"Sure I like it. Swell role. Smooth script."
"Then what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Mary thought, he really has something on his mind, but because the baby is due, he won't tell me.
Finally, Dana came home one night so dejected he simply couldn't hide the fact. "I've got to talk something over with you," he sighed. "I've wanted to be one of the gang on the picture, I've wanted to mix. So when a game of gin rummy got started, I joined in. Well, I've been losing consistently. At first I kept telling myself I'd recoup the next day, but the next day I simply got in deeper. Now I owe a hundred and forty dollars."

To the Andrews at that time, it was a princely sum. It was rent and clothing and insurance payments. Mary could be excused for breaking into tears.
Instead, she chuckled; the chuckle grew into a giggle that expanded into laughter. "I'm so relieved! I was afraid that you were sick, or that things were going horribly at the studio, or you didn't love me anymore..."
Toward four that morning, Mary said to her husband, "Honey, I think we'd better go to the hospital."
So Dana hopped into some clothes and turned around to find his wife combing her hair into an elaborate upsweep. She had put on makeup, a pretty dress, and gave every evidence of being on her way to a luncheon instead of the delivery room.
Dana said, "Hey, you didn't have to do all that. Look at me, pants pulled over pajamas, top coat over pajama jacket, slippers over bare feet! Come on, woman, let's go!"

Modern Screen magazine, Jan 1946 cont'd

The nurse took Mary's history and ushered her into a small room with the blithe sentence, "It will be several hours yet, Mrs. Andrews." So Mary ordered Dana to drive the car beneath her window, lie down on the car cushions and try to sleep.He tried. But every time Mary moved he heard her. "Mary, do you want me?" She would say, "Go to sleep, you! I'm all right. If you don't rest, you won't be able to give a good performance tomorrow." Said Dana, "Damn the picture. Do you need me?" Said Mary, "I'll make a fuss the instant I need you."

But it was the doctor who, after having given Mary an injection, came down to Dana. "If you want to see your youngster ushered into the world, come with me." So Dana was outfitted with a surgical mask, a sterile gown and rubber gloves, and had the precious experience of personally welcoming his daughter.

Afterward, he sat patiently at Mary's bedside until the effect of the anesthetic wore off. When Mary opened her eyes, Dana was grinning at her. "Well darling, we've got the girl we wanted," he said.
"Poor Dana -- you're going to be so tired today," Mary whispered.

The stork created even more excitement when Stephen Todd Andrews was born. At the time, Dana was working in "A Walk in the Sun" and

had been out on location. On this particular night, the instant Dana reached a local telephone, he called Mary. She said she was fine, the doctor had said that junior wouldn't arrive for ten days or so.  Two hours later, Dana called a second time, and again an hour later. Each time he told Mary where he was and where he would be. Each time Mary laughed lightly, "Ten days, dear, remember?"
Around one o'clock Mary phoned him, told him her suspicions, and had scarcely put down the phone and slid into a coat before he was running up the driveway.
This time Mary hadn't stopped to don makeup nor comb her hair. And she was wearing a coat over her nightgown, her feet thrust into slippers.

Dana, after a swift glance at Mary's face, tried to be helpful. "Last time YOU got all dressed up to go to the hospital, and I looked like a refugee; this time it's the opposite."
"Let's hurry," Mary said.
This time when the reached the hospital, Dana was told to wait in the paternal pacing room. Dana had just decided to slip out for a pack of cigarettes when the nurse put in a cheerful head to say, "You have a son, Mr. Andrews."
Dana's jaw dropped. "But we've only been here 20 minutes!"

but where are the zoos?. . .

This wasn't the only instance of Dana's being flabbergasted by his children. Like not long ago he promised to take Miss Kathy to the zoo on Sunday.
"What's a zoo?" demanded Kathy.
Dana explained: At the zoo one saw elephants and monkeys and bears.
Kathy was enchanted. She checked with Dana every day for two weeks as to the time of their visit. When at last they'd arrived, she asked, "Where's the zoo, Daddy?"
"Right here," said Daddy. "Now that animal is an elephant. Look at his long trunk; notice his big floppy ears."
They moved on to the monkeys. "But where are the zoos?" said Kathy.
Leading her to the bears, Dana said triumphantly, "And here darling, is a zoo." So Kathy Andrews is currently under the impression that a bear is a zoo; she is quite happy about the whole thing.

One Sunday a few months ago, Dana had taken the youngsters down to the beach; he, David (his son by his first marriage), and Kathy were riding the merry-go-round when he was noticed by a bobby-soxer. "Look," she said to her girlfriend, "there's Dana Andrews."
The girlfriend favord Dana with a haughty stare, then said, "You're crazy. That isn't Dana Andrews. What movie star would spend Sunday at the beach with a couple of kids?"
The fact that it was Dana, and that he was having the time of his life, tells a great deal about the man: His family is the most important thing in his life and he is calmly proud to admit it.

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