◆ SpookStack

ee eeress' And 1 a fact overlooked last | A tenene television audience apparently thirsty for the nostalgia of the early 1930’s as for the nostalgia of the Old . West—has taken care of Stack’s wor- _ ¥tes about “dynamics.” -__ Hollywood gossip writers have de~ ” seribed the off-screen Stack as “good- natured,” “stubborn,” “determined.” - He developed the last two qualities in _ self-defense. He is a home-town boy,. whose career began tamely in 1939, In “First Love,” his first role, he gave Deanna Durbin her first screen kiss. . Universal was charmed but not overly” impressed, and assigned its wavy- haired 20-year-old a number of “ten- _ his-racket” roles, in which Bob recalls . that he mainly bounded on screen to . ask, “Where's everyone? 1s tea ready.” Stack is the first to confess the parts: fit. He is the son of the late J. Lang- ford Stack, a wealthy Los Angeles advertising executive, and a fifth-gen- “eration member of one of California's first families. His great-grandfather opened Los Angeles’ first theater; he is a nephew of baritone Richard Bon- elli. (Stack, incidentally, is married to the former Rosemarie Bowe, an ac- tress. They’re the parents of a daugh- ter born Jan. 20, 1957, and a son born ’ May 22, 1958.) At the time he kissed - Deanna Durbin, Stack, an ex-Univer- sity of Southern California student, had a three-goal rating at polo. Five years in the Navy interrupted all that, and Stack returned to Holly- observes, “you have to skate upside : Gown on one finger, playing "God Bless as’? \ Ameries’ on the Karmanioa and bale = ancing Jayne Mansfield on one foot.” Stack figures that he performed com- parable feats with postwar roles like the psychotic playboy in “Written on the Wind.” He admits now that he © : erred in sizing up Eliot Ness as lack- | ~ ing the vividness of such “The script wasn’t roles. thing,” he concluded. “J was leaving something out. I was forgetting the audience. They love this guy, and no wonder. Here's a Government agent making $50 a week and turning downy $5000 a week to lay off the mob. I underestimated the appeal of the period, too. Ness is a hero with free- | dom. It’s all in the past, like a Western, . “po anything goes. It’s not like this _ pany owns a share of The Untouch- - “> -~ ‘eet “hea for sophisticated day ‘and age when you all he can do to blow his nose.” Except for Playhouse 90, a Producers - Showcase and a couple of half-hour filmed Stack had done very little TV. “I wasn't snobbish toward it,” he says. “I just preferred doing pictures. It's less back- wor! Since The Untouchables, however, - Stack has formed Langford Produc- tions, Inc., with his agent and a busi nesiman friend as partners. The com- ables and plans to develop other ‘Prop erties as future TV series. any- 2 2,