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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
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* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
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* *
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* Issue 30 -- June 1995 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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"The Sins of Hollywood: An Expose of Movie Vice"
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
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TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
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Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
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death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
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scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
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(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
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murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
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silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
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toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
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for accuracy.
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In the aftermath of the Taylor case there were many published revelations of
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scandal in Hollywood. The most prominent such collection during that time
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was the book THE SINS OF HOLLYWOOD: AN EXPOSE OF MOVIE VICE, published in May
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1922. Although real names were not used, most subjects are easily
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identified. Our conclusions regarding the identities of those subjects can
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be found in the endnotes (of course, the fact that the subjects can be
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identified does not mean that the incidents are true). The booklet was
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published anonymously, the author listed as simply "A Hollywood Newspaper
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Man." But in the film industry's backlash against this book, the author was
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revealed as Ed Roberts, the former editor of PHOTOPLAY JOURNAL, and Roberts
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admitted authorship of the book. The complete book is reprinted below. [1]
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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THE SINS OF HOLLYWOOD: AN EXPOSE OF MOVIE VICE
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A Group of Stories of Actual Happenings
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Reported and Written
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by
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A Hollywood Newspaper Man [Ed Roberts]
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May 1922
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Hollywood Publishing Co.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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The Reasons for the "Sins of Hollywood"
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TO THE PUBLIC:
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The sins of Hollywood are facts--NOT FICTION!
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The stories in this volume are true stories--the people are real
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people--
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Most of those involved in the events reported herein are today occupying
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high places in motion pictures--popular idols--applauded, lauded and showered
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with gold by millions of men, women and children--ESPECIALLY THE WOMEN AND
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CHILDREN!
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To the boys and girls of the land these mock heroes and heroines have
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been pictured and painted, for box office purposes, as the living symbols of
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all the virtues--
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An avalanche of propaganda by screen and press has imbued them with
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every ennobling trait.
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Privately they have lived, and are still living, lives of wild
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debauchery.
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In more than one case licentiousness and incest have been the only rungs
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in the ladders on which they have climbed to fame and fortune!
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Unfaithful and cruelly indifferent to the worship of the youth of the
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land, they have led or are leading such lives as may, any day, precipitate
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yet another nation-wide scandal and again shatter the ideals, the dreams, the
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castles, the faith of our boys and girls.
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It is for these reasons that the SINS OF HOLLYWOOD are given to the
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public--
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That a great medium of national expression may be purified--taken from
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the hands of those who have misused it--that the childish faith of our boys
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and girls may again be made sacred!
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Fully eighty per cent of those engaged in motion pictures are high-grade
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citizens--self-respecting and respected.
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In foolish fear of injuring the industry, Hollywood has permitted less
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than one percent of its population to stain its name.
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The facts reported in these stories have long been an open book to the
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organized producers--No need to tell them--they knew!
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They knew of the horde of creatures of easy morals who hovered about the
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industry and set the standard of price--decided what good, clean women would
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have to pay--have to give--in order to succeed--
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They knew of the macqueraux--of the scum that constituted the camp
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followers of their great stars. They knew of the wantonness of their leading
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women--
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They knew about the yachting parties--the wild orgies at road houses and
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private homes--
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They knew about Vernon and its wild life--Tiajuana and its mad, drunken
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revels--
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They knew about the prominent people among them who were living in
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illicit relationships.
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There was a time at one studio when every star, male and female, was
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carrying on an open liason--The producer could not help knowing it.
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Eight months before the crash that culminated in the Arbuckle cataclysm
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they knew the kind of parties Roscoe was giving--and some of them were glad
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to participate in them--
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They knew conditions--knew about the "hop" and the "dope"--but they took
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the stand that it was "none of our business"--
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Their business was piling up advance deposits from theater owners and
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manipulating the motion picture stock market.
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They frowned upon all attempts to speak the truth--
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Any publication that attempted to reveal the real conditions--to cleanse
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the festering sores--was quickly pounced upon as an "enemy of the industry"--
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A subsidized trade press helped in this work!
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Any attempt to bring about reform was called "hurting the industry."
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It was the lapses and laxities of the producer that precipitated the
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censorship agitation--that led a nauseated nation, determined to cleanse the
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Augean stables of the screen, into the dangerous notion of censorship--almost
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fatally imperiling two sacred principles of democracy--freedom of speech and
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freedom of the press!
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They have made "box office" capital of everything--Nothing has been too
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vile to exploit--
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They created the male vamp--
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Nothing was sacred--nothing was personal--if it had publicity
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possibilities--
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In the Daniels case they exploited the courts and made them a laughing
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stock-- [2]
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At this moment Taylor's tragic death is being exploited in connection
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with his last production--
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If the screen is to be "cleaned-up" the sores must be cut open--the puss
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and corruption removed--This always hurts! But it is the only known way!
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THE AUTHOR
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Hollywood, April 1, 1922
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Dope!
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During the throbbing, feverish years of the World War all roads let to
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France or--Hollywood.
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The conglomerate, nondescript mass of beings of every hue and type that
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swept over the battlefields was no more complex in its composition, no more a
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mixture of oil and water, than were the high and the low, the vile, the vain
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and the vicious that made up the mob which swarmed into Hollywood to dip its
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fingers into the pot of gold that was being poured from the movie crucible.
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No mining camp ever equaled it. No mad, lurid, wild and woolly border
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town every attracted so many men of women of so high a station in life or so
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vilely sunk as did Hollywood.
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None of the country's historic bonanza towns every beheld one half the
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real money that Moviedom bathed in.
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The Hollywood of those days will go down in history as the Rainbow Age
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of the mountebank and the mummer.
