Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 123

1 inrrf 1 -5 Her Fishing Trip Landed a Hollywood Contract By Seymour Korman depth of acting. When I'm in Chicago, I associate with a stage group connected with the Goodman theater and that is helping me considerably. My painting, in oils, is hardly going to put me in the old masters category but I do enjoy doing landscapes and at least some of "them will hang on my walls, if on no one else's. "As if I were in danger of boredom with all these interests, I still manage i 4 TV i I 1 I'll: 'MM 'A .) I 11 work in some piano playing. I've been professional dancer, too, since I was 14, and hope for a dancing role in a film soon." Colleen was born of German-Irish parentage in Yakima, Nov.

10, 1932. Her father, Elias, is dead; her mother, Mrs. Lillian Miller, now lives here as do Colleen's two sisters, Leah, 17, and Alnieda, 13. The name Colleen was a natural for Mrs. Miller's first daughter Mrs.

Miller is Irish and she was a devout fan of Colleen Moore, one of the stars of silent movies. Hollywood. AS BRIGHT and bouncy and promising an aspirant for stardom as movieland has today is Colleen Miller, a lovely and shapely brunette who likes to paint landscapes in the intervals between her acting and being housewife and mother. Colleen, 23, married to Ted Briskin, Chicago camera manufacturer, credits a fish to be exact, a 7 pound trout "with being responsible for her getting a movie contract with Universal-International studios. It seems that a few years ago Colleen and her brother Jack, now 21 and in the marines, were vacationing near Lake Mead, by Hoover dam in Nevada.

Colleen, an ardent angler, wasn't having much luck catching trout, but another sports fisherman did come up with a 7 pound beauty. A picture of a man and a fish wouldn't be particularly exciting so a smart news photographer sought for a pretty girl. He didn't look farther than Colleen with her 5 feet 5 inches, 112 pounds and her delectable vital statistics of 35-22-35, and he posed her with fisherman and fish. Universal-International scouts saw the picture, quickly blacked out the unimportant two-thirds, and signed Colleen. From there Colleen took over, without further benefit of fish, and clicked as the second feminine lead in Playgirl," which starred Shelley Winters and Barry Sullivan.

She moved up to the female lead in "Four Guns to the Border" and in "The Purple Mask," the latter with Tony Curtis. Other pictures have included "The Las Vegas Story," "Man Crazy," and "The Rawhide Years." Universal-International loaned her out to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios for the film "Hot Summer Night." She plays opposite Leslie Nielsen, an up and coming young man on the M-G-M lot. After that, U-I is grabbing her back her contract has six more years to run. Colleen has also appeared in a television series with Frank Lovejoy. I suppose' every actress wants to work up to important dramatic roles," Colleen says, "and I'm no exception.

I read a great deal particularly De Maupassant and Somerset Maugham and would welcome the chance to play some of their heroines. "I realize I have much to learn in February 1, 1957 The family moved to Portland, and when she was 14 Colleen studied with Fokine, the noted ballet master, then switched to popular dancing. While still at Lincoln High school in Portland, Colleen had marquee billing at a restaurant. She was Miss Portland in the Miss Oregon" contest in 1949 and helped Swell the baseball gate for the Portland team as its mascot. After her high Colleen Miller would like to play a Maugham heroine.

i school graduation, she toured Mexico, Cuba, Morocco, and much of this country with a dancing troupe. On Jan. 20, 1955 Colleen and Briskin were married in Chicago. The ceremony was performed by Municipal Judge Joseph Drucker in the office of Briskin's attorney, Sidney Korshak. It was Colleen's first marriage and the third for Briskin, who is 37.

His first wife was Actress Betty Hutton, who divorced him in January, 1951. In October, 1952, he eloped to Las Vegas with Joan Dixon, also an actress. That marriage ended in divorce in January, 1954. Colleen's and Briskin's daughter, Robin, was born May 20, 1956 in Michael Reese hospital in Chicago. "She's a wonder," Colleen enthuses, "and I hope she grows up to be an actress, too.

We would like tojfcjve more children later on." Colleen, her husband and baby divide their time about equally between a home in the Hollywood hills and their Chicago apartment at 1000 Lake Shore drive. At both menages there are tape recorders. "We don't use them for my piano playing or for my rehearsals," Colleen explains. They have only one purpose to record Robin's noises, gurgles, etcetera. When she grows up, we'H'pre-sent her with an album long playing of her important early utterances." 27 A fish brought her film fame..