Framed!—Dana Wynter

“Girls should never pursue men,” says Dana Wynter. Then how did she win the most sought-after bachelor in Hollywood? “I have never once discussed my courtship,” Dana answered. But, then—to prove a point about American men, she did!

“To understand how and why Greg Bautzer and I married, I must go back five years. I’ve never talked about our courtship . . .” Dana looked up, startled. “Say, how did we get on this subject? Have I been framed?” She laughed. “Well, here goes . . .”

And this is Dana’s story . . .

On a brisk November afternoon in 1953, a pretty young English girl boarded a north-bound city bus in New York’s theater district, tired and dejected after a long, unsuccessful day of job-hunting and visits to theatrical offices. She had been in the United States only a few weeks, and on this day particularly, she felt lonely and lost, finding the usual Times Square crowds not exciting but unfriendly.

“Thousands of people,” Dana was thinking, “and not one could possibly care about me. I really could die right here and I don’t honestly believe even one person would stop. Where are all those friendly Americans I’ve been told about?”

Inside her beautiful English leather handbag, she had some small change. Her family was in Africa.

“If I can’t get a job . . .” She caught her thoughts. “Don’t think dreary.”

The bus lurched and she caught onto the leather strap to steady herself. She noticed it was almost Eightieth Street and decided to get off to do some shopping. Dispiritedly, she walked towards her neighborhood marketing section. Not honestly caring about food, giving up lunches hadn’t been a problem. She didn’t like to cook and often found herself “dining” on one item for a week at a time: one week mushrooms, the next doughnuts, the next asparagus, then a week of baked beans. On this day, she was ready for her fourth dinner menu of hazelnuts.

Stopping at the Jewish delicatessen, she waited for the owner’s usual clucks of disapproval as she ordered another tin. She wasn’t disappointed. “Hazelnuts! This is a dinner? A young girl like you, you should eat! Don’t worry about the job. Tomorrow you’ll get one, you’ll see.”

Leaving the delicatessen, she glanced at the German baker’s window, and he, seeing her, beckoned her in. “I save a little piece of strudel. No—no money. Just something for you.”

“Danke,” Dana murmured, and they began chatting in German, which she’d learned as a child.

Suddenly, the baker switched the conversation back to English. “Tomorrow will be your day. You see.”

Across the wind-swept street, Dana huddled her wool coat closer around her and went into the shoemaker’s to pick up a pair of shoes that had needed new heels and half-soles. They were ready for her, because she had told the shoemaker that she must wear them the next day for an interview. For a while, Dana talked with him in Italian. Then, with obvious pride, as she left, he said in halting English, “Tomorrow you will get the great job of acting.”

“I don’t know when it began,” Dana says now. “There I was, laden with brown paper sacks and parcels, thousands of miles from home when suddenly I stopped, came to a halt. I realized I had just fallen in love.”

Across the years, past all the exciting successful things that have happened to her since, today’s Dana can still remember exactly how that girl felt. “When I got off the bus I was depressed, yet there I was twenty minutes later full of enthusiasm and belief in tomorrow. Why? What had happened? Suddenly I turned around and looked at that little community of stores, where foreign-born Americans lived their new lives. Each day they gave me—another immigrant—warmth, concern and honest interest. I was not alone after all. Nowhere else in the world, I realized, do you find people so generously interested in a newcomer, so willing to help a stranger. Right then I felt a deep passionate love well up in me. I loved America and everything it stood for. As I climbed the stairs to my room to munch hazelnuts and neaten my clothes for my next day’s interview, I knew I had come home in every sense of the word. I wanted to become an American citizen and I wanted to earn the right. And I hoped that, when I married, my husband might be an American.

“The next day, on my interview, I lied my head off. You’d have thought I was England’s gift to America’s live television. I could tell he wanted me for the part, but it seemed to take a little doing. A few days later I heard I had it.

