From the pages of Modern Woman magazine, volume 15 number 7, 1946, two pages of vintage movie star holiday Q & A. Specifically the famous Hollywood folks were asked to name:
1) Favorite Christmas Story
2) Favorite Christmas Song
3) When Gifts Are Opened
4) Best-Remembered Gift
The celebrities included are, Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Ray Milland, Betty Hutton, Jack Carson, Alan Ladd, Joan Caulfield, Peggy Ann Garner, Lon McCallister, Lynn Bari, Peggy Cummins, Victure Mature, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Robert Hutton, Martha Vickers, and Bette Davis.
As to be expected, I suppose, the most named Christmas story was Christmas Carol. My favorite was Jack Carson’s answer:
A story translated from Norwegian — doesn’t remember the name.
Maybe it was a translation of the Norwegian translation of A Christmas Carol.
My favorite answers were the ones naming their best-remembered gift.
Van Johnson’s:
His first fan, a mid-western Scandinavian grandmother, sent him a pair of Arguyle socks she herself knit. Because of his grateful thanks, she has kept his supplied with socks ever since.
Lucille Ball’s:
About ten years ago she was seriously injured — paralyzed — in an automobile accident. At Christmas everyone gave her gifts for an invalid — except her mother. Mother Ball gave her a new bicycle, and with it the assurance that she would walk again.
Jack Carson’s:
A puppy, part collie and part German shepherd. He was eight years old and living in Milwaukee. “I’ve never had a gift that thrilled me more.”
For what it’s worth, Bette Davis had “no specially-remembered gift.” Neither did Victor Mature — however, he was “emphatic about what he wants this Christmas; a new house! Victor, like thousands of other Americans, is desperate for a home.”
The whole this is as post-war American as pie.
The photo used on the first page is of Margaret O’Brien and “Butch” Jenkins who appeared together in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, discussing “the possibility of Santa getting down the Jenkins chimney.”
Jane Powell, Roddy MacDowell, George Murphy (and son Denny with train set), and Diana Lynn appear in photos on the second page.
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