marriage but Dinah's determined that it won't rob her of her children's love, too
"I used to sing a song called 'I'm Too Busy.' "
she answered. "It tells of a mother who asks
where her children are. Suddenly she realizes
it was 20 years ago since they played around
the house that they're gone! She'd been too
busy even to learn how to play with them. One
day I looked around and found myself in the
same situation as the woman I'd been singing
about. Missy was 14 and in high school a
beautiful, wonderful young lady. I wanted to
get to know her and spend time with her before
it was too late. And Jody was growing up, too;
he was getting so tall and big, and was going
into the second grade.
"A career in television is very demanding.
While at the studio I used to say, 'I want to
be sure I'm home when Missy and Jody get
there.' When I got home, I'd feel I had left
everything undone at the studio. I was always
thinking I should be somewhere else. I never
seemed to be around in an emergency and
whenever children need you, it's an emergency.
"Missy would come home from school with some
emotional problem, and I wasn't there to listen
and give her advice when she needed it most.
By the time she saw me at 6 o'clock, she'd
talked it over with someone else.
"Nowadays, the demands on my time are
Missy's and Jody's. It isn't just going to PTA
meetings, and getting up and having breakfast
together. It's that vital moment when you have
to be there, or you don't get another crack at
it. If I miss those precious moments, Iwon't
have been a real mother."
Her Own Childhood Not Happy
There's another reason why Dinah is making
an effort to be close to her children. "I was
never close to my own mother. She was very
popular, very outgoing a champion golfer, an
expert bridge player, a member of all the PTAs.
She was always tied up with so many things.
But there was never a time when she and I
sat together and just talked. She died when I
was 14; yet the only thing I can remember is
that she kept me from doing everything I want
ed to do. I don't want Missy and Jody to re
member me like that."
There has been speculation that Dinah's deci
sion was influenced by romantic motives. One
source had her engaged to a New York carpet
manufacturer, another to a good-looking tennis
pro and building contractor, Maurice Smith.
Dinah emphatically denied any seriousness
about the manufacturer but readily admitted
that Smith was her constant companion.
Asked point-blank whether she planned to
marry him within the next month as had been
reported, she answered, "I really don't know,
but I do know that I'm not the kind of person
who could ever stay single; the children need
someone, and I need someone. But I haven't
made any definite plans to get married. I want
it to be exactly right." She hesitated. "I was
so sure everything was right before you can't
be impulsive at my age."
Dinah admitted that her professional life
might have caused her marriage with George
Montgomery to fail, but she insists she is not
through with her career for good. "I may do
an occasional special, and I love doing club
dates and other personal appearances. But I
don't think guest shots are fun, and right now
I don't even want to think about doing a regular
weekly tv show again."
Dinah often had considered quitting tv.
"When Missy was born, I really didn't want to
work any more. But people around me said, 'It
doesn't take that much time.'
"I always live for whatever I'm doing at the
moment. When I work, I love every minute of
it. When I'm not working, I feel I never want
to go back. That's probably why I didn't realize
how much time my career took away from my
family until I became aware how much my
children resented it.
"Shortly after Missy learned to talk, I took
her for a ride one day. While driving along,
she suddenly objected to my singing in the car.
Dinah's main goal today is to spend more time
with children Jody and Missy, now 9 and H.
'Don't, Mommy, please don't sing,' she pleaded
and started to cry. 'When Mommy sing, Mommy
go to the studio.'
"When she was a little older, we went to New
York's Madison Square Garden one day. People
kept leaning over her, passing papers to me to
sign right in front of her face. Finally she
stood up, put her hands on her hips, and shout
ed : 'She's not Dinah Shore today, she's my Mom,
so please leave her alone!' I nearly died."
Missy didn't even like Dinah to pick her up
at school in Beverly Hills, because the other
children would invariably point out, "Hey, your
Mom's outside." But Dinah does it in Palm
Springs, and Missy doesn't mind as much. "May
be it's because here her friends don't seem to
care," Dinah said.
Surprisingly, Dinah feels that her voluntary
retirement will help her mature as a person.
"A performer is like a child who has to be
praised all the time, and if you prolong that
feeling and give praise for every little thing,
that child never matures. It hurts me deeply to
be criticized, as it does a child.
"Actually, the press has been very kind to
me. The only criticism was that I supposedly
appeared 'too good' on my show. I never meant
for people to get that picture of me. I get as
tired and angry as anyone else. But when I
do, I don't throw hairbrushes, as one writer
recently claimed. I get coldly silent and stiff.
"But not on my show! That would be entirely
contrary to the way I was brought up. My
parents never quarreled in front of strangers;
they taught me that undue display of anger
was rudeness and upset other people. But they
did quarrel in front of me till I was embar
rassed. Sometimes I'd hear such terrible scenes
between them that I would sit and shake. That's
why I never brought my own problems home."
"I'm Crying for You, Mommy I"
Dinah tried hard to hide the difficulties be
tween her and George from the children. In
retrospect, she is not sure it was wise. "I
have learned it is not necessarily scarring to a
child's psyche to see such emotions. I have
seen friends bare their feelings in front of their
children, and it hasn't hurt the children."
Dinah will never forget how Missy and Jody
reacted when they found out she was leaving
George. "They're used to this kind of thing
out here because so many of their friends come
from divorced homes, but they found it hard to
believe it was happening to our family. When
I told Missy about it, she started to cry. I told
her to go ahead and have a good cry, that I had,
too." But Dinah was stunned into silence when
her daughter sobbed, "I'm not crying for me,
Mommy I'm crying for you!"
After all that has happened to Dinah in re
cent months, after the self-reproach, the unhap
piness, and now the struggle for readjustment,
would she want her children to follow their par
ents into show business?
"Missy is tremendously talented," Dinah rea
soned. "She paints and dances. But right now
she is so fascinated by being a teen-ager, she's
not interested in a career. But if she wants it,
that's fine. I have no apologies for having been
in show business. As for Jody, he wants to wear
the same kind of T shirt as the other boys and
have the handlebars on his bike turned just as
they do he just doesn't want to be different
I'm not worried about them any more; they're
going to be all right"
And so, by all indications, will Dinah. Her
decision to take time off from work seems to
be the wisest choice she has made in years!
family Wt.klir, May it, IM1