INSIDE STUFF- Quarter page black and white photo of Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie seated at a night club table- Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie at Tony Martin's Cocoanut Grove opening before Piper went on a cross-country tour and discovered Vic Damone.

shadow stage BY LIZA WILSON /// outstanding // good / fair F- for the whole family A- for adults
// (F) The Milkman (U-I)
When Jimmy Durante and Donald O'Connor are starred in the same picture there are bound to be laughs galore. Donald plays a wealthy lad, pampered by his papa, who manages to get a job incognito with his milkman pal Jimmy. Piper Laurie, the boss's daughter, falls for Doanld and covers up for him- but she's pretty miffed when Joyce Holden shows up with Jimmie and exposes Donnie as an old boy friend of hers. Then gangsters enter the plot, as gansters have a habit of doing these days. Jess Barker plays the plant manager whn swipes his aunt's necklace and murders her, to pay off a gambling debt. Donald helps capture the crooks and becomes Milkman of the Month.
Your Reviewer Says: Two fine comedians make for fun.
Program Notes: The beloved Jimmy Durante observed his thirty-eighth year as an entertainer during filming of this picture. He began at seventeen as a pianist at Coney Island. Jimmy believes that newcomer Joyce Holden is a star prospect. "She's dynamite." says Jimmy. "I wlaked into a scene wit' her, expectin' a ducilesome doll, and I wind up wit' a glamorous mixmaster. Talk about Betty Hutton!"...Donald has been "on" since he was one year old when he started in vaudeville with his famiy. When Jimmy wasn't noticing he'd quack like a duck and steal scenes like mad...When Piper Laurie made her screen bow in "Louisa" she was publicized as teh girl who nibbles on flowers. But now, thanks to an enterprising press agent, the eighteen-year-old girl is being publicized as "The Girl We'd Like Best to See at Six A. M". A bunch of milkmen visited the set one day and gave her the title.

How A Star is Born By FREDDA DUDLEY
Half page black and white photo of members of the U-I acting class- A busy schedule: You are now under the supervision of U-I's famous drama coach, Sophie Rosenstein. You meet each day in her office with Tony Curtis, standing, Peggy Dow, Lillian Barkley, Dixie Nelsen, Joyce Holden, Jim Best and Piper Laurie, on floor, for diction, drama help and stimulating talk. Third page black and white photo of Tony Curtis talking to Piper Laurie, who's back is turned from the camera- Coming out of the projection room, Tony stops to discuss picture just shown. With several roles behind him he seems like a veteran but he tells you he still has a lot to learn. Third page black and white photo of stars and starlets seated at lunch at the studio commissary- In the studio commissary with Piper, Jim, Joyce, Tony, Peggy and Rock Hudson, you meet wonderful waitress Mabel, who brings you juice, slimming salad. Quarter page black and white photo of Tony Curtis talking up close to Piper Laurie- Tony and Piper "improvise" a scene. Ability to work well together resulted in first co-starring roles in "The Prince Who Was a Thief".
The week melts. You can't imagine where the time goes. On Saturday morning you have your first experience at auditioning a scene which has been Piper Laurie and Rock Hudson from "Petrified Forest."
Sophie Rosenstein asks the play as to type. Is it comedy, tragedy, drama, or melodrama?" Piper and Rock decide that the play in drama even though it contains a killing, the play is too sincere, too solid, to purposeful and too "realistic" to be melodrama. They decide also that it is almost allegorical of complexion, altough the characters are so well articulated that they escape the typing of pure allegory.y Rock analizes the character of the boy he is playing. "He is a good guy and he grows up during the play. He is still living in the days of his football-playing glory. He isn't too bright, but when he decides what's right, he is ready to fight for it. is curiosity. She loves her grandfather, holds her father in what is very near contempt, is fascinated by the writer in the play. She paints and she thinks that if she could get to Paris, she might become a good painter."
The next step is analyzing the specific scene they have been assigned. The boy's objective, it is decided by Rock, is to make love to the girl; the girl's objective is to resist, but to find out what she can about the boy and his previous experience. As they read the scene, they try to exhaust each beat, to play the values to fullest realization, and to recognize the changing values. You decide to buy a copy of the play on your way home and to study it.
After Piper and Rock have finished that exercise, Sophie introduces a new activity which she calls "Improvisation." She supplies Piper and Tony Curtis with a canvas beach bag. Each is to make up a story about the bag; each is to think of a characterization and to plan an objective for the action. Each has adjust to the other's story so coherrence is maintained. Neither knows until dialogue starts what the other has in mind. The value of the exercise is to teach connection, to teach characterization, to stimulate imagination. When Piper comes into Sophie's office, he says, "Good afternoon madam. What sort of luggage could I show you today/"
This puts Piper completely off her story, she has decided that she was going to a private home to pick up a beach bag belonging to a friend without knowing its contents. Quickly she has to adjust to Tony's lead and try to buy the bag from him. However, when she tries to buy the bag from him, she is told by Tony that the bag is not for sale. Their scene develops furiously. When Tony demandf a clear sky), that her brother saw it, like it, sent after it. Tony says that there is some mistake because the bag has never been for sale. "Call your brother on the telephone and ask him if there isn't some mistake," he says, handling her the telephone. Piper, stuck with a plot twist, calls her brother, dialing a number and indicating by the way in which she asks for him, that he is a doctor. Tossing the narrative ball she says, "My brother wants to talk to you." At this point Sophie interrupts to say that it is time for luncheon and that she is delighted withthe improvisation.
You sit in your corner spellbound. You wonder if you will ever be able to think like that on your feet, to be convincing, to maintain the characterization of the determined, but baffled girl. You start to stumble out of the office in a dream. Sophie says, "Next Saturday I'm going to call upon you and Dick Long to do an improvisation." Your mouth goes dry, your knees go concave. Sophie laughs her heartening, understanding laugah. "Don't look so tragic. You'll get along all right. Anyone who concentrates as you do will catch on fast." You think of something. "How long is it before a student gets a chance at a real part in a real picture?
"Under favorable circumstances, some students are tested at the end of two months. Sometimes it takes me as long as six, but that is unusual. Peggy Dow, in your class, has already turned in a fine performance as the nurse opposite Jimmy Stewart in "Harvey". You say "I'll do that improvisation if it kills me." "It won't kill you," Sophie says softly. "The first thing you know, you'll turn into an actress.. I've seen it happen many, many times before, and I'll have the very real personal satisfaction of seeing it happen many, many times in the future."
You laugh a little although you feel like crying. When you were at home in Willow Bend, acting seemed so simple. You had regarded it, vaguely, as something someone did with no more trouble than making faces in a mirror. Now you have discovered that, at its best, it it is a profession, at its least craft, and that in any case it requires years of training and study before any degree of profiency is attained. And you think, "Even if I never become a great star, this experience will make me a better human being. I will have learned the clean, hard satisfaction of sincere effort and dedicated work; I will have learned the value of cooperation. I will have learned something of the building of art and something of the interrelation of literature, drama, music, and lives of everyday people everywhere."
Pitfalls await every ascending star. Read and heed the warning in next month's article, and learn what to look out for if you would be successful.
THE END