Eddie and Debbie Biggest Of Real-life Romances In Live and Hisses Year

By Louella Parsons
(Friday, December 31, 1954, Toronto Daily Star)

(Anaheim, Calif. July 8) - It's been a year of many surprises in both the love and hisses departments.

Without any doubt, the biggest love story of '54 is the romance of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds who so caught the imagination of the public that their every "date" became a news story. Biggest divorce was the bombshell parting of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio when supposedly they were very happy. Most unexpected engagement, Pier Angeli and Vic Damone, just when everyone believed Pier to be very much in love with new actor James Dean.

Best kept secret - Linda Darnell's admission in August that she and wealthy brewer Philip Liebmann had been secretly wed since February.

Greatest loss to the industry - the passing of the deeply beloved Lionel Barrymore. First "headlined death of the year" - Countess Dorothy di Frasso's, on a train coming from Las Vegas.

By far the most expensive wedding of many years was that of Jack Benny's daughter, Joan, to eastern socialite Seth Baker, at the Beverly Hills hotel.

The greatest personal tragedy befell lovely Suzan Ball, whose leg was amputated in mid-January, but the gods were not completely turned away from her, for '54 brought her love and marriage to Dick Long.

"Most eclipsed star" of the year could be none other than Rita Hayworth, Dick Haymes' wife, who was in retirement helping shoulder his troubles as well as her own in her long drawn out battle with Aly Khan over their daughter.

More "confirmed bachelors" fell by the wayside than in many, many movie years. Robert Taylor married Ursula Theiss; Peter Lawford, Pat Kennedy, Kirk Douglas and French publicist Ann Buydens; Pat Nerney and Jane Powell; Jim Stack and Wanda Hendrix; John Wayne and Pilar Pallette; Fred MacMurray and June Haver eloped to Ojal; Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn were married in Europe; artist Paul Clemens and Eleanor Packer; Guy Madison and Sheila Connolly.

After one of the longest engagements on record, Mitzi Gaynor married Jack Bean.

While Marilyn and Joe were the "top" divorce news, 1954 also saw the end of the marriages of the Victor Matures; Jane Wyman and Freddie Karger; Betty Hutton and Charles O'Curran; Tyrone Power and Linda Christian; the Edmund Purdoms; Shelley Winters and Vittorio Cassman. Ava Gardner went to Reno to shed Frank Sinatra, but never actually filed suit.

Most publicized baby of the year was the boy born to Ann Blyth and Dr. Jim McNulty. And not far behind was the attention caused by the arrival of a baby to Eve Arden ('Our Miss Brooks"), who welcomed her first child into a family of three adopted youngsters. Dated by the stork during '54 were Rosemary Clooney (Mrs. Jose Ferrer), Judy Garland (Mrs. Sid Luft) for the third time, and Ursula Theiss (Mrs Bob Taylor).

Throughout the park are a thousand typical Disney touches - scaled-down operating railroads, both passenger and freight; a blacksmith shoeing horses, and bending nails into rings; a remarkable collection of nickelodeons -- one a fantastic German antique that simulates a twenty-piece band - to lend the old-time flavor. On the eve of the New Year, Gene Tierney answered Buddy Adler's call to return to Hollywood to co-star with Humphrey Bogart in "The Left Hand of God" with a yes. She arrives in February.

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