How'd you like to try to lead a normal, ordinary life while constantly carrying around a mirror held in front of your face? You'd get in trouble fast - probably falling off the nearest curb.
Well, if you were a movie star you'd be walking around with that mirror from the time you woke up in the morning to the moment you flopped into bed at night. Every breath you took, every wink you gave, would be recorded for you in your favorite paper by the following morning - a mirror of your actions held up not only for you, but the whole world to see.
After three days of it, I'm sure you'd be ready to try an easier way of earning a living. Or to just make believe that mirror isn't there.
Four top Hollywood stars that started out being very concerned with their mirror image, have lately tried to ignore the way their actions look.
Kim Novak, who once said, "We have responsibilities to our fans – they come in the same package with the fame and the money," has been ignoring her responsibility to tell us why she's running from love. But we've guessed the answer. Millie Perkins and Dean Stockwell are running from their image, too - trying to make believe that nobody's picture of them matters but their own. Lana Turner has made mistakes like all of us -except that hers were enacted on a giant screen.
Now she seems to be trying to make believe the mistakes never happened - yet she goes on publicly paying and paying and paying for them...
Turn the page and read our open letters to these stars. Then pick up a pen and write your own letter. Send it to your star c/o The Editors, SCREEN SPOTLIGHT - and we'll forward your letters along with our own. Perhaps, by getting together, we can help these wonderful but mixed-up people.
Dear Millie and Dean,
We just heard a rumor that you're going to have a baby. It's only a rumor - that's the only way news about you two ever reaches your fans.
Like last year, when we heard you were finally married - only to have a close pal of yours whisper to us that you'd really been wed a couple months before you announced the news. For all we know, you might have the baby already and just be biding your time before letting the world in on your happiness!
Millie, we understand that you're very shy. That you like solitude and quietness and no photos, please. But as Kim Novak recognized, when fans get in your corner, the least you can do is turn around and smile. Sure, it was overwhelming being a triumph in your very first stab at acting. But you've had a few years to learn to live with the fact that you are a star. It's time to come out of your hiding place and let us get to know you. We just want to be friends.
And Dean - we understand that you never wanted to be a child star that you
hated it so much you preferred to work in Mexican fields as a laborer. But now
you're a man, a husband, perhaps a father. Nobody's making you act any more-you're
an actor because you'd curl up inside if you couldn't be one. So you're hiding
from yourself, not only from us fans.
Dean and Millie, life is a two-way street. If you show you want us around, we'll
pile into your corner and root for you through all the ups and downs of this
unpredictable industry. We'll bombard the studios with fan mail so they'll know
you're stars to be reckoned with. They'll realize that you're not only good
for "character" roles, but for box-office pull, too. They'll give
you the real star treatment - including star-type salaries as well. They'll
KNOW you've got us fans behind you.
If you give us the feeling - as you have been doing - that you don't care whether we're interested in you, sooner or later we're going to stop being interested. We'll take our loyalties somewhere else – and when you need us (EVERYBODY needs friends some time) we'll no longer be there. (Next to a photo of Dean and Millie, wearing overcoats, standing with one arm around each other, Millie looking off in the distance, Dean looking down at the cigarette he's holding in his left hand, is this caption: "Photographers had to beg Millie and Dean to pose for pictures, when she visited him in England before the wedding. Since then, it's been even harder to snap them together. Why are they hiding from us?").
The End