“I appeared at rehearsals, outwardly calm and composed, inwardly shaking. The director had accepted me, but you don’t fool cameramen, grips and assistant directors. Very quietly they would come by and say, ‘Listen, kid, look a little to the left on that line,’ or ‘Keep your chin up.’ Americans! They knew and they were helping me.

“Then, remembering how I’d knocked up against the stuffy wall blocking off opportunity in England, I recognized their tremendous waste of young people. It was felt one should be aged and mature and spend years learning one’s craft.” Dana’s Latin-looking eyes flashed fire. “I’m sick and tired of being tactful. I’m not knocking England—it’s no less a great country—but it makes America seem more exciting by contrast. The prejudice against youth everywhere except America is fantastic!

“I thought to myself, ‘Where else in the world would men be so considerate?’ If you want to really know a country, meet its men. At sixteen, I was romantically inclined toward an Italian medical student in Venice. Later I had a near thing with an English artist. Then I was almost engaged to a French baron.

“I had one black dress (which I made myself) and one mad blue dress. I varied them so much I wore them two seasons without anyone recognizing them,” she recalled. “I was amazed when I found myself named one of London’s three best-dressed young actresses. That fame certainly backfired. My friends reported people were wondering who ‘kept’ me,” Dana laughed. “I didn’t bother to tell them I might have starved if my parents hadn’t sent me an allowance.”

Dana went on, “The man I became involved with in England, I’m afraid, was typical of the English male. I found him enchanting at first, perhaps because it was my first real grownup experience. Everything he did was wonderful. Sunday after Sunday I trailed him around eighteen holes, listening to golf talk and stuffy English jokes, trying to convince myself I loved the game.” With a look of being caught in a sand trap, she continued: “The whole English attitude toward women and courtship is the dullest in the world. Englishmen are embarrassed if women wear modish gowns or colors. One must never stand out; it’s not well-bred. Wife, girlfriend or fiancée must be mousy. Oh, chic women are admired by Englishmen. Their heads swivel in admiration when one walks by, but they wouldn’t think of marrying her.” Dana drew an exasperated breath. “I swear, there’s a conspiracy among English families to make English girls as unattractive as possible. They are supposed to have the largest feet in the world. Why shouldn’t they look that way? They’re crammed into walking brogues as soon as they can walk. They never wear makeup. At seventeen they are allowed a pale pink lipstick; they are still in school uniform, wearing colorless nail polish. At the age when they’re just becoming pretty and might have an urge to find out how they look out of uniform, there are only two talents that will bring them plaudits from parents: robust health and being very good at hockey.

“Now the Frenchman is another cup of tea,” she said. “He courts in a grand manner. He treats a woman as a feminine object. Actually, there is no equality; the law gives everything a woman owns to her husband. She is not considered an individual. She dresses well, but more for show, in a slightly extreme fashion. And after the marriage? The object of his affection is expected just to be displayed and to bring up children. When she has over five she is given a ribbon and an allowance by the government.”

Dana thought a while, and then continued her musings. “Italian men are more naturally romantic than the French. The Italian is passionately involved with every love affair. He courts with music, flowers, little gestures, infinite care. The Italian’s love song is for everybody, the poor, the wealthy, all to share. Even after marriage, the husband will burst through with romance occasionally, but he is much more involved with his business, the bambinos and the lusty living of the Italian male.

“But the American man!” Now Dana was started on her favorite subject. “American men like women, they like to have them around and they spoil them wonderfully. They care about their clothes, they treat them as equals, and still as women. They try to relieve them of all the tedious things of married life, with wonderful gadgets in kitchens and homes. They want an attractive companion, rather than just a woman to feed them. It’s a good thing Greg feels that way, for my cooking specialty is brandied peaches. On the cook’s day off I made brandied peaches until he finally admitted he’d had enough to last him a lifetime and suggested we find a reliable cook to replace the cook on her day off.”

Dana smiled fondly. “When I was new in Hollywood, I really didn’t know very many American men—as dates, that is. I lived quietly near my studio, 20th Century-Fox, in a small apartment. My only real friends were Bill and Edie Goetz and Sam and Frances Goldwyn. When I wasn’t working I dined with them in their homes.

