaway was Jan Rubes - who had just arrived from Czechoslovakia. Jan and Susan were introduced and immediately called up to play a love scene. They clinched and kissed thirty-eight times before the director was satisfied. Neither Jan nor Susan minded. "Considering our battered lips," Jan notes, "you might say it was love at first bite." A few months later, on the occasion of the picture's world premiere in Toronto, they were married. And they talked about having a baby. "It's something you shouldn't have to talk about," Jan says. "Children come naturally to a happy marriage. But we were separated by hundreds of miles most of the time, and most of our conversations were carried on by telephone. Unfortunately, you can't have a baby by telephone." While Susan had taken out her citizenship papers, Jan could get into the States only on a transit visa for a few days at a time. Susan's career kept her in New York. Jan's kept him in Toronto. "In our first few years of marriage," Susan computes, " I don't think we got to spend more than a year together, adding up the hurried weekends." Most of their friends - the Leo Durochers, the Jack Palances, the Ivan Romanoffs, the Dr. Leonard Hirschfields - had children. Jan and Susan's affinity for kids was obvious. Susan had made children's records and always magnetized youngsters with her stories. Jan sang songs to them and explained games for them. Last May, the second miracle began. Jan was admitted to the States and took out his first papers. The obstacles were being cleared away, one by one. Now there could be more time together, more talk of the future - and not just by telephone. For Jan, there were no doubts. Jan has a wholly cheerful, optimistic nature. Susan can be skeptical, however. "So in September I had a cold," Susan remembers. "That was followed by nausea. 'Virus!' I said." "No," said Jan. "Morning sickness." "But I have it all day," Susan insisted. "It's a virus." "You're pregnant." Susan went to her doctor. "Virus?" The doctor shook his head. "You're going to have a baby." Jan was a very happy man that evening. He wanted to celebrate and take Susan out to dinner, but her "virus" was bothering her. They had a toast with orange juice, then phoned Susan's mother, who lives in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. She was ecstatic. She wanted to come right over to New York. "Later," Susan said, "There'll be plenty of time to help." Jan wrote his mother overseas and she wrote back that Susan should remember that she must now eat enough for two. "Ha! She should only know," Susan says. "I'm always hungry. An hour after dinner, I'm ready for a sandwich. At the studio, they all take their cookies and sandwiches over to a corner where I can't beg a bite." But, when it came to telling people outside the immediately family, Susan hesitated. That's when Jan said she might keep it quiet, but he was about to burst. They agreed that Jan would "burst" in Canada, but they would hold back the news in New York. But, after a few weeks, it was too much for Susan and she told her friends on The Guiding Light. Nearly all of them have children of their own and they were delighted. "Oh, they've been so good," Susan says. "Much too good." They worry about her standing too long or climbing stairs. And the advice flows like water. One tells her, "You must be very careful." Another advises, "Do anything you want and eat anything you want." Jan and Susan make no bones of their hope that the first-born will be a boy. "I want a boy, girl, boy in that order," Susan says. "That means the girl will have plenty of boy friends. Besides, everyone wants at least one boy and, if you get that out of the way with the first, then you are psychologically free." But they can't get together on names. "If it is a girl," Jan says, "how about Jeannette?" Susan wrinkles her nose. "No. But, if it's a boy, how about Christopher?" "As a musician I must say no," Jan answers. "Christopher Rubes doesn't sound right. Too many r's." Their neighbors and friends, the Jack Palances, hope that they will have a girl: "We have two girls and we don't want you to have a boy before we do." A letter came from Laraine Day, Leo Durocher's wife. "I hope it's a boy and he's a pitcher." So, suddenly, Jan and Susan find themselves in a discussion as to what their first child, boy or girl, as yet unborn, will grow up to be. "Definitely not an actor or singer," Susan says. "He's going to be a doctor so he can live in Denver if he likes." "Suzie has a Denver fixation," Jan says. "Denver is in the mountains and has nice people and good cultural interests," Susan says, "and I can't live there. If a boy's a doctor, he can live anywhere. If he's an actor, he has to stay in New York." Susan feels that children should be raised in the country, preferably on a farm. When they