If Were Your Husband . . .

HOWARD KEEL There’s a guy! Keel wants to be told—told what he’s having for dinner, who’s coming, what time it is. Demanding, though. You are a perfect wife and mother, or else! He’ll let you have cooks, maids and nurses, but woe to you if you can’t take over on servants’ day off. This is the cover-up expert. Strangers say he’s unsentimental, and true, he’ll give a present like he’s handing you a wet fish, but he’ll shop frantically for your Christmas jewelry in July. The handiest man known to man, he can paper the house, fix the plumbing, paint the furniture. Don’t call him up; he hates telephones, and has two in the house so he can detest them double. (Most actors can’t live without four.) He barely holds still for photographs in public but surely he’s a dream boat in one respect: he’d rather sleep late than make another million. When his kids rush in at six A.M., he groans, but he gets up and fixes breakfast, before reporting for work on Jupiter’s Darling.

RICHARD WIDMARK You’d never be happy unless you appreciate a high I.Q. and have one yourself. But intellectual snobs need not apply. A small town boy (Sunrise, Minnesota) Dick was an instructor at Lake Forest U., and it’s never quite brushed off. His modesty approaches timidity, yet he finds equal satisfaction in conversations with truck drivers and sophisticated authors. Adults find him hard to understand, but kids know instinctively that he’s a kindred soul. If you were married to Dick you’d never attend boring dinner parties with business friends—he refuses to “cultivate” people. Mr. Widmark stays close to home and has brushed off numerous little Hollywood blondes. Yet he has two girls he loves, his wife and eight-year-old daughter, Ann. When he vacations, the family lives the champagne life because he doesn’t propose to take it with him. All he asks in return is companionship, and some day, he’d like a son to carry on his name. His latest film is Prize Of Gold.

VICTOR MATURE He might hand you a $3.98 doll for your birthday to see if you loved him enough to keep quiet. Then two days later he’d pick you up and show you a new Caddy.in the garage. He’d demand chili for breakfast, cut your allowance to lend money to a pal, then send your mom and dad to Honolulu for their anniversary, He’d disappear for days, and when you were about to consult a lawyer, he’d return, having been on a hunting trip in some remote spot where the only “other woman” was a 107-year-old Indian. He hates routine so much. you’d. get to bed at six A.M. or four P.M. You’d be expected not” to complain if he played golf from sunup to sundown and your only defense would be to take up the game yourself. Any girl who weds Mature needs the balance of a lady juggler to stay happy in the perpetual emotional blizzard, but he’s a spectacular provider, a wonderful father, loads of fun and a top-flight actor as he proves again in Betrayed.

BURT LANCASTER The only genuine Hollywood non-conformist (and proves it by staying out of headlines) 41-year-old Burt can lick his weight in men half his age. Other men speak softly in his presence, and you’ll find him generous. But he’ll expect you to prepare dinner for fourteen on an hour’s notice and get sore if you protest. He’ll expect you to stay calm amid the bedlam of five kids and a couple of pals because noise doesn’t bother him. He’ll make you stand in line at a restaurant rather than use his name to get a table. He can drop a week’s salary in a poker game (until he grows older and more mellow) and not go sour or raid the sugar bowl for your household money. You’ll wish his conscience wouldn’t hurt because he has five dollars more than the next fellow, but he’s a great guy to grow up with. He’ll always frighten you a little when you watch him in pictures like Vera Cruz—you’ll be afraid that when he holds you he’ll crush your ribs. But he won’t. He has a heart like a wild animal but he’s gentle as a lamb.

STEWART GRANGER The lazier the gal the better he likes her. Marry Granger and you don’t have to worry about boiling water. But there are drawbacks. He prefers his female beautiful, but she’ll spend most of her life in blue jeans. He likes to stay home and really does prefer a good book to people. His girl must love to swim, own a good pair of lungs and a sense of humor. She’ll have to learn to take being ducked in the pool and give as good as she gets. He has an atom bomb temper, but when a row is over it’s over for good. He hates intellectual snobs, but you’ll have to argue intelligently—and loud. He takes pride in being a terrific host, will tell the servants to get lost while he serves the buffet. Know your shortcomings, because he will be the first to admit his. He’ll also admit he’s got a magic wallop for the opposite sex. But though he’ll battle the world in his profession, and rise to new heights in a film like Beau Brummell hell wind up just like a kid at night, with his head on your shoulder. Wow!

AUDIE MURPHY War your friends never to cross him. He has a memory to shame elephants. When he’s moody he may not talk for hours; then he snaps out of it, but won’t say what he was thinking. No matter how famous he becomes his friends remain the same, and he likes his wife to entertain old pals. He’s not a heavy-handed father, and your son will be his shadow-companion. He likes horses and dogs but is not overly sentimental about them; his deep affection, not freely expressed, is strictly for his wife and family. Even when you’re in the money he’ll be content (and you’ll have to be, too) to live slightly on the wrong side of the tracks because he has an abiding suspicion of too much luxury. In a movie like To Hell And Back he’ll concentrate completely, but you’ll find his understanding of the deepest variety and know that he’d give his life for you at a moment’s notice. Disapproval he voices with a bleak look that delivers the message but doesn’t linger. Trouble comes only if you dote on horror Ty shows. He’ll shut off the set in front of your nose.

 

It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1954