Ad from cover of pressbook
When he was sixteen, Ralph Meeker received a payment of ten dollars for playing the accordion in a Chicago cafe. The applause which rang into his ears at the finish of his first number, "Dinah," made him decide once and for all that show business was his business.
He has never reneged on that decision, even in tough times when he had to work as a gas-meter checker to pay the room rent, or to hock his accordion to make a down payment on a suit in which to audition for an acting part.
Meeker, a product of Minneapolis, Minnesota, attended Northwestern University, and spent his summers as an athletic instructor (an all-around athlete, he stands six-feet, one-inch high). After war service in the Navy, he served his theatrical apprenticeship in some seventy stock company offerings, then achieved his Broadway debut in "Dough Girls." He then went to Italy with the USO production of "Ten Little Indians," and on his return appeared successively in "Design for Living, " "Strange Fruit," "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Mr. Roberts."
When Marlon Brando prepared to leave the cast of "A Streetcar Named Desire," Director Joshua Logan introduced Meeker to Irene Mayer Selznick, producer of "Streetcar," as a potential replacement for the steller male role. The actor read for the part, worked for six weeks before landing the job, then played the role for three months in New York and for another nine months on the road.
That the movies should now seek out Mr. Meeker was inevitable. He made his film debut in "Teresa," which brought the young Italian actress, Pier Angeli, into the limelight, then played one of the four of "Four in a Jeep." Now signed to a long-term contract by M-G-M, he makes his first screen appearance for that company in a tensely dramatic role in "Shadow in the Sky," which will be shown at the . . . . . Theatre this week.
That the nation's universities are now turning out a bumper crop of actors is evidenced in the four-star cast of M-G-M's new drama, "Shadow in the Sky," currently on view at the . . . . . Theatre. Ralph Meeker, Nancy Davis, James Whitmore and Jean Hagen are all college or university graduates. \
Ralph Meeker, foaled by the course in drama at Northwestern University, shed business administration, physical education and teaching courses before finding his niche in the classrooms teaching drama. He maintains that the theatrical know-how acquired at the university bolstered his confidence to the point of making him try out for the job of Marlon Brando's understudy in "A Streetcar Named Desire." When Brando left the cast, Meeker took over the male starring role for three months on Broadway and six months on the road. It was his outstanding work in this play, as well as his subsequent film performance in "Teresa" which won him an M-G-M contract.
Daughter of an actress, god-daughter of the celebrated Alla Nazimova , Nancy Davis attacked her drama course at Smith College with the concentrated application that an engineering student might give to the study of physics. The results are manifest. In two short years and seven pictures, she has become one of M-G-M's most promising younger stars with hit roles in "The Doctor and the Girl," "Shadow on the Wall," "The Next Voice You Hear . . ." and "Night Into Morning."
James Whitmore concentrated on a curriculum of classic drama at Yale University before appearing with the Yale Drama School players. He broadened his theatrical sphere by spearheading the development of the Yale radio stations, of which he was a student founder. The acting bug, which hit him during his New Haven days, stung again when he returned from service with the Marine Corps after World War II. After scoring on Broadway in "Command Decision," he has achieved wide success on the screen in such pictures as "Battleground," "The Asphalt Jungle" and "The Next Voice You Hear . . ."
Jean Hagen, fourth of the stars in "Shadow in the Sky," is, like Ralph Meeker, a product of Northwestern University, and gives much of the credit for what she has accomplished in films to the thorough education she was exposed to at the university's drama school. Miss Hagen was lured to Hollywood following her hit on the Broadway stage in "The Traitor," and made her screen debut in "Side Street." She has recently been seen in "Night Into Morning" and "No Questions Asked."
Copyright 1952 by Loew's, Inc.
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