first talked about children, they talked about moving from their Manhattan apartment. "But we've changed our minds," Susan says, and explains, "I began to realize it would mean a lot of time wasted commuting into the city - time that I would otherwise be able to spend with our child." They have a promise of a two-bedroom apartment in the same building, to be made available a couple of months before the baby is due. For that reason, they have put off buying baby things. "Actually, we hope to make a lot of things ourselves," Susan says. "I couldn't darn a sock - but now I'm going to sewing classes." She plans to make drapes for the baby's room and then try more complicated things. Jan, whose talent with tools has already produced bookcases and a phonograph console, is going to build an old-fashioned crib with rockers. Being pregnant hasn't changed Susan's life much. And this, at times, has disturbed Jan. "Suzie is a powerhouse. It's nothing for her to do two shows during the day, come home and make dinner for a party of six and then go on a theatre with them. Now, I think it's important that one doesn't overdo it." Susan loves to tell how sweet Jane was in those first two months, when she was uncomfortable. Jan, who dislikes cooking, nevertheless prepared simple dishes for breakfast and dinner. "Jan is as wonderful as his potato pancakes," she says. "He has the best disposition. He is always cheerful. He sees good in everyone and everything. He can go out in the worst kind of weather and come back smiling." Susan and Jan agree that they are cut of different cloth. Jan has patience and is easygoing. Susan is a woman of tremendous drive and will power. So they hope the baby will have a bit of both their personalities. And they are grateful that the baby will be born an American citizen. Both know what it is like to be a "man without a country." "I had to wait five years to become a citizen," Susan says. "Jan must wait three. And the baby doesn't wait at all!" "He'll be a citizen before I am," Jan notes. Susan has no intention of giving up her career. She will likely take a leave of absence from The Guiding Light sometime in April, and be back on the air in July. "You see, the show takes only three or four half-days a week," she says. "it is easy for an actress to combine a career with family responsibilities, once her babies are born. And if I should get another Broadway part, there, too. I would be working at night and still have my days free." Geographically speaking, Susan still doesn't have Jan all of the time. Last summer, he made his debut in New York and got wonderful reviews from music critics. But he has built a tremendous following in Canada and continues to do his weekly show there. In addition, he is under contract to do a number of operas and he is recording for Decca. "Both Jane and I have had crowded lives," Susan says. "It is almost as if I'd had many different lives. As a child in Europe, my family was wealthy and I was spoiled. Then there was the war and being uprooted and the poverty. There was the starting all over again in the States, and I have been very lucky. With the baby, it will be the beginning of another kind of life. "And an even better one," Jan concludes.
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January 1951 Radio TV Mirror
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More blatant flip-flopping from Romney. Not that anyone ever notices or cares. http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/07/romney-shifts-says-mandates-a-tax-128026.html
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The right wing's newest hate figure: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78068.html Tucker Carlson's site ran a whole article basically just to say that some anonymous conservative thinks he's a douche and always was. Funny how that didn't stop them from giving him money and a speaking slot in 2009...
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I wonder if they should have written Amanda out in those last few years, when they seemed to stop knowing how to write for her.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKDKXl1dsM
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Carol's return to Eastenders. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRy4pVSTFYU&feature=channel&list=UL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQJ4gu1OUYI&feature=channel&list=UL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhirFDhapWo&feature=channel&list=UL
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I saw that last year (I didn't realize it had been that long). Fantastic end to the story. And very gruesome, all those scenes of Jeff's corpse. I never knew about this character until I saw these episodes. The actor is very good. They should have cast him in another role.
