6 15.
Ladies and gentlemen Hanis Adams at First Street presents transcribed
MEREDITH Harless interviewing screen stars. Susan Peters, but first
appointment reminder Every parent has dreams for his child. But last year
more than 33 such dreams were shattered, Infantile paralysis struck more
than 33,000 in the second worst epidemic ever recorded. And now new dreams
are being built. Dreams are being able to walk once more. You can help
build those dreams by sending dimes and dollars to your local march of
dimes headquarters, help make their dreams come true, join the 1951 March
of Dimes. Now, MEREDITH Harlot, Good evening. This is MEREDITH Harless
broadcasting to you from backstage at the Sombrero theater playhouse here
in phoenix. Believe me the excitement of opening night, the hustle and
bustle of stagehands, the smell of grease paint technicians problem in the
actors and actresses themselves. Getting ready for. This first night
performance is really exciting As most of you know, the barretts of Wimple
Street opened here tonight at 8:30 PM. There are several outstanding
personalities here whom we know you will want to hear from. Certainly the
most exciting one and the one we're most anxious to hear from is lovely.
Susan Peters, Hollywood actress, star of stage radio and screen, This
vivacious actress here to play the role of Elizabeth in the barretts of
Wimple Street. This is some brow theater playhouse was injured some six
years ago and expects never to walk again. A young star who had just
reached the top when her spinal cord was severed in a hunting accident. MS
Peters was determined not to that misfortune interfere with her career or
her life. It gives me the greatest pleasure in the world to present to our
radio audience. Susan Peters. Susan, very much MEREDITH for the delightful
introduction. Well, Susan, it's wonderful to have you here in phoenix
Arizona, is it your first trip here? Yes, it is. But we know you like us.
Indeed I do. Are you going to stay beyond the term of the theater here?
Yes. I'll spend another two or three days here. How wonderful! And I want
to see the next show. Good. And what is the next show? Oh dear. What Kirk
Douglas in Detective Story. That's right. Wonderful. It also has had a
wonderful press, but I don't believe anyone or anyone in town is more
excited than I am about seeing your performance here tonight. How long
have you been playing in this role of Elizabeth? Well, I toured last
winter for seven months with that. Married us seven months on tour all
over the east, in the midwest and the south and we closed in Washington.
We opened a theater. They're married in Washington, D. C. The National
Theater has been closed for some time. Yes, I do know. We took over the
Gaiety Theater, which was a burlesque and completely redid it and believe
or not? All of these people came the wrongs? I tracked you know. Do you
mean the cabinet members and Oh yes. And Vice President Barkley and mrs
Barkley. Oh, what an exciting first night audience for you. You closed
there. Yes. Uh huh. But I think it's wonderful that you have brought
theater back to the nation's capital where certainly we should have all
the culture in the world since it is the capital of the world. They were
starving for theater when we arrived there we played for two weeks and
could have played for two weeks longer. Well, we've been starving for
theater here too and we're so grateful to Andy and Dick Carlson for
bringing these some brand of theater to us and particularly for bringing
such fine actors and actresses as yourself. Thank you very much. What
other places have you been in other than the barretts of Wimple street?
I've been glass Menagerie. What part did you play Laura Daughter? Yes. And
uh it's rather an interesting thing because I did it in the theater of the
round Atlanta Georgia. Oh did you? What type of theater is that? I wonder
where we don't understand uh without any scenery whatsoever. No sex, no
cops. No, no, you have proper, you do, yes. You have a furniture and your
hand props the audience that works on all four sides of you. And the four
corners are open so that you can make your exit from the corners. And it's
to me it was very interesting because it's very much like picture work
like working just before a camera. I see you can see all four sides at the
same time. As a matter of fact, very strange thing happened to me. I was
waiting for my second act entrance in a little alleyway and this man came
up to me and he was very inebriated and he wouldn't you like me to push
you on so you could see better. I said no thank you very much. And he said
, well really you can hear better. And I said no thank you. And with that
I call my nurse and she wheeled me on and I'm supposed to go on and meet
my gentleman caller and I feel myself being propelled on. And I looked
back and I'm about to have to go on and say mother, I came with a second
gentleman caller when an usher picked him up and tweet back and put him on
an elevator and sitting back downstairs to the bar where you belong. You
are always in a wheelchair. Yes I am. Except when I'm in my car, which I
drive myself as hand control. Really well how do you travel? How do you
manage to travel all over the country like well I had my car driven here
by my cousin and I flew with my nerves and he met me at the plane and
unfortunately the tired it was flat just as the plane rolled in and we
were right in the way of the plane Oh no! So I had to do a little waiting
in the station. Well, we certainly admire your courage. Susan in every way.