“On one of my few social gaddings, I was at Cobina Wright’s cocktail party. Greg and I were introduced. Immediately he asked me for a dinner date. I’d heard all about this glamorous Mr. B. and the glamorous movie stars who fell madly in love with him. I felt the whole situation was far too fast and sophisticated for me. I’d always been wary of handsome men anyway, especially men that women fell for. I was sure he’d be insufferably conceited. Well, sure of himself he was—he’s a man who makes up his mind fast. He told me much, much later that he decided to marry me the moment he saw me. I remember I refused his invitation rather curtly, first informing him that I had a date, and second, that when working I never went out nights. That, I thought, was that.

“The next day Greg Bautzer was on my unlisted telephone asking for a date. I changed my unlisted number six times. Six times he found it. Each time I refused. Then I went to New York to do some publicity for ‘The View from Pompey’s Head.’ He called me at the hotel. He too was in New York. I informed him coldly that I was dining with Lord Rothermere. I didn’t know Greg was playing gin rummy with Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer. They heard his end of the conversation, and Charlie, who is now our best friend, turned to Ben and said, ‘I don’t know her, but I don’t think I’m going to like this girl.’ ”

The conversation had gone something like this:

“Where will you be tomorrow?” Greg asked.

“I’m going to Philadelphia.”

“I’ll meet you in Philadelphia,’ said.

“No.”

“Then you go to Denver? I’ll meet you in Denver.”

“No.”

“Boston? San Francisco? I’ll meet you there,” said Greg.

“No,” she said definitely, and hung up.

Dana smiled ironically at the recollection. “While I was in Denver my phone rang, and Greg’s very abrupt voice said, ‘Your plane gets into Los Angeles at eleven o’clock. I’ll meet it.’ He hung up. Well, I thought, I can always say I have a headache. But when he met me at eleven my head didn’t ache, so we went to The Traders. Sitting at a corner table, he turned his attention and full charm on me. I was smitten. After that I was showered with thoughtful gifts: a basket of flowers, with my first Yorkshire terrier in the middle; a Toastmaster I had discussed, with an orchid sitting on it; ten-pound boxes of chocolates delivered on the set— the crew and I gorged. Flowers, little gifts—and always one red rose for me. Greg has excellent taste. When he was traveling he’d pick me up a beautiful Italian sweater or one of the mad hats I adore.

“The more I saw of him the more I realized that Greg had all the qualities I’d been looking for. I was wooed and won in the best American tradition. We decided to be married months before we were. During that time, I was mentally trying to adapt to living in this town. I had fallen in love with America; still, I’d been trying to duck the social life here in Hollywood. Greg is popular; he enjoys people; even his law practice often involves meeting clients socially. I knew it would be difficult for me to change and keep up with him, but I was sure it would be worth the effort.

“And gossip became a real problem, too. While we were both trying to get away to Africa for my parents’ permission, the nasty little folk were placing bets on whether or not we would marry.” Dana made a grimace of distaste. “I finally went to South Rhodesia alone. I had to change planes nine times in six days to spend two days with my parents. Greg called every day. When I finally landed back in New York with parental blessings, I was met at the hotel by a little orchestra playing ‘I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face.”

“Aha!” I said.

“You noticed?” Dana glanced at the hi-fi. “I suppose it wasn’t very much of a coincidence—I play that song so often. When I heard the tune then, it was like a love letter and a welcome-home, both at once. So Greg and I were married, in June of 1956. Now my first American love affair and my last seem like part of the same emotion. I have the feeling that all along I was meant to be an American—and the wife of an American.”

THE END

—BY DEE PHILLIPS

CURRENTLY IN 20TH’s “IN LOVE AND WAR,” DANA WILL BE SEEN NEXT IN “SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL” FOR U.A. AND “THE BEST OF EVERYTHING” FOR 20TH.

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 1959