| The following article is from "TV Yearbook" 1955 |
One evening after a particularly strenuous day, when she had put in fourteen hours of work, non-stop, a bystander who had observed her for fifteen minutes laid a sympathetic hand on Jane Froman saying, 'My poor dear, you must be simply worn out after all this.' "Worn out!" said Jane derisively in her deep, musical voice, which definitely conveys purpose and strength of mind. "Follow me around some time, sister--and see if you can keep up the pace!" Keeping her appointment for our interview right on time, Jane strode into the drawing room of her home on East 93rd Street, New York City, a house she bought two years ago and is still in the process of furnishing with antiques she collects from all over the world. She was wearing a tailored purple velvet dress which showed her trim figure to advantage. She greeted us warmly. "I'm like any other working person. After a long day on my feet, I get tired. When I did a Berle show recently, I worked on Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., on Saturday from ten to six, Monday nine to six, and on Tuesday, the day of the show, I was singing songs before the camera at 7:45 a.m. and went straight through until eight or nine. "That's why I say to these people who ask me 'How's your health?' and look at me with such concern, "Just follow me around!" Of course, I get tired just like any normal person. If I'm out in the snow or damp weather, my leg aches, like any broken bones in cold weathr. But I have no more aches or pains that anyone else." Jane Froman does everything any fairly active person does. She plays golf, she dances, she swims, she walks and she drives a car (but not much, because living in New York, it's easier for her to get around by taxi.) She does one TV program a week--it used to be two--as well as guest appearances on other shows and special events. And she has played at the Flamingo, Las Vegas, in between. |
| "I'm off the TV program in June and July, will spend a month playing golf--I began with three and got up to eight holes last summer. This summer I will get up to fifteen, sixteen and eighteen again. It's been tiring, sure. I hadn't played golf in ten years. "I began dancing again about two years ago--on the Berle show. I did my first step with Milton. If you know Mr. Berle, you'd understand. He says, 'Let's do this'--it's all spontaneous, and I was into it before I even knew it." After paying more than $350,000 in doctors' and medical bills, Jane Froman would like to forget the tears and the sympathy. She wants to be respected as a performer and not, as so many would have it, as a former heroine. She is grateful for the burden that debt for doctors and hospital care placed upon her, for with it, she says, " I would have succumbed to my misery, and misery feeds on misery." "Having to work, to pay my way, was the best tonic for me--and made me take those steps which led to my recovery. "It made me self-reliant from the beginning. If I hadn't had to get up I'd have stayed home and coddled myself and really become an invalid. And nothing could have been worse than that. "I'm from Missouri--mule-stubborn. Once I got started I was not going to give in. Besides, I realized I'd have been lazier, slower and become warped feeling sorry for myself. That's always the problem for anyone in a cast or on crutches. The instinct is to coddle oneself. "Today the doctors try to get patients on their feet at the earliest possible moment; they keep them busy constructively with occupational therapy, and try to make them self-reliant. |