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Show to write notes to them furiously' After the operations, Junevisited Jierchil- dren- at summer camp near Carmel, Calif., and found added trouble. While preparing for bed, June felt faintly ill. She blamed it on the snails she had had for dinner. Half an hour later, feeling very ill, she de- - I used - cided she either had influenza or food poisonnause-'5u- s, ing. An hour later, dizzy and violently with a horrible pain in the small of her back, she telephoned for the house doctor. She remembers the doctor and Dickwhom the operator had called arriving together. But after Jhat, as her temperature shot up, she was not conscious of anything. For a time, doctors did' not think she would recover. Poison had seeped into her blood stream. Dick had to be in the studio every day. But he kept in hourly touch by telephone, and every night he flew up to visit her. June Gets a Gift - When she was convalescing, he asked, "What would you like most in the world?" please," she told him. "I love that place, truly. I won't be able to do much. But I can sit in my suite and have my meals sentl up ancUvatch TV. And I can walk in the park." New York had to wait for a few weeks, until "she coulcTgetTPam and Rick ready for school, but June got her wish. "The first week Dick was in New York, too," June recalls. "Then he had to go on the road for his television show. "He works too hard," June adds. "I used to ask him why. It was a stupid question. I know from my own experience, how it is: when the ball starts rolling, you can't stop it." "Everything Richard touches becomes something so good that it takes all his time and strength to keep it going. Often, during our marriage, he would be traveling. And frequently he got home so late that I didn't see him.' The intensity of Dick Powell's ambition and d his deep respect for moneyhave been gossip ever since he, was married to Joan Blondell. No woman married to aman as absorbed in his work as Dick is could fal to feel neglected, and June is not the woman to accept neglect. She's an actress, with an actress' ego. JKolly-woo- For years, she was the pampered darling of where her every effort Metro-Goldwyn-May- er, isoolaudedHer -- "work-us- ed tooccupy-ner time and mind, feed her ego, and absorb her energy. Hadshfr not qu it work, had she left her volatile temperament at the studio instead of bringing it home, it is quite possible the Powells' problems would not have increased. Their friends never have talen sides. It is as if they couldn't bring themselves to take this divorce seriously. Whenever they can't reach June on the telephone, they call Dick. He almost, always knows where she is. And vice versa. If they invite Dick to a party, they know he'll bring June. And again, vice versa. It was in June's suite at the Plaza, overlooking New York's Central Park, that I saw her. Her bedroom with striped wallpaper, quilted flowered chintz, white antiqued furniture, and livpale chairs looked like a pink bonbon. Her ing room with a red and white decor, faintly Chinese and Chippendale, had a large portable TV. There were flowers everywhere. And the con- glow of coals in the grate was a, cheerful trasCtotheinterJayutside It Is a Hopeful Separation When the talk turned to the children, June feelsaid, "I don't think Pam or Rick have any ing that we're a broken family. Weekends, whenever he can, Richard takes them on the boat. Whenever I've been ill or away, he has moved right in with them. And they must see how fond we still are of each other. "After the separation, I didn't send them away to school. I was with them, every minute. I drove them to school, took Rick to' his tennis lessons, Pam to the stables, "When I was in New York, Richard would put them on the plane to come to me, and I would put them on the plane to go back home with " -- presents for him. "It was," she continued, "the first time following the separation that we all met Richard at the airport when those dreadful headlines ap- peared ' June Kisses Dick. Divorce Still On "I suppose the children and I shouldn't have 'Argone to the airport. But when Dick wired,' riving so and so. Meet me I called to Pam and" Rick, 'Come along. We're going to meet Daddy A friend who was with June when that wire : arrived suggested that for her to go dashing off to meet Dick was not the norm. 4'-4i" JntiR asked .inditrnantlv- - "I shouldn't go to meet my husband?" vnij-mpj- in She was reminded that, technically, Dick was . her husband no longer. "Well," she said, exasperated, "he's still the children's father! So, all right; I'm taking the children to meet their father!" The day we saw June she wore a fleecy white robe with a "little stand-u- p collar. She had the crisp, scrubbed look she made famous. "I wonder sometimes," she "said, "if, instead bathrobe, of being the girl in an old terry-clot- h -- I was a little alluring and mysterious. But I have a feeling Richard would die laughing. "And my taste just doesn't run that way. The other day when I went shopping for a winter suit I determined to choose something a little seductive, at least. "And look what I bought!" . I followed her into tne Dearoom. spread uuv on one of the twin beds was a simple suit of biue wool with a" small, black-min- k collar, as typicauy dune uiysun as uie x ci i au vunoio she used to wear. Also on that bed was one of the signs which hotels provide for guests to hang on the door. Big block letters said: "Do Not Disturb." MT lrAAn f ttiava '! Tuna fivnla i'tidH "on fViA mniH won't turn the covers every night." bed that isn't to be occupied A turned-dow- n can be a lonely sight I could understand why June preferred to have it made up and to spread on it the new suit in which she would be flying back to California, where Pam and Rick, and Dick, too, maybe, would be waiting for her. ; "I wish I could tell you what the outcome of all this will be she said. "I wish I knew myself. The time is getting very short. "Our trouble seems to be that we can't live with each other or without each other." She gave the "Do Not Disturb" sign a nudge. more of Richard, actually, since the . "I've seen ..... t divorce tnan I did wnen we were marnea. Ana lately we seem to enjoy greater accord. This ' much, at. least, is hopeful!" If the Powells become a divorce statistic, it won't be because they didn't fight and fight hard to save their marriage. .... m A effort at understanding and reconciliation prevented this last step. Family Weekly, January 28, 1962 .' 11 |