Tommy Sands! Don’t throw your love away!

We are not in business to run a star’s personal life, or to tell him what to do and what not to do.

But we’ve grown to like you, Tommy Sands, like you enough to feel an obligation to be honest with you—even if it hurts. And you may not like what we have to say.

We have been disturbed in recent weeks about reports tying you romantically to a score of Hollywood beauties—Cathy Crosby, Connie Stevens, Dolores Hart, Yvonne Lime, Judi Meredith, Barbara Wilson and on and on and on.

Now we are certainly not opposed to an unattached young man dating any number of attractive young girls—providing they have fun together, and don’t hurt anyone else in the process. But you, Tommy, are neither unattached nor having fun. Moreover, by your actions you are seriously hurting two people: Molly Bee and yourself.

We know, as you do, that you are in love with her—as much as she is in love with you; that every time you take a girl into your arms and kiss her, you make believe she’s Molly. And Molly knows you do, and goes out with other fellows and pretending not to feel hurt—while holding back her tears whenever she picks up a fan magazine and sees you holding hands with Connie Stevens or taking Dolores Hart for a picnic in Griffith Park or going horseback riding with Yvonne Lime.

Surprised that we know so much about you two? We know a lot more, and we are going to lay it right on the line because that’s the only way we can hope to make you see the right way.

Most of all, Tommy, we know what and who is behind your actions, yours and Molly’s. We know that you almost got married last Christmas—and why you didn’t. And why both of you are now dating others to prove to yourselves and the world that you can get along without one another.

You’ve been warned by your ‘advisors’ that marriage at this time would be bad for your career; that your fans would desert you unless you remained single; that they have even resented the constant references to an unofficial engagement between you and Molly.

We are not condemning those who advised you, because we sincerely believe that they did what they thought was in the best interest of your career.

That doesn’t mean we agree with them!

And we won’t even throw names like Pat Boone at you, who was already married and had a family when he was your age, and who, let’s face it, hasn’t done so badly for himself.

We are taking a much more personal approach: we feel that the love of two wonderful young people like Molly and you are a heckuva lot more important than any career!

Just look at what’s been happening to you these past months—

Remember the day you met Molly? You’d gone to Anaheim to see Cliffie Stone about giving you a chance on his Home Town Jamboree. But Cliffie wasn’t there.

Just as you were leaving, you met one of his star attractions, Molly Bee.

Right from the start

You confessed to Molly how much you had hoped to get on Cliffie’s show, and how disappointed you were that he wasn’t there. She was easy to talk to, a patient listener. And what did Molly do? Asked you to sing for the ballroom audience after the television show was over! Impressed by your voice—and by you—the next morning she talked to Cliffie about you so enthusiastically that he promptly asked you to come back. And he gave you the break you needed.

You didn’t know that it was Molly who was responsible, did you, Tommy?

She didn’t tell you, and she made Cliff promise not to say anything either because it might embarrass you. We wonder if—in spite of your love for her—you have ever really appreciated the things she has done for you.

Look at what happened last New Year’s Eve, the most important New Year’s Eve in her young life. Because she was now eighteen, for the first time her mother had given her permission to stay out as late as she wanted. She looked forward to the evening like a debutante to her coming-out party or a high school girl going to her first prom.

So what happened? When you met for lunch that noon she noticed that you looked hot and feverish, and were obviously coming down with a bad cold. It was she who suggested you go home and stay in bed that night, who instantly turned down your offers to go out in spite of how you felt. And did you know that she had three phone calls from other fellows who wanted to take her out—and turned them all down because she was afraid you’d be hurt if she spent New Year’s Eve with anyone else?

We know you had fights, too. But all young people do, and so do most older ones—including some of our most happily married couples. But you made up easily because your love always proved a stronger bond between you than the few words spoken in anger. Like last summer, when you arrived from New York at six in the morning and were disappointed that Molly was not waiting for you at Los Angeles’ Union Station, as you had expected her to be. At first you thought she was late and you impatiently paced the platform, looking at your wristwatch every few seconds. But the minutes turned into hours, and then you finally gave up. As far as you were concerned, you were through with Molly.

Molly tried to explain

And you told her so in no uncertain terms on the phone when you called her. Molly tried to explain that she had worked till three o’clock in the morning, that her mother insisted she get more sleep, that she had left a message for you at the station which apparently you never got.

After you slammed down the receiver you had pangs of conscience. You knew that Molly wasn’t the kind of girl who would ignore a promise, whether it was to you, or anyone. And so you drove to Cliffe Stone’s Home Town Jamboree to talk to her, and found out from Cliffie that she’d been telling the truth.

Remember how bad you felt? How you could have kicked yourself for what you had done, said, thought? And Molly understood, and you made up. She never mentioned the incident again. . . . That’s the kind of girl she is . . . the girl you love.

You two have had wonderful times together: the mornings at Malibu beach when you chased her through the waves; the afternoons you went horseback riding through Griffith Park—remember the Sunday when Molly’s horse reared back, frightened by a car, and then broke into a wild gallop—with you in hot pursuit? You may easily have saved her life that day when you brought the animal under control in true western style. And there were the drive-in theaters you both liked so much and the snacks at Bob’s Big Boy Hamburger place in Glendale.

And have you forgotten that time you took Molly to the beach, the night you gave her the ring?

What the ring meant

You had got the idea a week before, that hot summer day you walked down Fifth Avenue in New York trying to decide what kind of a present to give her. You passed a jewelry shop and in the window you suddenly discovered a ring—two diamond-and-ruby hearts entwined in one another. We are sure that as long as you live you will never forget her expression when you slipped it on her finger that moonlit night on the Santa Monica beach. We don’t believe that either of you ever considered it just a friendship ring. You were both dead serious about one another!

You were even more serious last Christmas—when your mind was all but made up to propose. That’s when you were warned that this whole romance had already gone too far. That the announcement of an engagement might spell the end of Tommy Sands, singer. That for your sake—and for Molly’s—you should steer away from her, and date other girls. That if you really loved her, a few months, a few years wouldn’t matter anyway. That on the contrary, if you felt about her in five years as you do today, you would really be sure!

You believed it. And even if Molly didn’t, she agreed that both of you could date others.

But there was no enthusiasm in it, for either of you, although Molly made the better show of appearing gay.

With you, we could see it by your obvious lack of romantic interest when you walked down Hollywood Boulevard with Cathy Crosby, who dated you for exactly the same reason you took her out: she is unofficially engaged to a boy but can’t make up her mind to marry him, and is trying to readjust herself just as you are. We could tell when you took Judi Meredith to a picnic in Griffith Park—the Judi who is in love with a boy in New York and tries to kill her loneliness as you do. We’ve watched you in the company of Connie Stevens, whose publicist is trying to line up dates for her with celebrities like yourself, to get her known. We don’t blame the publicist, we don’t blame Connie—who was honest with you. But to her you were just another fellow, as she was just another girl to you—with no more between you than a casual liking for one another. We could go all the way down the line to prove our point. . . .

Something special

With none of them did you ever find the close, honest, rewarding thing you had with Molly . . . love.

That is what every man wants in a girl, and few are fortunate enough to find. That is what we don’t want to see you lose through outside pressures, and fears. That is why we urge you to weigh carefully—before it’s too late!—how much more you will lose than you stand to gain if you continue on the path you seem to have chosen for yourself.

THE END

 

It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE MAY 1958