Gone Fishin’—June Allyson & Dick Powell
Counting’ their blessings on this their tenth year of marital bliss, June and Dick a didn’t forget Lake Powell. The swimming pool is standard star equipment but not even Garbo owns a private lake. The Powells’ three-quarter acre of rippling, sky-blue water has been a source of joy and contentment for the whole family. June and Dick and can’t be the kids love to go out together on a rowboat just at dusk, sometimes to fish but more often just to relax. Ricky has even made friends with the fish. He runs to the edge of the water, night and morning, with bread crumbs. He calls and whistles and in a few moments up swims a little black fish about ten inches long. Then, little Bosco, to give him a name, turns and swims away. (June and Dick swear they’ve seen it happen.
Powell family sets out for an angling afternoon. (Ricky and Pamela look more Roy Rogers than Izaak Walton!) Lucky Powells have a lake right on their property so all they have to do is roll out of bed and make with the lines and sinkers. The lake is well stocked with bass and blue gill, contributed by the government as insect insurance, plus goldfish contributed by the Powells. Result: Lake Powell is teeming with finny folk.
The privacy of. Lake Powell suits June and Dick just fine because they’ve had more than their share of prying eyes over ten years of marriage. The Powells have had some troubles and arguments, whether more or less than any other couple they wouldn’t be knowing. “I can say this, though,” Dick remarks wryly, “both of us have taken our marital obligations and our try at happiness with considerable determined seriousness. Ten years, two children and still-intact marriage vows add up to quite a respectable achievement. In some cases, I think it even surpasses that of the few writers who have chosen to throw harpoons in our direction.”
Sportsman Dick instructs his willing wife in the fine art of casting. “See . . . it’s easy, all in the wrist . . . just sort of flick the line out over the water and wait for the fish to bite.”
Dick Powell is a truly big man, as indicated by his casual reference to the annual rash of stories to the effect that he and June may not be long for this domestic world. They never quite get used to the attacks, but the nearest Dick has come to wrath on the subject was just after he and June had returned from their “tenth honeymoon,” spent aboard a yacht in Fourth of July Cove off Catalina Island. A columnist asked how he and June were doing marriage-wise. “Fine,” Dick replied. “Just fine!”
Jubilant June signals five (count ’em five!) bass. Plenty more where they came from, so get with it, June, or the fish will take over. Say . . . anybody know how to drain a lake?
“But,” interjected the reporter, with a smirk, “what about tomorrow?”
“Who knows about tomorrow?” Dick responded, “but as long as you’re making a sardonic approach, let me tell you about a friend of mine. He was getting along perfectly with his wife one day, and the next . . .”
“Yes,” the reporter broke in, sensing a bit of gossip, “what happened then?”
“Nothing much,” Dick replied, before walking away. “He just got out of bed the next morning and fell out of an open window. Now tell me, how’ll things be with you tomorrow?”
There has been a big change in the life of June and Dick, though, in recent weeks. That anniversary celebration aboard a chartered yacht was the most fun they’ve had since Dick owned his own boat, the Santana. “I sold that,” he says, “because it was so expensive to keep up, and only a real rich guy like Humphrey Bogart, who bought it, could afford yachting.”
June and Dick are silent about the week they spent to celebrate the beginning of their eleventh year of marriage. “I had quite a time getting June to go, in the first place,” he recalled. “June is a girl who hates to go anywhere, but when she gets there, she always hates to leave. When it came time to weigh anchor, her excuse was, ‘Hadn’t we better stay awhile longer? It’s liable to be rough sea on the way back!’ ”
But the Powells had to come home, for a new and important chapter was about to begin in their lives, marked by Dick’s decision to produce and direct the remake of It Happened One Night. They had worked together as actor and actress before, but June had never worked for Dick under his direction. She had some surprises in store. For one thing, he looked at her critically one day, then said, “We’re going to change your make-up.”
Ricky’s worm-string-pole technique looks just fine to Junie but Richard insists upon more professional type equipment—and absolutely, positively no giggling allowed!
June grinned and retorted, “Yes, boss,” figuring she’d handle Richard when the time came. She didn’t. ( For years she’s been made up by the all-time Hollywood experts. Dick felt she just didn’t come alive under that treatment. After long hours of experimentation with a new type make-up, tests showed that June blossomed like a rose. She admitted that she was glad Dick has been so persistent, but she was really worried when he went after her hair styling. That very nearly brought on an argument of the type any director can have when a big star backs up and puts her foot down. But when Dick came home with some sketches, which showed her with a sort of “modified Claudette Colbert” hair do, she surrendered.
“Go ahead, tyrant,” she exclaimed. “Do what you want from now on. I may not be the June Allyson that used to be, but I’m beginning to like her.”
With location scenes in San Diego and Phoenix now finished and shooting going on apace at Columbia studios for interiors, the rushes indicate that Dick Powell hasn’t done wrong by the new June Allyson. As for It Happened One Night, completely new in color and wide screen, plus the hit title song and other musical numbers by Johnny Mercer and Gene De Paul, the word is out that the remake of this famous picture is liable to duplicate if not exceed the roaring success of Oklahoma!
June says: “No one could have done it but Dick.”
Dick says: “No one could have done it without June.”
And on a recent evening when Mr. Powell came home, he said to Mrs. Powell, “We’ve been working pretty hard. Let’s take a trip somewhere.”
Mrs. Powell, instead of saying to Mr. Powell, as she has for lo these ten years, “Oh, now, Richard, do we have to—you know how I hate to travel,” replied enthusiastically, “Swell, honey. We’ve never been to Europe, or Timbuctoo for that matter. You name the place and let’s go!” And they probably will.
THE END
It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE JANUARY 1956
