Evening star., 1945-10-07
Her Trials Past,
Ann Miller IS
|Headliner Now
By Rosalind Shafer.
HOLLYWOOD

A successful young movie star
can be wonderful sight: Beauti-
ful, IN the big money, escorted by
wealthy young men, haggled over
by producers, dripping with jewelry
and furs and always the center Of
attraction in public places.
It's charmed life to see-if you
don't know the heartbreaking prel-
ude and the long series of ups and
downs In the opening chapters. We
are talking now about Ann Miller.
AIMS house is in the grand man.
ner. Few successful businessmen
ever achieve anything half so Sc
lect or expensive. Decorators bring
In glistening fabrics, custom furni-
ture, brjc-a-brac with fancy price
tags. The place is full of orna-
mental plaster work and exotic color
schemes. Push any button and it
works, from Cne for ice water in
the scarlet and leopard skin cir
Gus bar to those summoning the
staff of servants.
Never Gets Tired.
OF course, there are more elaber-
ate homes in town. but not the prop
erty of such young player. Ann,
who fibbed about her age for years
to evade restrictions on child. per-
formers in the theater, is. %.
Ann is pretty. She has long,
black, curling hair; smooth, white
skin; large, wide eyes and wide
cheekbones. Her big attraction is
her shapely, fast-moving legs. A
combination of French, Irish and a
touch of Cherokee Indian, she has
strong and winning personality,
based on good health and the assur-
ance of success. She simply never
tires out.
It's this vitality and love of life
which she projects in her dancing,
which definitely is the type which
refreshes the tired businessman.
Ann loves gossip, but not the mali
cious type. She likes to talk about
people because she likes to figure out
what makes them do the things
they do.
Her recent vacation-eight months
/ to rest up for her introduction as
a star after four years of B pic
tures-gave Ann a chance to catch
the flavor of success and catch up
with girlhood she never had.
She bought clothes, collected per-
fumes and tried out new hairdos.
She rushed around with the society
set, went to the races, <the night
clubs, the resorts and parties at
exclusive estates -
i scandals" Boosted Her Stock.
! Ann Miller represents the success
full outcome of the familiar situation
where mama would have liked to
have gone on the stage. She didn't
but she directed her talented child's
bid for fame. In AIMS case, that be-
gan at 3. In career like that, there
are bound to be ups and downs, no
matter how much talent the neo-
phyte has.
Ann was born Johanie Lucille Col,
lier, in Houston, Tex. After several
years of bad luck, mama changed
her name to Miller and legalized It.
Life was a succession of cabarets.
radio stations, night spots, movies,
Broadway and movies again. After
the jaunt to New York, in which
she had starring role in George
Whites Scandals" AIMS movie SAL
ary jumped from $3.50 to $4,000 a
week.
Some bad advice, which Ann says
she was foolish enough to take, per-
suaded her to go into Gene Autry
Western ito learn dramatic acting
Rescued by Discoverer.
That killed me pretty well for q
time" Ann reminisces.
Rescued from oblivion by the man
who first discovered her for films.
Sam Briskin, Ann got a Columbia
contract, now renewed with much
promise for the future. She will be
co-Starred with Rita Hayworth in
Rendezvous in Rio in color, and
other important pictures are IN the
ofhng.
Ann has been thinking about the
future and she wants husband and
family of her own. She's afraid of
fortune hunters and she wants some
one, preferably not in films, who is
intelligent, with some money and
who wouldn't object to her picture
work. =
/ He had better turn up in the
next two years, Ann says She wants
her children to have a normal home,
because she missed that as a child.
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