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Ad about 6 minutes in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvdXaMmQj-Q
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Often when she sits down to dinner, Gingr finds a package by her plate, and it may be a bracelet or perfume or a piece of costume jewelry. Their only differences are over the furnishing of their home. "It's unusual, too," Gingr admits, "for Les never infringes on my personal privacy, never tries to influence my ideas on other matters." But once they maintained a three-day silence over whether or not a table should be moved a few feet to the left or right. As insignificant as this sounds, it's based on the intense interest they've taken in the conversion and furnishing of their home. And their home is a masterpiece in the art of good living. The living room, pine panelled, has a roof-high, peaked ceiling. An enormous fireplace takes up a third of one wall and runs up to the arch. The windows on one wall overlook the valley. The furnishings are mostly Early American and represent much hunting and shopping by Gingr. Shelves against two windows are filled with beautiful pieces of glass and porcelain. Above the staircase is an old Amish hanging. A nearly complete set of Copenhagen date dishes flanks the front of the staircase. The lamps are converted beer-steins and a very old oil lamp. "In order to maintain peace," Gingr confesses, "we finally decided to specify our responsibilities. I was given charge of decorating, and Les took over structural changes." All bedrooms were on the ground floor until Les began to get ideas, good ones. He had a stairway built to the attic and then put in two bedrooms. The master bedroom he built himself, from dormer windows to papering, and it took him a year. He converted a rear open stone porch into a dining room. This he did as a surprise for Gingr, who was in the West Indies for a month. (Nearly any time she is absent more than a week she comes home to find something new in the house.) To do the home justice would require a detailed description of every room: The handsome pine chests and dry sinks finished down to a beautiful grain, the distinctive but cheeful wallpaper, the warmth of the lighting. This handsome room, which seems about as far removed from New York as you could get, short of the moon, came about in a rathrer unusual way. Gingr, of course, had been raised in a small town and didn't have to be sold on country living. But Les had always lived in a city and had never entertained the thought of living anywhere else. And then came the war. Les spent part of his service in Burma and it was very quiet there. "No noise, no frenzy," he remembers. "No subways, no taxi horns, no one jamming you in an elevator. And I liked it." He got home on the eve of his wedding anniversary. He met Gingr with a load of roses, an Indian ring set with a ruby, and an idea about living in the country. Claudia Morgan, who stars in Right to Happiness, was a close friend and talked about the wonders of the New Jersey countryside. So the Damons began investigating. "I remember the first time we saw the house," Les recalls. "The agent drove us through the town and pointed at the top of the mountain. It looked too good to be true. When we got on the property and walked through the house, we felt as if a million wouldn't be too much to ask for it. Luckily, it turned out to be something we could afford!" Living in the country has had a noticeable effect on their lives. For one thing, they've had the opportunity to really enter into community life. The community is the little town of Califon at the foot of their mountain. Last winter, with the assistance of Gingr, Les staged a play which was so successful that local business men are considering the idea of building a permanent theatre. During the Yuletide season, Les told the Christmas story at the Methodist church. It was so warmly received that, the following Easter, he and Gingr did the story of the Resurrection in the candlelight service. For weeks after, townspeople would approach Gingr and ask, "Can't we make your husband into a minister?" "You know Les works five or six days a week in the city and seldom gets home before eight in the evening," Gingr notes. "It is hard on him to take on community jobs, but in spite of this, he manages." The summer of 1952 was a full one for both Gingr and Les. In the beginning, Jackie Gleason moved into their farmhouse for a month. (The 110-year-old farmhouse is better than a football-field length from the Damon home, and Les renovated it himself.) THen Les worked in a summer theatre production of "Come Back, Little Sheba," and did such a terrific job that the Broadwa producer regretted Les wasn't in the original production. In July, Gingr got a wire from Gleason asking her to fly out to Chicago to play the part of Alice in The Honeymooners. The actress, who had been playing the part on TV and the road, was ill. "I almost didn't take that part," Gingr remembers. We had arranged for two children to stay with us as part