Person Page 391

Constance Dowling
24 July 20 is born in New York City. Her sister Doris also became an Actor.
Early 40s
works at the New Theatre School to pay for her acting classes; there she meets Shelley Winters and they become good friends.
auditions with Shelley to become a Copa Girl and gets the job for about a month. She will remember it being worse than modeling.
she and Shelley end up as ushers for $1 a performance at the Belasco Theater
she and Shelley occasionally work during the cocktail hour at Schrafft's, where they get their dinners free
11 September 40 - 2 January 41 stars in Al Jolson’s last Broadway show, Hold on to Your Hats, at the Shubert Theatre
30 October 40 - 3 January 42 stars at Broadway’s 46th Street Theatre in Panama Hattie
44 while filming Knickerbocker Holiday with Nelson Eddy, he doesn’t want her to look into his eyes when they do a scene together and insists she look at his forehead instead.
? hates being a Goldwyn Girl
45
Goldwyn drops her in favor of newcomer Virginia Mayo.
has a very posh apartment on North Sycamore
entertains at the Hollywood Canteen and does USO shows at hospitals
starts a long, painful love affair with married director Elia Kazan, who can't give her up nor divorce his wife
47 moves to Rome with her sister, Actor Doris Dowling. They are the first Hollywood actresses to work in Italy permanently.
Late 40s
makes a brief trip back to New York. There she stays at the Algonquin Hotel and meets Shelley; they flirt with Broadway playboys and sports columnists.
dates old friends like Stanley Prager and some famous postwar novelists and playwrights
? while in Rome, she learns to speak Italian fluently, has a beautiful apartment, and mingles with the intelligentsia of Europe: Sartre, Moravia, Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, Robert Capa, and George Bernard Shaw.
? starts a torrid love affair with famous writer Cesare Pavese

27 August 50, Pavese commits suicide with sleeping pills after the love affair ends; a big scandal follows. Pavese fatally linked love to morbidity. His final poetry collection, found on his desk after death, is significantly entitled "Death will Come and (She) Will Have Your Eyes." “Death," a feminine noun in Italian, is associated with Constance.
51 returns to the States
51 becomes sister-in-law to band leader Artie Shaw, who marries her sister Doris
c. 52 hangs around the Actors Studio and lives in a small apartment on the East Side of New York . Shelley convinces her to return to Los Angeles, where her family is waiting for her, and to try to resume her Hollywood career. It takes her about 3 hours to pack all her belongings and close her apartment. Shelley changes her first-class ticket to two tourist-class passages.
52 is originally chosen for the part for which Colette Marchand will be nominated for an Academy Award in Moulin Rouge
? marries Ivan Tors, a Hungarian-born writer and producer. They will have four sons.
11 September 54 her son Michael Anthony is born in Los Angeles
27 December 55 her son Steven Lawrence is born in Los Angeles
26 January 57 her son Peter A. is born in Los Angeles
14 April 61 her son David I. is born in Los Angeles
60s works as a guide at the Dolphin Laboratory in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
28 October 69 as Constance D. Tors, she dies at age 49 in Los Angeles, California, of cardiac arrest. Her husband and sons are surviving.
Author: Anonymous. Sources: www.Ancestry.com.