Miss Ritter Said What About 'Titanic'?

Chicago Tribune, August 23, 1954, s. 2, p. 9, c. 1 (with photo of Miss Ritter):

FRONT VIEW & PROFILES

By Lucy Key Miller

Love Affair

Thelma Ritter confesses to a small love affair with Alfred Hitchcock, who directed her for the first time in Rear Window, opening Sept. 3 at the Chicago theater. But the romance was really an on camera mutual admiration society, with the principals glowing with pride about each others work.

The rotund Mr. Hitchcock, rapidly dieting his familiar watermelon contours into slimmer, cigar shaped lines, even offered to give Thelma his old girdlesas a token of his esteem. But he won her undying devotion, she says, during a trying scene when she blew her lines. Said the director calmly, You are high strung, arent you? Well, just remember, this is only a motion picture!

He never mentioned that only a motion picture was costing only 3 million dollars! marveled Miss Ritter, who bounced into Chicago long enough for lunch at the Pump room, before leaving for Hollywood and a apart in a new movie called Susan Gallant.

Little Miss Ritter

Little Miss Ritter may change roles on the screen as often as a debutante changes costumes, but she herself stays the samean effervescent, cheery scene stealer with a contagious smile and a heart as warm as her New York accent is down to earth and twangy.

A former child actress who got her education out of a trunk backstage, Thelma hopes her two teen-agers will wait a while before following her into the theater, but her own career is a happy one, and every part she plays intrigues her more than the last.

One of her favorites was in Titanic, where she was cast as the Unsinkable Mrs. Browna fabulous and legendary character who really existed. Mrs. Brown was the wife of a Colorado gold miner who sold a rich claim for $150,000, dumped the cash in her lap, and went forth to celebrate.

The Unsinkable

When he and some convivial cronies returned to the Browns shack, high in the Rocky mountains, they lit a fire in the stoveand burned up the fortune Mrs. Brown had hidden there for safe keeping.
But gold continued to flow from the hills into the miners pockets, and he always was generous with his wife. When Denver society would have no part of her, Mrs. Brown went to Europe, becoming the toast of the continent which had never seen anyone quite like her. On her way home, she almostbut not quitewent down with the Titanic. She was wearing an eagle shaped diamond pin the size of a soup plate, at the time, and a priceless chinchilla coat. But her courage and strength saved the passengers in her lifeboat, and earned her the title of the Unsinkable Mrs. Brown. She was a woman after Thelma Ritters own heart.

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