of the Fresh Air Fund's activities. I didn't want to disappoint them." "Why can't I take care of them?" Les demanded. So Les had two little children all to himself their first week in the country. "They were having a delightful time," Gingr remembers. "Les had taken them all over the countryside. There were picture puzzles, toys and white shoe polish all over the place." To the Damons, it is a real sense of loss that they have had no children. Gingr, in particular, believes Les would have made such a wonderful father. She points to his devotion to their two boxers. "In spite of the lack of enthusiasm for our Great Dane," she says, "I knew Les would love dogs, given the opportunity." The boxers, brother and sister, are called McGinty and Reffie. McGinty is the clown of the house and Les tells dozens of stories about his escapades. Their one other pet, a parakeet, is titled Joshua and he is quite a voluble bird, inclined to upstage either one of his owners. Les and Gingr have to be early risers. There's that two-hour haul into Manhattan for both of them. Even Gingr is in town a few days each week. She was on the Beulah TV show a year ago. She played the lead on Cavalcade of America recently and generally free-lances. She's a very active woman and, a couple of summers ago, actually found herself in the jelly business. She and her housekeeper, Vi, put up 1700 jars of jams and jellies that season. "It all started when Eddie and Cathy Byron were out," she tells you. (Eddie produced Mr. D.A.) "They had some of our preserves and the next day Cathy called and said she'd like to buy a case." After that, orders began piling up and, when they approached the two-thousand mark, Les made her call it quits. It was just too much with her professional work. "There are always plenty of projects going on around here," he says, "and we do like to relax once in a while." They seldom finish dinner before eight-thirty. And cooking for Les is a real pleasure. He likes food, particularly cheese souffles, Welsh rarebit, southern friend chicken, and is always ready for a good steak. After dinner, they may play some backgammon or read quietly. Weekends usually find four or more house guests on Autumn Hill. Informality is the note, but not by accident. No business is ever conducted on weekends and the Damons invite only people who like freedom of action. Everyone does just as he please. Guests get up at their own choosing and often make their own breakfasts. They can plan ping pong or go sledding or just sit around and talk. "Les is a wonderful host," George says. "Everyone feels at ease here." Gingr admits there are men who are probably easier to describe than Les. Complex and reserved he may be, but definitely not lacking in the virtues that make him a credit to his profession and the human race. "No, you can't tell much about Les by the parts he plays. He's much too good an actor," she says. "On the other hand, he's too much a man to be anything but modest." Of course, as it turns out, a man who is respected and admired by his wife and friends doesn't have to toot his own horn. Everyone else does it for Les Damon.
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as real as the family doctor. Some sixty miles out of Manhattan, across New Jersey and just short of the Pennsylvania border, one thousand feet up, on the very summit of a mountain, are twenty-four acres containing a vast amount of trees and a handsome fieldstone house. This is Autumn Hill. This is Les Damon's home. Across the horizon is Schooley's mountain range, below in the valley is a village of five hundred homes, on the hillsides cows and sheep graze. Les Damon is proud of his home. He has worked hard for its ownership, he has spent much time and labor in converting the house to his needs, he commutes fifteen to twenty hours a week to enjoy this home, which he shares with his wife, Gingr, and two boxer dogs. Gings is a vibrant, beautiful woman, blonde with gray-green eyes. She's a rare person, a cosmopolitan actress completely at ease in a rural setting. She is buoyant and zestful, yet sophisticated in a real sense. "You can measure the years of our marriage by my anniversary flowers," Gingr says quietly. "Each year Les has given me a dozen red roses plus a yellow rose for each year we've been married. This year I got a dozen of each." Gingr knows Les as a remarkable artist, sensitive and brilliant, as well as a remarkable husband, considerate, good and very, very sentimental. She points to an unusual ring he had made for her out of a tiny wristwatch she once treasured. In the center is a turqoise, her birthstone, circled with diamonds and in the case are several grains of their wedding rice. Les and Gingr met in Chicago some fourteen years ago, but it took them about a year and a half to discover how much they had liked each other. During this time, Les discovered Gingr had been raised in a small town, Kinderhook, Illinois, in the heart of Mark Twain country - her grandfather was a friend of Twain's. She remembers her childhood with pleasure, and it took