The very simple happiness of Virginia Mayo !
By Alan Webb, Ciné Télé Revue, 1987	Home   Cette page en Français

"If I were younger, I would certainly try to seduce Don Johnson", smiles Virginia Mayo. "But I am not young any more, it is impossible to change reality." The former fair sex-symbol of MGM is 66 years old and, sometimes, she still exert her charm on screen. Recently, Virginia Mayo reappeared for the first time after many years on the American television in episodes of Santa Barbara and the police show Murder, She Wrote. But in her life, she is satisfied today with the simple and discrete role of grandmother. For about fifteen years, she shares her house in Thousand Oaks, at about sixty kilometers from Hollywood, with her 35 years old daughter, Mary Catherine, her son-in-law, and her three grandsons, Lucas, Evan and Dillon. She did not get married again since the death of actor Michael O'Shea, her husband during twenty years.

"And I do not think that I will get married again. I do not quite simply see with whom. It seems that I do not fall so easily in love. I always had very strict criteria and, it is necessary to face things, all the men who deserve this name are already taken (laughs). Then, when it sometimes happens to me to dream of romance, I wonder whether I would have still the energy to live a new adventure. It is possible finally that love is not for my age any more !" At the time of her glory, Virginia Mayo played with Kirk Douglas, James Cagney, Rex Harrison. She was the star of The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946, of The Flame and the Arrow with Burt Lancaster and the favorite partner of Danny Kaye.

Today, this Hollywood goddess thus spends her days to care of her grandchildren, to read and paint superb paintings exposed at her home, or to militate for the whales... "They are splendid animals and if we continue to massacre them, the species will disappear forever. I am persuaded that the protests of the friends of the animals can have results. At a certain time, in the Philippines, they tortured poor dogs like in Korea. The government received thousands of letters saying : "Wether you stop that or we will do everything so that the United States break all relations with your country." In the three months, tortures ceased !"

Virginia Mayo is satisfied with her simple happinesses. Obviously, into growing old, you worry more about money. "I would sometimes wish to have been more provident and to be able to offer luxury to my family. But personally, I do not have big needs and I have the enormous chance to be in good health. I cannot complain. There are so many old and sick people, this is pathetic. And when, moreover, you do not have any money, this must be a terrible situation."