Evening star., 1955-02-27
How Can an Actress Shun TV,
CIoudette Colbert Asks
By Margaret McMonus
NEW YORK.

green sofa in her plushy 18th
floor suite at the Sherry
Netherlands Hotel, q copy of
the Ferenc Molnar play, 1.-THE
Guardsman" in her lap.
With her was Paul Nickel.
director of the play in which
Miss Colbert will star, with
Franchot Tone, in "The Best
of Broadway" series at 10 pm.
this Wednesday on CBS-TV.
They were discussing the de-
gree of cynicism of a specific
glance.
This may rightly indicate
how much of a perfectionist
Miss Colbert is.
A small, very slim woman,
who has been a star in motion
pictures for % years, she looks
amazingly the same as she did
in that now classic 1T Hap
pened One Night" made with
Clark Gable in 1884.
The short Colbert hair-do,
with the part in the middle
and the fluffy bangs across
the forehead, has never been
changed.
Miss Colbert has a very in
dividual face. The wide-set
brown eyes, the high cheek
bones, the expressive, WELL
shaped mouth, taken as fea-
lures apart, or together, could
belong to no one else.
Miss Colbert is as bright
and witty as the movie hero
ines she so often played, and
she loves television. both
watching it and performing
on 1t.
New and Exciting
"How could an actress not be
in television?" she asked, IN
her deep-throated, so familiar
voice. Its a new medium. It's
exciting. It gives one an op-
portunity to play to an audi
ence of millions in one single
night, and right in their own
homes. I love it."
She said television is par
ticularly intriguing to her be-
cause 1t is like doing a play in
the theater, except you do 1t
only once, and not over and
over again until you're bored
to extinction.
"Most of my friends in Hol-
lywood think I'm mad because
I like doing live television
shows. I don't like to do tele-
vision on film and I wouldn't
want to do a weekly program.
when ! do a performance
I must do it the very best !
can. I want to give everything
to it. couldn't sustain that
effort week after week." she
said.
Miss Colbert said she turned
down q weekly television series
for this reason, but she Is 60
ing to do a third BEST of
Broadway" show, and on April
z she will star in Private
Worlds" on Climax" done
from the coast.
I'm terribly concerned
about doing a good job with
The Guardsman.'" she ex-
planned, because the Lunts
did 1t so magnificently and l
do admire them so, I really do
want this to go we'll"
Miss Colbert has been mar
ried for almost 20 years to DR..
Joel Pressman, a professor of
surgery at UCLA. She met him
shortly after she arrived in
Hollywood in 1882, when she
went to him as a patient.
The Pressmans live in ''kind
of q Georgian type house, very
simple, in Holmby Hills, LA.
a." and their friends are other
motion picture people and
doctors-'lots Of doctors"
Miss Colbert said they live
the sort of suburban life that
people everywhere live.
1--WE have little dinner par
ties for our friends" she said,
"and they have little dinner
parties for us. Once in q while
we 60 to a premiere but thank
heavens there aren't as many ;.
as there used to be. And Of
course, we all watch a lot Of
television."
She said she rarely misses
the television shows Of her
friends--"Burns and Allen,
Jack Benny, I Love Lucy,
Danny Thomas, Loretta's show
Ooretta Young), I watch them
al. ] do love the theater