Kiss Tomorrow Hello—John and Patti Derek

The announcement of the Derek purchase was in the newspapers . . . “It includes the white stucco, tile-roofed Spanish style residence, the swimming pool and other improvements situated on what is considered the highest knoll in Encino, giving them a commanding view of the entire valley and adjacent mountains. They plan later to establish private stables on the unimproved acre . . .”

Many people reading that announcement must have exclaimed, “What a lucky guy he is!” If so, John Derek would have been the first to agree with them.

He and Patti sunk all their savings into the down payment for their home—the home they want to grow old in—and they’ll be paying the balance of it for a long time to come. But they think it’s worth the financial burden.

“I committed myself to this place before the Korean situation broke out,” John says. “Had it happened sooner, I probably would have waited. But then my main concern was using my judgment effectively. It was the first real decision I’d ever made, except the one to marry Patti. I’d always let others decide everything for me. As a kid, I always did what I was told because I didn’t want to cause any more trouble.”

John didn’t have to explain how often a child of divorced parents must learn to walk a fine line. John still walks that line by mentioning little of his own past. There are few young actors who could so definitely be called the strong silent type.

Naturally, he reveals himself in little ways, particularly when he’s talking about rearing his son. “I hope I’m as wise in this . . .” hell say. Or, “. . . . not as wrong in this . . .

“Nine or ten of us kids used to gather in a tree-house club when I was staying with my father,” he says. “Once I introduced smoking clothes-line rope. Everyone but me got sick. My father called me several times but I ignored him so he wouldn’t catch me smelling of smoke. A couple of hours later I went home, sure Id be scolded only for being late. I was right. But five or six years later my father, laughingly, told me how strongly I’d smelled of the smoke. He said he’d figured he couldn’t add more to the lesson we boys probably had learned, so he hadn’t brought it up then. I’m hoping I’ll be that wise with my son.

“On the other hand, I used to get terribly scared when my stepmother listened to a favorite gang-buster radio program. I don’t know why it scared me so. But I cried and my father wouldn’t let my stepmother turn it off. He said I was just being silly and I’d have to listen to get over it. I went through agonies until I discovered what I could do by taking my bath at that time. By pulling the plug, I could let the water run so hard and constantly that the sound drowned out the radio. The hot water would run out just about the time the program was over. So there I’d sit in the tub, escaping my fear. That kind of attitude was common among parents then I guess, but modern psychology teaches us better now.”

That’s as close as John will come to speaking of the insecurities of which his upbringing was composed. Recently John’s good friend, Russ Harlan, intimated such insecurity when he told MODERN SCREEN readers, “Under Dare’s gaiety was a deeper and stronger toughness than I’d ever encountered before—a good, solid kind. And I thought to myself, ‘Why not? He’s contributed new life to the world. He’s part of a real family at last.’ ”

Some children of divorced parents mature into adulthood and find in their mate’s attitudes the leveling off of those inner conflicts. Patti, a child of White Russians, may also have had an insecure childhood, although she rarely mentions the past. If so, the answer to why a home is all important to both of them becomes quite understandable.

“We both want a real home,” Patti says eagerly. “I guess I do in particular. Everything was temporary with me when I was growing up. I was born several years after my parents had to flee their Georgian home when the Communists took over. thing then, of course, was gone. My parents always lived temporarily, waiting for the day they were sure would come when we’d be able to go back and regain all that had been lost. Wherever we went, mother lugged along a trunk filled with things she valued, things she would take back with her when we regained our rightful status. The trunk really was just full of junk, good only for memories. My father wasn’t like that exactly, but he’d lived so much he didn’t have the desire to build again. Here in America when a man loses everything he has, he just goes to work to build again, to replace his loss. But back there, men just hoped to get back what had been taken from them. The Paris I knew was full of such people.”

So John and Patti are two people who knew that the best thing luck and hard work could bring them would be a wonderful home. And luck had come. Amazing luck for John Derek.

It’s not so surprising then that they’ve sunk every dime of their past, their present, and much of their future into a wonderful home. A home they wouldn’t put off buying until times were more certain.

That’s why John’s building the fences and doing the new brick work at the place himself. He’s making the lamps, too—interesting ones. He and Patti found an old nickel-plated milk can in a junk shop for $6.00. A bit of surreptitious sandpapering on the bottom revealed their suspicions were right—solid copper underneath. They bought it and peeled off the nickel. Then John, with one of those electric hand rotary tools with all kind of attachments, went to work and made a replica of a milk-stool on which the can will sit to form a charming chair-side lamp. Odd pitchers are put to the same use. Everything of this sort must be something they can restore to its former beauty or enhance with their own hard work.

Patti outdid almost everyone in bargain hunting. She bought muslin sheets at the January sales, and two 100% wool blankets for $15.

“They had some wonderful buys on percale sheets,” she said, “but I had to watch the pennies. I’ll get those later on.