her into the big city and away from small-town life, which she loved. (It was bad handwriting, scribbling her name "Gingr," that resulted in the "e" being dropped when she had her first billing.) Les, on the other hand, grew up in the city of Providence, Rhode Island. As a youngster, he worked hard. He was always fascinated by the theatre. "I always hung around the theatre, the Albee, one of the best stock companies in the country," he recalls. "But I had to get a job and I was very lucky." He was employed as private secretary to a public utilities chief. His boss, impressed by Les' theatrical ambitions, made a deal. " I don't care how much time you spend at the Albee or what kind of hours you keep here," he told Les. "Just see that your office work gets done." Les would show up at seven in the morning and pound the typewriter until ten-thirty, then take off for the theatre. He stayed on, if there was a matinee, but was back at the office in the early evening. He rushed back to the theatre for the night performance and afterwards returned to the office to work until one or two in the morning. Les did this for eight long years, and the hard-earned apprenticeship paid off. He was sponsored to further training at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and then spent a year at the famous Old Vic Theatre in London. He came back to a couple more seasons of stock in the U.S, then broke into the big time. Among his Broadway successes was the role of Baby Face Martin in "Dead End" and, the part of Curly in "Of Mice and Men," touring the country. In 1938, when the daytime serial center was in Chicago, Les happened to be there in a play and took on a couple of mike assignments. Then calls began to snowball and he found himself a busy radio actor. And that was when he and Gingr met. Both were working on Lone Journey. "We didn't really pay much attention to each other for a long time," Les recalls. "Not until we were notified the show was moving to New York." Gingr was doubtful about making the move and asked Les for advice. Out of this one serious session grew a succession of dates. Gingr decided against New York but Les went. "But we kept on dating between Chicago and New York," she says. "Both of us were flying back and forth constantly and finally had to decide between getting married or buying up the airline. We couldn't afford the airline." Gingr came to New York with her Great Dane in tow. It was a case of marry-me, marry-my-dog. Les was short of being enthusiastic about dogs, and his attitude didn't improve much in the first years of their marriage. The apartment he had was adequate for two, but not three, and they finally wound up in a penthouse, mostly for the sake of the Dane. "But that will give you the wrong impression," Gingr says quickly. "Les is easy to live with. He actually surprises me with his lack of annoyance when he has a right to be upset. For example, if I spend money on something we don't really need, or if I'm late as a hostess when guests are arriving. He shows not a trace of annoyance." In twelve years of marriage, he has never failed to notice something now she is wearing and he always comments favorably. He understands, too, that Gingr, like many women, enjoys little surprises. "How about a dinner and theatre date next Friday evening?" he asks and Gingr never knows where they will dine or what show it will be until she arrives on Les's arm.
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May 1981 ad about 49 minutes in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVviIkZ0O00
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May 1981 ad about 49 minutes in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVviIkZ0O00
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as when she says, "I don't care about possessions too much. Never think of running around, buying those bits of glass! This comes from my feeling about possessions, from losing everything, so that I think now - collecting? For what?" Susan's name, her real name, is Zuzka Zanta. She stands a doll-sized five feet and three-quarters of an inch in her nylons. She weighs ninety-nine pounds. "But my weight should be nine-five pounds," sighs this animated Dresden figurine. And, tit for tat, Susan always went out with American boys, none but American boys (tall ones, too). She didn't want to marry a European because she'd heard, she says, that American men make better husbands. "Then, boom!" laughed Susan, "I met Jan in Canada - Jan, who is a Czech, both of us half a world away from our native homes - and we fall in love, and marry, and make a home together here in New York City, U.S.A." But this part of the story is part of the love story and comes later on... Susan changed her name because, when she was trying to break into radio and gave her name, Zuzka Zenta, agents and producers cried out, in pain, "Oh, please, no, not another foreigner!" Susan did her pavement-pounding, she explained, during the war, when refugees were a dime a dozen and the hue-and-cry was on to give our American girls the