The Theater: The Trouper

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"Pitiless and overwhelming . . ." Yet, as a play, Sheba was not a success. It ran only 90 performances, far below par in a year containing such hit, such hits as The Happy Time, Guys and Dolls, Call Me Madam, The Member of the Wedding and The Cocktail Party. But Shirley's Lola had a haunting effect on playgoers that lasted beyond the fall of the final curtain. Shirley captured every acting award in sight (New York Drama Critics' Circle, Antoinette Perry, Newspaper Guild, Donaldson, Barter). In the movie version of Sheba, she broke all precedents by winning the coveted Academy Award Oscar on her very first Hollywood try. The judges at this year's Cannes International Film Festival wrapped it up neatly by simply calling Shirley "the world's best actress."

Highest in History. This week on an 8,560-ft. mountainside in Colorado, Shirley is spinning the same theatrical magic that has made her beloved in the canyons of Manhattan. Drama-minded Coloradans and vacationers from every part of the U.S. are crowding the 75-year-old Central City Opera House to applaud Shirley Booth in her most recent Broadway hit, Arthur Laurents' The Time of the Cuckoo, the story of a virginal business girl named Leona Samish, who trips over her own moral standards on an Italian vacation.

The advance sale for the play was the biggest in Central City's history, topping even such box-office attractions as Helen Hayes. Mae West and Katharine Cornell. Shirley's 12½% of the gross equals the highest salary ever paid a star in the "summer theater capital of the U.S." This fall she goes to Hollywood to make her second movie. Viña Delmar's About Mrs. Leslie, the story of an amiable boardinghouse landlady. Then she will rush back to Broadway for rehearsals of a new musical, By the Beautiful Sea, which is being written to order for her by Herbert and Dorothy (Annie Get Your Gun) Fields. After more than a quarter-century as a second-stringer in the theater, Shirley Booth is now the hottest thing in show business. She is suddenly the first lady of the American stage and screen.

Why did it take so long? Theater people say it has been an open secret for years that Shirley is loaded with talent. Radio Agent Bill McCaffrey calls her "an actor's actress. What she does looks simple to the public. Only actors know how difficult it is? She's been through the crucible. This is the end result."

Rubens Without Sex. There is another theory: that Shirley has never been pretty enough to compete with the cuties. Playwright Laurents says that she was late in clicking because "she hasn't any glamour. She has no sex, because she thinks she has no sex. Yet sometimes she is actually beautiful. If you want to go wild, you can see her as a Rubens. But Shirley doesn't think she has it."