The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (75 page)

Dear, twinkly Charlie Ruggles, my weathervane on stage. If I was good, I got a kiss after the performance
.

George Peppard and I made our Broadway debuts in
Pleasure.
He was a fine actor but an incorrigible prankster. I had to take him to task a couple of times
.

Pogo was
my constant companion in New York. I took him everywhere, including to the theater, where he watched me put on my makeup in the dressing room
.

With my New York roommate and dear friend, Winnie Allen, on her wedding day. I couldn’t be her maid of honor because of a performance, but I managed to drive upstate in the morning so that I could see her in her wedding dress
.

My first movie when I returned to Hollywood after a year on Broadway was
The Plunderers,
a Western. I had to shoot John Saxon—in the back!

Daddy made his first-ever visit to watch me work during the production of
The Plunderers.

Playhouse 90
rescued me from the doldrums and got my movie career going again. “To the Sound of Trumpets” was aired live (and teamed me with Stephen Boyd for the first time
).

Where the Boys Are
was a stroke of luck career-wise. It was MGM’s highest grossing movie for 1960, and, as I wrote Granny, it never hurts to have your name connected with money. Equally surprising was the bond that resulted with my costars Connie Francis, Yvette Mimieux and Paula Prentiss—a little unusual among actresses in Hollywood. (After all these years I’m still in touch with Connie and Paula.)

I had a new beau in the new decade. Don Robinson and I met on a blind date arranged by friends. A year later we were engaged
.

Having never been outside the United States, I wanted very much to do
Francis of Assisi
because of its Italian location. I played Saint Clare to Brad Dillman’s Saint Francis, and we became lifelong friends
.

The Investiture scene in
Francis
later raised a lot of queries about how it might have influenced my decision to become a religious. It didn’t
.

Before
Francis
started, I had a holiday in London with the Cooper family—Gary, Rocky and Maria. Here we are at the Earl of Dudley’s estate
.