breaks. "So finally, out of desperation," she said, "I chose Susan - which is, by the way, a translation of Zuzka." She picked the Douglas out of a telephone director as, many years ago, the late great David Belasco rechristened another little girl, name of Gladys Smith; the name he picked for Gladys Smith was Mary Pickford. "I had to have something that didn't sound foreign," Susan said. "I wanted something that was pretty usual and all-American. I wanted a plain name and, next to Smith and Jones, which seemed to be going too far, there were more Douglases than any other name in the phone book." As a teenager in Prague, Susan went through the Conservatory. "I had seven years of ballet," she said. " I had music, drama, languages. After the Conservatory, I was in the National Theatre in Prague for a year before the Germans came. Then they closed the theatre. "When I arrived in New York, the people who gave me my affidavit to come here - the affidavit which declared I would not become a public charge - met me. I stayed with them for a little bit. When my mother came, I lived with my mother. "Because I didn't know English, and also because I was told you must have a high-school diploma if you hope for any work in the theatre, I went for one half-year (the last half of the senior year) to George Washington High School. I took courses in English, which was a good way of learning English and of getting, at the same time, a diploma. During this time, Mother went to work as a beauty consultant for Lord & Taylor, so that the bills might be paid. "After I was graduated, I went and worked at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's New York offices. I was an assistant to one of the publicity directors in the publicity department. I liked it, too. I like publicity. It was fun to be a part, even an assistant part, of telling people about Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Powell, Gene Kelly, Clark Gable and all the glamorous others. But, Whether I liked it or not, I needed a job, I had to work. By this time, I had caught on to the fact that there is no National Theatre in America, where you can go and work for the rest of your life. And that it is a matter of a job here, a job there, for the one who has the time to seek jobs. This made me realize that I had to save enough money to take time for auditions. "I stayed at MGM a year. During that year, I'd use my lunch hours to see agents. One agent, who was really wonderful to me, was Jane Broder. She took me to see Katharine Cornell in 'Three Sisters.' The two people I most wanted to see in America were Katharine Cornell and Helen Hayes, so this gave me a big, big thrill. I also learned from Jane Broder how difficult the theater is. Not as it is in Europe, she made plain to me - no security. Why didn't I, she asked , try radio? "This was fine with me. I'll act in anything, just so long as I can act. I've done all four mediums now - theatre, movies, radio and television - and in these I've done everything but sing. I can't sing," Susan added ruefully. "Imagine that - and me married to a basso profundo! "But for radio, as for any other medium, I had to have time to get around and meet people and try for auditions. So I lived with a family, helping them take care of their kids, which was mostly a matter of getting them up in the morning and helping them with their homework in the evenings. Since I didn't have to pay any room rent, I saved enough from my salary to live for six months without working, which was the whole purpose... "Once this purpose was accomplished, and the money in the bank, I went to live at the Rehearsal Club on Fifty-third Street - a non-profit organization where you can live (I did) for thirteen dollars a week for room and two meals. "So that's when I started the radio rounds, applying for auditions. I must have taken about sixty auditions, over a period of three or four months, before I got my first job, which was a part in a dramatic educational program called School of the Air. Dick Sanvdille was the director and out of that first job - and thanks to Dick - came my first running part in the serial, Wilderness Road. I played the daughter, who was one of the leads. I was in that for a year - which was really terrific! "But I must tell you a funny story," Susan laughed, "about the first job. When Mr. Sandville interviewed me for the part in School of the AIr, he asked the key question: 'What experience have you had?' I'd answered that one many times before with the honest, one-syllable word, 'None.' And 'Nothing right now, I'm sorry,' was the answer I got in return. So, this time, what with the passing months eating away at my savings, I told a real whopper. 'Well, I worked for two years in Scranton, Pennsylvania,' I said. (Why Scranton, I will never know - I had never, so help me, heard anything about the place!) "But Mr. Sandville appeared to accept the story and I got the job. "The first day in the studio, he told me during a scene, 'Now you fade.' I hadn't an idea what he meant. 