Elokuva-Aitta  

The interview with the Finnish-born TV star Marta Kristen by UPI correspondent Henry Gris did not go off as planned because Marta Kristen has been traveling. However, we've gotten information on Marta and her beautiful Hollywood home via telephone.

As devastating as it was for Helmi Rusanen to find her daughter, missing for 18 years, in Elokuva-Aitta, so was it also for Birgitta Anna-Lisa Rusanen, or Marta Kristen, to discover that her real mother had been found. She got the information from different sources - via United Press, Don Prince, advertising manager of Fox, Meiling von Hellens, a Finn living in Hollywood and via the letters and magazines that Elokuva-Aitta's editorial staff sent to her home address.

Marta Kristen was traveling at the time when the news arrived and she found it hard to respond to them from the distance. After she had returned to Los Angeles last Tuesday (6/6), Henry Gris, the office manager of UPI in Los Angeles went to see Marta and sent an exclusive interview to us at once. It did not arrive by the deadline for  this issue, so we will meet Marta in the next issue, telling in her own words how she feels now. We shall also publish a series of color photos of her home in Hollywood.

Hamilton Millard, an American photographer who knows Marta Kristen well, came to see us and his impression was that she will be delighted about news like this from Finland. Even though she had moved to America as a 5-years old and lived in a Norwegian professor's family, Marta always considered her to be a Finn and she's always wanted to know whether she has relatives in Finland.

Today Marta Kristen is a well doing as a young TV star. Her series "Lost in Space" is a very popular weekly show in America. Marta is proud of her Finnish origin. She looks very Scandinavian, blond hair and grey-blue eyes - so when Hamilton Millard met her for the first time, he immediately asked: "Are you Swedish or Finnish?". Marta's answer was: "Finnish".

Hamilton Millard met Marta in a cocktail party and his attention was drawn to the elegant and charming Marta. They had a long conversation and Marta told him that her mother is Finnish. Marta was very interested in Finland and that she probably had relatives here and that she hoped to visit the country that she had read about only. Millard told us that Marta is a very intelligent girl with natural behaviour, unaffected and "very Scandinavian". At that time Marta was getting married and living the happiest time of her life.

Marta Kristen has made her career as a TV star, but she's well-known also for the appearances in magazine covers and commercials. Marta is a slim and powerfully built girl; she has long, shapely legs and beautiful shoulders. Hamilton photographed Marta at her home and in the back yard garden. He had admired especially Marta's thick, long hair, so thick that he first thought it was a wig.

The editorial staff has been very excited about Marta Kristen's interview, but the most excited is Helmi Rusanen, her mother. She visited Elokuva-Aitta's office in Helsinki on her first day off from work and had a chance to see the photos that Hamilton Millard had taken of Marta.

"She looks just like one of my girls" said the mother, "her hair is lighter, but there's a lot resemblance in her face". Marta Kristen's blond, thick hair was subject to admiration in her mother. She and her daughters Margith, Sirpa and Paula also have beautiful hairs and the other daughters' resemblance to Marta Kristen is remarkable. Margith, for instance, has a quite similar smile as her sister from Hollywood, wide and good-humored.

"She looks sweet in these pictures", concluded Helmi Rusanen on Marta Kristen, "and her home is beautiful, too". She has sometimes wondering about the living conditions of Birgitta Anna-Lisa and if everything was alright with her. Now that she has found out that her daughter is doing well, she can relax. Mothers are always concerned about their children, whatever their path is, even if one has been lost , one cannot forget.

The thoughts of her daughter, lost as a child and living so far away are hard to verbalize. Probably Marta Kristen is shocked about the news, but also relieved, because the issue has been resolved: her real mother lives in Finland. Only Marta Kristen knows what her feelings and thoughts are. Interviews and how they are conducted are affected by many factors - studio bosses, for example, carefully calculate what "sells" and what does not. Marta Kristen's popularity has continuously increased.

In the next issue, there will be the Marta Kristen interview by Henry Gris. Helmi Rusanen will most likely receive mail from Hollywood soon after that.

 

Helmi Rusanen visited Elokuva-Aitta's office and saw the photos that Hamilton Millard had taken of her daughter Marta Kristen. "Reminds me quite a lot of my daughters" was her comment.

Many thanks to Teuvo Levomäki of Eura, FInland for his translation!