The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 58

GERTRUDE STEIN had met Colleen Miller, she probably would have said "a girl is a pretty girl is a daughter. Site hardly looks old enough to have me." For one who calls herself "a country girl," this little beauty looked like one of the peaches for which her birthplace is famous. She wore one of the new beaver coats, a beautiful moonlight shade between ivory and gray, and a chic frock of powder blue wool. WHEN I ADMIRED her pearl bracelet wristwatch and engagement ring from Ted Briskin, Chicago camera manufacturer, she said: "I can't bear to take the watch off I sleep in it, wash in it, everything." She was married to Briskin in Chicago Jan. 20.

They will have an apartment in the Windy City, where they'll spend half the year, and a home in Hollywood. for me. I'm a real country girl and lived in small towns Yakima, El-lensburg and Toppenish before we moved to Portland. In Toppenish I got top billing at the theater when I went back there for the opening of 'Four Guns to the COLLEEN FEELS HER first part was one of the best a girl could ever hope for: "It was in she said. "I was a country girl who gets in with the wrong crowd the part progressed psychologically and gave me a fine opportunity to show what I could do.

I was very lucky to get it. "Then, in 'Four Guns to the which I made with Rory Calhoun, I got an off-beat western with a chance to -handle guns and ride Tiri1j -wMt -i Colleen Miller if 1 I 7 S- 7 I pretty girl" and let it go at that. But -Colleen Joy Miller of Universal-International is a lot more than that. Behind her Irish beauty and coloring there is a fine sensitivity for the dramatic line, a well-established theory about the demands and dignity of her work, and an amazing ability, in one so young, for knowing what type tiling she is best suited to. This little farm girl from the Yakima valley in Washington came to Hollywood as a dancer she'd been studying ballet since she was knee high and has done so well in four films that she's a safe bet to have a top career in motion pictures.

You'll be seeing her in "The Purple Mask" with Tony Curtis. She has a delicacy and spirituality, and with it she has an enchanting sense of humor. I'd heard she was picked up by talent scouts when a photograph of her holding a fish which was part of a prize catch appeared in a local paper. "THE FISH STORY is true in a round-about way," she told me. "I was a dancer have been dancing since I was 4, and when I was 17 went on the road to Mexico City with a troupe.

After a nine-months tour I' returned to San Francisco, where the family had moved from Portland, joined another dance troupe, and started cross-country by car, with Las Vegas our first stop. "We had a four-week engagement, and at the end of the third week an RKO talent scout saw me. They were, shooting 'My Friend Irma and I got one day's work in the film, with a check for $15.55. The Flamingo hotel was the location, and a scout asked me if they might make some pictures. I hesitated I'd heard horrible stories about how they would take your picture, then put your head on someone else's body things like that and I was afraid.

But the man who did our dance routines insisted I let the pictures be made. "THE FISH CAME into my career couple of days later when I was asked to present the trophy to a man who won the fishing championship at Lake Mead. The picture ran in the Los Angeles Times; it was then I got the call from the casting director at RKO to fly to Hollywood and make a screen test. It happened in a funny way. "I was with some girls from the troupe in the hotel restaurant for breakfast.

I was feeling bad had a cold and ordered a fruit salad, telling the waitress not to put any whipped cream on it. So she brought it back covered with cream. I told her if she had listened she could spare herself so much trouble running back and forth. "I was afraid I was rather arrogant, and probably felt guilty for my sharp way of speaking, because when I looked up I saw our dance director looking at me very intently. "I THOUGHT IT was a dirty look; so when he came over and said, 'When you've finished your Colleen, I'd like to speak to I felt awful.

Besides, he looked so serious that it worried me and I couldn't finish my salad. When I went outside, he was waiting for me near the telephone booths, and it was then he told me there was a call from RKO." Colleen made the test and got a part in "The Las Vegas Story" with Jane Russell and Victor Mature. She played the role of a young girl who wanted to get married, and she landed back at Las Vegas for the premiere of her first picture. But the famous Nevada town was just a place to work as far as she was concerned. 'I don't gamble," she told me.

"I don't understand it. When they start betting on the odds, it all goes too fast Tony Curtis, Colleen Miller, and Paid Cavanaugh in a scene roR. "Tie Purple Mask." She feels she has problem about continuing her career: "If I had to make a choice, naturally it would be for marriage. But I don't expect any difficulties. I can have both, as Ted has no objection to my working.

It's no good to get one-fourth of the way horses. This was entirely different from anything else I'd done. In 'The Purple Mask' I'm a member of the French underground it's a costume picture, the bustle period, and my role is full of intrigue. In 'All That Heaven Allows' I play Jane Wyman's toward what you want in a career and then not finish it. What if you had a fight with your husband? First thing you'd say is, 'See what you did to me? I could have been a big star.

COLLEEN TELLS ME she began dramatics in school, where she played everything "Snow White," "Puss 'n Boots," and "Little Red Riding Hood." Her mother always managed to find good teachers for her, as she had determined on a career for her first-born before Colleen was old enough to know what it was all about. Sinc she has a brother and two younger sisters, I wranted to know if she would be the only of the 1 family in show business. "Both my sisters are younger than she said. "One is 16 and one 11. The family has moved down from San Francisco to be near me.

Neither of my sisters is intrigued with the idea of having a career. They look at me and say, it's such hard My brother is 20 and just gotJ married." None of her four screen roles has included dancing, but she keeps in practice because she feels it's a very nice form of exercise. She feels it has helped her dramatic work, too: "People who have watched me walk across stage often say, Aren't you a She studies singing with John Scott at U. I. because she feels it necessary to be proficient in all the contributary arts, and she plans' to attend the Goodman' theater when she's in Chicago.

ALTHOUGH SHE WAS thrown into the Hollywood scene with no warning about what she might expect, she established her mettle in the first 36 hours on the set with "Playgirl" when she stood up to veteran Shelley Winters and held her own. "Shelley gave me a bad time for a while," she said. "I had heard how actors stand behind you and make you turn your back to the camera. Well, she did thrat to me and I wouldn't stand for it. There was nothing personal about it I like her very much and think a great actress it was business, it was acting.

When she said to me, 'Why don't you do this I-told her, If you will play it 50-50, I can do the We had no more trouble." Hollywood's new young star has had pretty smooth sailing, but she tells me she had a low period after RKO dropped her and before, she got her present contract. "I made the rounds of the casting offices and was always told I was too short, too tall, too young, or too old for the part in question," she said. "Those were the bitter years She thought for a moment, then: "Well, I guess it wa3 more like seven weeks, but it certainly felt like years." v. ivy I i 1 r' 'I i Miss Miller gels a dancing lesson from Tony in another sequence from "The Purple Mask" a forthcoming film. 16 THE HAWAII WEEKLY, FEB.

20, 1955.