'Fade.' What was that? In another scene, a short while later 'This time,' said Mr. Sandville, 'you cross-fade.' I didn't know what that meant, either. "When the rehearsal was over, Mr. Sandville said, looking me straight in the eye: 'Even in Scranton, they know what a fade and a cross-fade is.' And I knew that Mr. Sandville knew I had never before seen the inside of a radio studio, either in Scranton or any other place! "But from then on, I worked pretty steadily...a new thing, a new job, always seemed to come out of the job before. Out of the three or four shows I did for Theatre Guild on the Air came my first Broadway play, 'Prologue to Glory,' in which I played Ann Rutledge. And out of 'Prologue to Glory' came an offer from the Theatre Guild to play the part of Consuelo, the girl lead, in 'He Who Gets Slapped.' I then did a couple more plays and a couple of movies in Hollywood, 'The Private Lives of Bel Ami,' 'Lost Boundaries.' And then I did a movie in Canada called 'Forbidden Journey.'" As she spoke of the movie in Canada called "Forbidden Journey," the color of Susan's eyes changed, deepened, for it was during the making of "Forbidden Journey" Susan met her love. "We were doing the picture in Montreal," Susan said, "and were looking for someone to play the part of a Czech stowaway. Jan, whose full name is Jan Rubes (pronounced Rubesh), had just got over from Czechoslovakia - he left soon after the Communists came in. And someone who knew about the film, and had met Jan, suggested to him that he try for the part. He did. He was given a test and he got the part. So there we were, playing the leads, and Jan - a Czech, who spoke almost no English - practically playing himself! "The first scene we played together having barely and briefly been introduced was - the love scene! With which we had so much difficulty that we had to do it thirty-eight times! It was a jinx - sort of a lovely jinx," Susan smiled and sighed, "for, halfway through each take, something happened, either to the camera, or the birds made too much noise, or a plane zoomed overhead, or we forgot our lines, for which the 'penalty' was - Jan and I going into the clinch time after time after time up to the count of, as I've said, thirty-eight! "Yes, it was 'at first sight' with both of us, I guess. But speaking for myself, no guesswork about it - and why not? He's six-foot-one," Susan said, eyes blue now, and shining, "he weights 195 pounds. He has light brown hair and gray-green eyes and, as a singer, he's a basso profundo, the rich volume of which shatters your heart - and mine! "Originally, Jan wanted to be a doctor - as I, originally, wanted and hoped to be a ballet dancer - but when the Germans came to Prague they closed the University, so he couldn't continue with his studies. Music was his next love, so he went to audition at the Conservatory of Music in Prague and won the scholarship over 280 applicants. After he finished at the Conservatory, he was engaged as bass baritone at the Prague Opera House. He was the youngest bass baritone at the Opera House, the youngest that had been three for twenty years. "The only thing Jan likes better than singing is his sports. He is a big sportsman. In Czechoslovakia, he was cross-country ski champion and on the Junior National tennis team. We ski together now, every winter, Jan and I. The only dance we like to dance is thw altz - to the strains of 'Tales from the Vienna Woods.' - and the polka, to a Czech polka we both remember from back home...We can't play tennis together - it would be too ridiculous of me - but now we've started a new hobby, playing golf, which we can do together. "All this, and more, I learned about him, as he learned my life from me, between takes on the picture and at dinner in our hotel on the picture and at dinner in our hotel after work at night. It was one morning, toward the end of the picture, while we were waiting for the down elevator, that he proposed to me. In English, as a matter of fact! I said 'Yes' right away. "After the picture was finished, we saw each other every weekend in Montreal - for I flew up there to see him until such time as he could be admitted to the States. Practically a year form the day we met, we married. "The Czech custom is, when you get married, you break a plate and keep the pieces, which are lucky pieces. For my marriage present, Jan gave me a bracelet of gold and pearls. And, after the marriage, he had a bit of the broken plate put in a gold link as a charm for the bracelet. For my first wedding anniversary gift, he gave me the Roman funeral I, made out of pearls and gold. For my second, which he gave me the Roman numeral II, also made of gold and pearls - which are my favorites of all jewels. I am not crazy about jewelry," Susan said, "except for the gold and the pearls - and Jan's imagination has gone into them." Thanks to CBS Radio and TV's Guiding Light, and Susan's lead role thereon, no honeymoon was possible for Susan and Jan, at the proper time for a honeymoon. But last year they flew to Havana, which was a honeymoon (even though a belated honeymoon) heaven. "My