Radio TV Mirror April 1954
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.
By
DRW50 ·
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