Word: ros
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Despite the confident surface, her friends insist that Ros is a chronic worrier who sometimes gives way to spells of brooding and sudden tears. Her religion (Roman Catholic) bulks large in her life, and she is apt to describe her favorite priests as "living saints." But to religion, as to everything else, she brings a measure of humorous detachment: she once dubbed her flossy Beverly Hills parish church "Our Lady of the Cadillacs." She is a tireless do-gooder and works actively for some 30 charitable and civic activities. Usually she volunteers for the least popular job of all-raising...
...Ros was brought up in a pleasant 13-room Victorian house, trimmed with gargoyles and stained glass. She had three lively brothers and three pretty sisters, a father who was full of ideas (children should have "all the freedom that is compatible with good manners, ethical conduct, and family honor"), a peppery mother, and a sentimental, 200-lb. Irish cook to run to whenever a spanking threatened...
...family dinner table, Ros sat opposite a buffet mirror and practiced crossing her eyes and making the faces that she had found surefire in attracting her father's attention. She played billiards on the third floor with her brothers, and harmonized in the music room with her sisters. She beat out hot rhythms on her brother's trap drum and played aggressive solos on kazoo, ukulele and banjo. She admired and envied her stately older sister Clara ("The Duchess"), and made life both miserable and exciting for her younger sisters, Mary Jane and Josephine. Mary Jane recalls...
...Ros enlisted early in the war between the sexes. In proving herself the equal of the neighborhood boys, she broke her left leg jumping out of a hayloft, her left wrist falling off a wall, her left collarbone tripping over a curb, her left arm twice-once falling off a horse, the other time when she was pushed off a chair. At summer camp, she was forever winning the cup as the best all-around athlete. When she was a freckled, scrawny 13, she put in a solid three months' practice on her diving to capture the championship...
Except that she "always wanted to be the boss of everything," Ros showed no particular early theatrical bent. She went to convent schools (Notre Dame Academy in Waterbury and Marymount College in Tarrytown-on-Hudson, N.Y.), and found she could get passing grades without half trying. Instead of going ice-skating on winter afternoons, she sneaked off to sigh at Rudolph Valentino movies...