It went - touchingly, Dana thought - into the happy marriages combined with high box office ratings of various male stars. It was undoubtedly a honey of a speech.
Next day he showed up and was told to wait. He waited. This meeting was damned important. It was, Dana was convinced, a lot more important than anything else Mr. Goldwyn happened to be doing at the time. After all, it meant the happiness of two people, didn't it?
Just then all hell broke loose outside the window. There was the scream of a fire siren, followed by shouts, general commotion and shrieking of engine wheels. Two large fire trucks arrived, disgorging firemen
A small gray-haired man popped from an inner office.
"What's going on?" he demanded.
"It's just a little fire, Mr. Goldwyn," said the receptionist hastily.
Mr. Goldwyn stalked to the window and peered out.
Dana watched him hesitantly. This was definitely not the setting he'd had in mind for his speech. In fact, he'd forgotten the speech entirely. But here was Mr. Goldwyn, and a golden opportunity.
"Mr. Goldwyn," he said cautiously. "I'm Dana Andrews."
"What?" By then the firemen were making so much noise you couldn't hear yourself think.
"I'm Dana Andrews!" he shouted.
"Yes, what do you want?" Mr. Goldwyn was still staring out the window.
"Well, I, uh..." It was awfully hard to put such a personal question to someone who was absorbed in watching a fire. Especially when you had to yell it at the top of your lungs. But it was now or never. "Mr. Goldwyn, I want to know if I can get married!"
Outside the window, the firemen suddenly reeled in their hoses, climbed on the trucks and drove off. The fire was over. Mr. Goldwyn looked at Dana absently. "I'll think it over and let you know," he said, and darted back into his office.
A month went by after that. Six weeks. Two months. Mr. Goldwyn was obviously thinking it over very hard indeed.
Finally Dana saw Mr. Goldwyn again by accident, this time in the projection room. And suddenly, Dana got mad.
"Mr. Goldwyn," he said loudly, "what did you decide about my getting married?"
Mr. Goldwyn peered at him in amazement. Everyone in the projection room held his breath, including Dana. Then the great man spoke. "I guess I forgot to tell you, my boy," he said amiably. "It's strictly OK. Go ahead."
So, just like that, everything was settled. Dana could hardly believe it, after all the months of waiting. He felt like he was drifting around in a balloon. He came down to earth in a hurry though, when he got his father's letter. Dana's father was a minister, and strict. He had always considered the stage and motion pictures inventions of the devil and had preached against them for years. When Dana was a kid, he used to get a whipping every Wednesday night. Wednesday was prayer meeting night, and was Dana at prayer meeting? He was not! He was sitting in a "two for a quarter" movie house down the block, chewing gum and watching with utter absorption whatever was happening on the screen.
Dana's father had been pretty bitter over Dana's becoming an actor. And when he heard his son was going to marry an actress, you should see the letter that Dana got.
It said a lot, among them: "My son, I am older than you and know more of the world. Take my advice and forget this infatuation. Actresses are handled goods."
Handled goods. Dana thought of Mary, her culture, her demure gaiety, her charming parents. The whole thing struck him funny. This was a real riot. He tore off in search of his fiancee, waving his father's letter in his hand. As you might imagine, Mary didn't think it was funny at all. No girl likes to hear that her future father-in-law considers her practically a Scarlet Woman. She refused to join in Dana's laughter, and when she told her mother about it, Mrs. Todd called off the wedding. Her precious daughter, who had gone to the best private schools, been protected by a devoted family, being referred to as "handled goods!"
Of course, everything was eventually straightened out. Mary wrote to Dana's father and got a very courtly letter in return, which said he could see he had been entirely wrong about her, and he was delighted that Dana was getting such a sweet wife.
all or nothing.....
The day of the wedding the local society columnist ran a large picture of Mary and Dana with the caption, "Mary Todd gives up career to marry actor." And that was just what Mary was going to do. They had talked it over seriously. Mary was a darn good actress. She might quite possibly have a real future ahead of her in that field. She could get more out of a comedy role than any girl and the Playhouse, and in a lot of ways, she hated to give it up.
"But being married to you will be enough, Dana," she said positively. "We both want a family, and there's David, and your career is going to be terribly important from now on. I don't want to be just half a wife."