You certainly haven't deviated a bit since your accident, have you? You
just well, you know, it doesn't really take courage when people are so
wonderful to me. What do you mean by that? Well, for instance, the first
party I went to uh I wasn't well enough to sit up. So I went in an
ambulance and it was my first party and I wasn't a ball. Oh yes, had it
and gave it for me. And Lionel Barrymore was there in his chair and he put
me very much at ease. He said, young lady, I've been in this for years and
getting along famously and consequently I became very much of the, well I
think that is wonderful when you get encouragement from a man like Lionel
Barrymore is his condition arthritic. Is that uh he's been very much
improved like dates like polio. There's a great chance for improvement.
Yes, there is. And of course the National Foundation of infantile
Paralysis, as you know, is conducting a wonderful program, a research
program in doing so very much to find the serum that will banish this
dread disease of polio. Our March of dimes campaign opened here yesterday.
You know, perhaps you read about the mothers March last night in the
paper. Yes, I did come to think about it. That was originated here in
Arizona, was it? Yes. And now it's taking place all over the entire United
States. We're very proud of those people as a matter of fact charlie
hoover down on the Arizona Republic and gazette and Dick Fitzpatrick
dreamed the idea of and they have seen it through. It's been a brilliant
success. And this year of course will be bigger and better than ever. Have
you not been on radio Susan? Yes, I've done some radio but not in this
last year. I've been touring. Have you planned any television shows? Yes,
I did five that are at NBC now an audition. So wonderful. I should here
before too long about that grand. Well then will you be television, so to
speak from the coast or you'll be in the east in the east. Well now aren't
you a mother? Yes. I have a 4.5 year old son who will go right along with
me, timothy, timothy joined me on a tour last winter over the holidays and
I tried to explain to him what I was doing when I went to work? So I had
my nurse bringing to the play and in the first act when the father is
forcing me to drink quarter my son is very loud voices. What is that man
doing to my mother and I prayed that my nurse would take him off, which he
finally did. And as I went off to make my second act change. He's coming
around the corner and the father is sort of leaning in the doorway and he
balled up his fist and hauls off and hits him in the stomach. You can't
treat my mother that way. Why did it take him aside and explain to him
what it was like? But he'd never caught on MEREDITH still thought I was
unhappy. Well, timothy must be a darling from what I've read about him.
I'm sorry, I haven't seen him even though I've known you for some years.
Susan and two, I think your better friend of my sister mary. Yes, I'm
mary for a long, long time. You were both at MGm Studio Metro. We did a
lot of work for the USO together. Oh, did you? I didn't know that. You
know Deli has a new play now. His husband. Second threshold. Oh and we
have a lovely girl here from phoenix sally brophy who's also in the play
in new york. Oh, how wonderful. We're very proud of our phoenix little
actress, sally brophy. What were some of your favorite movies you've done
so many? Well, I think my very favorite was Random. Harvest Greer, Garson
Ronald colman. Why would you say it was your very favorite? Well, to be
quite honest with you because I was nominated for the Academy Award.
That's good enough reason isn't and you certainly deserved it. It was a
delightful part and then I enjoyed the last picture I made since I was
injured, the sign of the RAM, the sign of a completely different type of
part that I've ever played was unsympathetic. You. That is true. You
usually do play a sympathetic role even prior to your accident. Didn't?
Yes, always Metro believes that all of their stars should lead happy lives.