“I bought one copper-bottomed pan,” Patti added. “I had to pay a little over $6.00 for it and it still hurts! The rest are just the cheapest I could find. And I saw a sale on imported glasses for 29¢ apiece. The ad warned there were flaws in some. Well, I spent five hours digging out the ones without a single flaw. The clerks thought I was crazy!

“One store where I went, my purchases totaled more than I had anticipated and I didn’t have enough money with me. Nor did I have a checkbook or any identification. I was wearing an old trench coat, a blue cap of the sort boys wear for baseball, a clashing scarf and—well, I was dressed for rain because when I left the house it looked as though it might. The clerk looked even more skeptical when I said I was Mrs. John Derek. Finally, I told him to hold the stuff until the check had cleared, then to send it out. Not until I left did I realize I had carried in with me a new movie magazine with John’s and my pictures in it which should have been fine identification. But anyway, by the time I arrived home I’d earned those bargains.”

Just then someone came running up to the front door. It was Bob Scott, the Dereks’ business manager, with papers that Patti had to sign that day. They were for the latest registration required of aliens in the United States. “I’m still a lady without a country.” Patti said. “An alien. My husband is an American. My son is an American. But I’m not. Isn’t it ridiculous? But soon I’ll be an American, too.”

When Bob Scott asked the questions which must be answered, such as her serial number, Patti went out of the room and returned with a plain old cardboard box. From it she dragged out valuable personal papers. Birth certificates. Immigration papers for herself. A paper from the French Sureté testifying she had never been arrested or lodged in jail in France. Papers which contained the proof of the answers she must give to the questions for this new registration.

She wasn’t joking when she said she was a lady without a country. For original nationality the answer was, “Stateless—of Georgian origin.” The words of another person of similar original nationality came to mind. “Why on earth don’t you keep your valuable papers in a safety deposit box instead of an old shoe-box?” he was asked.

He had answered: with a sardonic half-smile, “Some of us have learned the hard way that when the enemy approaches your home you don’t have time to get to a safety deposit box. You just grab what you can that’s close at hand and run. And if you hope to have any identity in your new surroundings, you’d better have papers to prove you’re you.”

It was this same person, not Patti, who had revealed that if Patti’s parents had been able to regain what they’d lost, she’d be a Georgian princess today.

But wife of John Derek she is, and she’s as American as they come despite her current lack of American citizenship, and her charming but understandable accent.

As Patti and John talked, Russell Andre sat solemnly in his Taylor-Tot playing with some plastic toys. Often he’d look up at his mother with a happy little grin or reach out to pat Hero, the dog.

On the coffee table was the menu for dinner with ground steak and pork chops scheduled for the entree. “John has an open mind about everything but food,” Patti said. “I’ve tried every way I know to change that but I haven’t succeeded.” So all of Patti’s flair for continental cooking is lost on her husband.

When asked when they would move to their new home, Patti said:

“Not until we get a telephone out there.” Southern California’s phenomenal growth has outstripped the telephone company’s ability to provide telephones. For some that’s an irritation, and for others it creates a serious problem. The Dereks fall into the latter class. As everyone knows, Russell Andre had a very precarious entrance into the world. A very delicate. operation gave him his chance to survive, but he’s not completely out of danger yet. Three times Christmas Day he had milder, but nonetheless frightening, attacks of the old trouble. Three times the telephone went into immediate action to summon the doctor. What if there hadn’t been a phone? The Dereks aren’t moving out of range of one.

Less urgent was the fact the interior of the new home needed painting. John was snatching every moment he could to get it done before working on Columbia’s The Secret. Just as long as he got Russell Andre’s room painted—“Fresh paint discourages germs, you know,” Patti said—everything will be all right.

Furniture? “Well, we had to buy everything, you know, but we have to take it easy anyway. Simple, early America for the living room and dining room. Bare essentials for the rest of the rooms. We have plenty of time to get the rest,” Patti said, her tone daring anyone to stop them.

But if fathers are told their country needs their services again? Well, then John Derek will go too, of course. Patti will comfort herself with the thought that he’s a strong fellow capable of taking care of himself if he has a decent chance. He proved that as a paratrooper in the last war, participating in the re-taking of the Philippines and the occupation of Japan.

Both of them hope that if that time comes, Patti’s talents will have been appreciated so that she can continue payments on that long-wanted home.

Neither, in taking their important step, have borrowed trouble, a practice which frightens so many into temporary living. They’re walking firmly and unafraid into the future they want; not blindly, but fully aware that serious trouble may come and if it does they’ll face it then, not its ghost now.

“That’s the real American way,” says John Derek’s wife. Then restates, “Here people build. Here if a man loses everything, why he just goes to work building to replace what he’s lost. He doesn’t just sit around hoping to get it back.”

And the Dereks don’t sit around either. They’re going right after their happiness.

THE END

—BY KOLMA FLAKE

 

It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE MAY 1951