So the wedding came off on schedule, and Dana was the handsomest groom in history. They had two heavenly days together, and then he had to leave for Tucson, on location for "The Westerner." It was his first part for Goldwyn, and he was pretty excited.
Mary, meanwhile, was busy as a whole hive of bees. A lot of people had told her what a big eater Dana was, and she was going to be prepared. The first morning after he got back, they had bacon. Mary put a large griddle on the stove, and conscientiously fried one pound of bacon. She wanted to make sure Dana had enough!
Then there was the affair of the Apple Brown Betty and their first quarrel. Brown Betty was Dana's favorite dessert, and Mary had taken enormous pains to get it right. She was bringing it triumphantly through the swinging door into the dining room when the holder slipped. The dish was very hot and when Mary tried to grab it she burned herself, shrieked and dropped the whole thing on the brand new dining room rug. Dana watched while expressions chased each other across her face - surprise, panic, and anguish in rapid succession. It was just too much for him - he burst into shouts of laughter, as she gazed down at the appalling mess on the new rug. She then prompty went upstairs and slammed the door.
On the whole though they lived in a state of idyllic happiness. Dana developed an acute interest in gardens. He'd never raised so much as a sunflower before, but now suddenly he was absorbed in seed catalogues and books on perennials.
"He won't even use plain, ordinary earth," Mary complained to their friends. "It all has to be mixed in the proper proportions, like a martini!"
Dana was using the garden as a sort of safety valve. Because for 7 months he didn't work in pictures at all. After "The Westerner," he made "Sailor's Lady" and "Cisco Kid." But after that, nothing. For 7 long months.
Then came "Two Men and a Girl." Dana had the second lead in that. He was all set now, everyone said. He'd be a star any day. Oh sure, but still nothing happened. More gardening. Then "Kit Carson." "This'll do it," his agent said, rubbing his hands gleefully. "They'll be fighting over you for romantic leads now, kid."
So did Dana's name go up in lights? It did not. He set his square jaw determinedly and worked harder than ever on his next picture, "Swamp Water." Then he got a nice gangster part in "Ball of Fire." Finally, along came "The Ox-Bow Incident" and Dana clicked in a way he never had before. You know how good he was in "Up in Arms" and "The Purple Heart." Dana was going places, and no one could stop him.
Meanwhile he and Mary built a new house.
something new will be added....
"It's really all right," Dana said in complete satisfaction, a month or so after they'd moved in. "David is nuts over that room of his, and our quarters are wonderful, and -- well, the whole thing is right, that's all."
There was a silence from Mary. He looked at her, surprised. "I thought you liked it, darling. Something wrong?"
"Well, I know it seemed as if we weren't going to have any family except David, so we didn't build a nursery. And now we are, and there isn't any place to put him -- her -- it." Her voice trailed off.
Dana reached out a long arm and grabbed her exultantly. "We'll FIND a place, you adorable moron! Have I mentioned lately that I adore you?"
So the Andrews family eventually acquired a daughter, Kathy, who was undoubtedly the most beautiful baby ever born. David was so excited he could hardly stand it, and went around boasting to everyone about his baby sister. But when Mary came back from the hospital with Kathy, there was still no nursery. Dana took David aside and put matters up to him. He could either move out of his room and sleep downstairs, or they'd put the baby's crib in his room with him.
"Sure, put her in with me," David said grandly. "I'm not getting out of my room for anybody." Then he reconsidered. "I don't know, though. She's awful cute, and I guess she ought to have her own room. I'll move downstairs, Dad."
So that was that, and Kathy grew to her present two years with young David watching over her in a most proprietary way. Kathy adores him, and follows him around at every opportunity. She's an active youngster and Dana had a wall built around the whole yard so Kathy could wander safely. Now of course she spends her entire time devising new methods of getting over the wall.
The stork is flapping his wings over the Andrews menage again, and David is hoping for another sister. Dana and Mary will be happy with either a boy or a girl--Mary is convinced she's the luckiest wife in the world and when you look at Dana, you agree with her. A guy that's solid and dependable, yet terribly exciting. And it gives you a pleasant sort of hunch that maybe somewhere in the world is another guy like Dana -- for you!
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