husband went there," Susan said, "to sing 'Il Trovatore' and 'The Marriage of Figaro.' As, at another time, he went to New Orleans for 'Don Giovanni.' In addition to opera, Jan does concert and has made some TV appearances. He is now on a cross-country concert tour all through Canada. I flew to Canada - on a four-day leave of absence from Guiding Light - to be with him at the start. But back to Havana, beautiful Havana...in Havana, apart from the work Jan did, we danced in the moonlight, swam in the moonlight, did everything romantic honeymooners are supposed to do." Now in New York, these two - who met, as if by inscrutable design, half a world away from their native home - make their home, In an apartment which Susan describes as "very small and not too interesting...except for the furniture, most of which Jan built." As a housewife, Susan doesn't, she said modestly, think too much of herself. "I'm not neat around the house," she sighed, "only in the kitchen. You could eat off the floor of my kitchen. And I can't stand an unmade bed or unwashed dishes. Always have to have the bed made five minutes after I step out of it, and always have to do the dishes right quick! But otherwise...I don't care about possessions or taking care of them too much.... "I do enjoy cooking, love to cook, love to experiment with things. One of my favorite recipes is a graham-cracker-crust pie filled with a layer of lemon chiffon, then sliced bananas, then a layer of strawberry chiffon, another layer of sliced bananas, the whole topped with whipped cream and sliced strawberries." When young Susan and Jan are not cooking, painting, performing in radio, on TV, on the concert stage, in movies or in opera, they have any number of hobbies to keep them happy. They take a lot of eight-millimeter pictures of each other and the places they go, Susan says, then cut their own film, edit it and caption it. They play games. Charades, for instance. "And a wonderful new word game," Susan said, a glint in her eye, "called Scrabble. And we love cards - bridge, poker, canasta and gin. Jan loves to play chess, but I haven't the patience. "I can't sew, but I used to love to sculpt. And I fool around some, even now, with pottery. "We hate parties, big parties. If we have more than eight people for dinner at one time, my husband doesn't have a good time. We go to the theatre a lot, and to the ballet, and we go dancing, as I've said, usually to the St. Regis Roof. "i'm not much of a one for new clothes. I can't, just can't stand shopping. I just loathe it. When girl friends call up and say, provocatively 'Let's have lunch and go shopping,' nothing could excite me less or bore me more. I never go. About once a year, propelled by necessity, I hurl myself into a shop, say, 'I'll take this, and this, and that - goodbye!" "Except for evening clothes," Susan said. (With Susan, who is as feminine as filigree, there is usually an "except.") " I love evening clothes because of the big, voluminous skirts - it's the romantic in me, I guess - and also because, with evening clothes, I can wear platform shoes! "But if I had my way - my ideal way of life - I'd live in the country in sweaters, slacks and skirts. "The minute we have enough money, I'd like to have a farm in the country - especially because I'm mad for fireplaces...we listen to music so much, to sit by a fireplace and listen would be lovely...and mad for dogs. And horses. In Czechoslovakia, we had a town house in Prague and a farm outside of Prague where my dad used to breed horses. I rode side-saddle. "At home, we had dogs, too, lots of them. We had five police dogs, one Irish setter and one cocker spaniel. When I have a dog again, I'd like to have a police dog, or a St. Bernard - only they eat so much... "Our immediate plan is to stay in New York and work for another five years, during which time we hope to have two children, one right after another, as fast as we can. Then to the country, where - instead of working every day - we'll do a TV show once a week, a movie, a play, a concert once or twice a year. "How we make out financially will determine, of course, whether this dream comes true, or not...If it doesn't," Susan shrugged, "life with Jan and with the two one-right-after-another children we hope to have will still be, for me - in town or in country, with or without a fireplace and a dog -the ideal way of life." The years have been good to Susan, for indeed she has found love's guiding light.
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Jane Elliot is in this 1981 GL episode. Her scenes start about 10 minutes in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVviIkZ0O00
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Lynn Herring is so soft and quiet here, and it's such a good little scene. Later on Lucy was usually so hyperactive, you didn't get to hear what a sexy voice she had. I don't ever miss Lucy, because I know what would happen if she came back, but part of me wishes we could have said goodbye. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO-W94hRR9E