Well I certainly think so too. And not only stars, I think it's a lovely
idea for all of us. So what actor have you enjoyed working with the most
would you say? Maybe on the screen? Do not answer that one. They've all
been charming to me. No, isn't there one who is very fascinating all of
the Meritus that's putting me on the spot. What prompted your movie career
? It was purely by accident, I took drama as 1/5 solid to get out of
college and what this Hollywood high oh yes and I was working for a
scholarship to go to Sanford to medical school and the day before I
graduated I went in to get my card and I all but flunked drama and this
man was standing there and I heard him say I'd like to meet this young
lady and mr carter said oh you don't want to meet here, I just about
flanker so he did want to meet me and he was going to do a picture for
solace or so I went to see saw and I was too young and I was given a
scholarship to max Reinhardt and from there on in I decided to stay in it
for three years and I'd make enough money if I didn't succeed to go on to
medical school and if I did, I'd stay in it. And I stayed in. I've been in
it ever since and here you are, right here in phoenix where we're so
thrilled to have You tell me this, what picture were you making at the
time of your accident? I just finished keep your powder dry with Lana
Turner in the rain day. You just finished, you didn't have any retakes or
anything else to do. It was on New Year's Day that I shot myself. We went
, did you yourself? Yes, I picked up again. The stock was broken from the
barrel and the man who belonged to it was so excited and that he put the
bullet back in the barrel and I picked it up. It was pointed towards me
and it's caught on a twig and the gun went off and I'm paralyzed. Well, I
must say you certainly have not changed your life in any way at all. You
just proceed and I seem to do even much more than before, don't you? Well
, do you find you have more time to do more things? You know, I don't have
enough time. I tell you there isn't enough time in the day for me. Why
don't know how you accomplish all the things you do when the doctor first
told you of your injury? How did he tell you? And what was your reaction?
Well, he was particularly wonderful because it was the third day I've been
injured and I regained consciousness and asked him if I'd ever walk again.
And my mother had told him to tell me the truth. Because the one thing
I've always hated was told him I too. So the doctor said MS peters. Um
as a doctor, she said, I cannot ever tell you that you'll walk again, he
said, But miracles have happened. He said, I've seen them happen. So he
said, anything can happen to you. So I believe that ever since and now
after four years, however, the cord was crushed. Unless they find some way
of spicing chords, then I'll be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.
Well then you really don't feel that there would be any hope for you.
There's a new discovery for me. But of course it's very different from
polio. You know, there's always hope for a polio patient. Indeed there is.
And particularly when there are so many people bending every effort and
lending all of their energy to find a cause to cure polio here in Arizona.
It's been a very heart rendering thing for me and working as a volunteer
in the polio program to see how everyone is doing everything they possibly
can to help this March of dimes campaign. It opened here on the 15th and
will last through the 31st. Perhaps you have a message for our polio
patients. We have about 652 right here, you know, and I know they'd love
to hear from you particularly Susan only MEREDITH for them to go on living
their lives as naturally and normally as they possibly can. But I'd rather
give my message to the people around them. It's very important for their
family and friends to treat them exactly the same as before they
contracted polio. In other words, when there is a handicapped person,
they're no different than No, we think anyone else the same as you do. And
I want people to be just as nasty to be here, just as kind as they ever
were. In other words, no sympathy. No, it's not necessary at all. Can't
use sympathy. No, Well that's a very nice and encouraging message. And
thank you Susan Peters, we look forward to seeing your performance this
evening at the Sombrero theater playhouse at 8 30. The opening of the
barretts of Wimple Street, in which you play the leading role. It's a real
pleasure to have you on our program. And may I tell our listeners to tune
in at the same time next week when we will bring to the Arizona close up
robert Lawrence, the conductor of the phoenix Symphony Orchestra. This is
narrative Harlot saying good night, yes, join us again next week for Hanis
Arizona close ups when mrs MEREDITH Harless will have his guest robert,
Lawrence conductor of the phoenix Symphony Orchestra. Give it time, Give a
dollar. That's what infantile paralysis victims are hoping you'll do right
now, hoping you lend them a hand. By joining the 1951 march of dimes fight
infantile paralysis
in the Valley of the Sun. It's easy to get shopping done, visit Hanis at
Adams and First Street for service and quality. Hanis cannot be beat.
This is K to R in phoenix.