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The circus, the Uncle Tom show, the medicine show, the carnivals, the
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physical culture fakes, the pony shows, the wild west outfits, the concert
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halls, the dives, the honk-a-tonks--and in many cases--the bawdy houses--all
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contributed their quota to the studios of Hollywood.
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With them came men and women who had achieved world wide fame--actors,
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authors, dramatists, composers, dancers, whose names are indelibly written in
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the list of the world's great artists.
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When the shower of gold fell this latter group held its wits--in the
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main. Here and there one dropped into the mire of licentiousness and incest.
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But this was rare.
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The great actor of the spoken drama rarely got very far in the movies.
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He refused to fit into the scheme as laid out by those who held the purse
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strings.
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It was the upstarts, the poor uncouth, ill-bred "roughnecks," many of
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whom are today famous stars, and who never knew there was so much money in
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the world, who made the Sins of Hollywood the glaring, red sins they are
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today.
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After the first few weeks of plenty, of full feeding, the days of penury
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and vagabondage faded into the dim vistas of the past. Then came indulgence
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in the common, ordinary vices of the average being. And still the money
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lasted and even increased. Then the appetites became jaded and each tried to
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out-dissipate the other.
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Strip poker parties of both sexes, wild drinking debauches and lewdness,
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motor cars in designs and colors that screamed and shrieked--dogs and cats as
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aids to stimulate the imagination. The odors of the Tenderloin and the
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lobster palaces. Poor, futile mimicry!
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Then one day a certain well-known and muchly adored heart-breaking star
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of the so-called "manly" type taught them something new. And this is how it
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came about:
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This star--who shall be called Walter [3]--had tried out something. In
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his mad endeavor to provide for himself a thrill not written down in the
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Movie Vicealogue, Walter sought out several habitues of the underworld of Los
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Angeles and visited with them, consorted with them for the purpose, he
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explained, of obtaining "local color."
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Once they induced him to try "a shot of hop." It was great, he told
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some of his friends and "Yes men." They agreed that if he said it was great,
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it was indeed great.
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Yes, Walter smoked an opium pipe and went back for more. He then tried
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"snuffing" a bit of cocaine. That too gave him the desired kick. He "took a
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few shots in the arm." Ah, that was still better. He was getting on.
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But why have his pleasures all alone? Walter was a good sort. He
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wanted his friends to taste of the sweets of life as he found them. Here's
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what he would do--he would give a "dope party."
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Obviously he could not hold this party at his own home. His wife--she,
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too, a star [4]--would object. She didn't even know that Walter had been
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trying out various kinds of dope.
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But that was easy. Walter merely leased a cabin in Laurel Canyon and
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invited a few select friends to come and enjoy something new. Many attended:
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Margaret and Mae, Vincent and Jay, Frank and Louise, Mary and Jack and
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Juanita--all good fellows and friends of Walter.
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Oh, yes, there was a Chinaman there with his layout--pipes and little
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pellets of opium.
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But first they must try "a shot in the arm." My! How they enjoyed that
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"shot in the arm." It thrilled the blase actor folk as they had not been
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thrilled since Clara Kimball Young auctioned off her teddy bears, removing
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them right before all the crowd. [5]
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"Sniffing cocaine" through a little tube, one end of which hung inside a
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vial of "snow," was another pastime which all hugely enjoyed. It exalted and
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made other beings of them. It was thoroughly a worth-while party, his guests
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told Walter, and he was pleased--very pleased, indeed, if he had succeeded in
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bringing a few thrills into their uneventful lives--lives, too, made up of
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many thrills, but little else.
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But the crowning event was when the Chinaman entered and gave each of
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them a pipe and a pellet of opium.
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Walter had fitted up cozy lounges for them to lie in. Soft, clinging
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curtains hung about them, pink-shaded lamps shed a soft glow, and the
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Chinaman worked fast and soft-footedly.
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Luckily the night was long--it was Saturday. None of them had to appear
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for work on Sunday. So all the rest of the night and far into the next day
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did they loll there upon the soft cushions and dream--and--well, there are
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things that cannot be printed even for truth's sake.
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One by one they staggered homeward, vowing to return--any time--and
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partake of handsome Walter's hospitality.
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And they did. For that was but the beginning. Today the Chinaman has
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increased his output of pipes and pellets. He has two assistants and he
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holds himself in readiness to answer a summons at a moment's notice to appear
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at somebody's home and help to make the night short and the dreams long.
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Today the dope peddler is a common sight around the streets of
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Hollywood. And once, not so long ago, the Federal officers called upon
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Handsome Walter and talked things over with him. They wanted to know if he
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was the go-between--the man who acted as middleman for the actors and the
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peddlers of drugs. Somehow he got out of it. At least, he is still in
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pictures and out of jail.
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But the dope users are increasing; dope peddlers prevail.
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There is a handsome home, closed temporarily, on a certain fashionable
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street in Los Angeles, where if you could enter you would find the finest
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equipped dope outfit in America.
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Here come the players--mostly stars and near stars--to revel in
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Popplyand; here are held high revels--or such was the case only a few months
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ago--and here are the wildest of wild parties stages.
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Not so long ago Dottie Pitchfork [6] fought a duel with a former Follies
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girl [7] with fists and vases; though it is claimed that hair pulling
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constituted and really ended the argument.
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But they are interesting parties for all that. They must be
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interesting, for there have been as many as a hundred guests at these
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"affairs," not all of them dope fiends, but many of them are.
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Most of them are easy to pick out. Their nervousness betrays them. The
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twitching of their mouths, the "snuffles," the listless air of many of them.
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A rather new and somewhat unusual dope lately employed is that of
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bromidia, a drug which taken in teaspoonsful drives the user to continuous
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sleepiness, swelling of the limbs and a lassitude that brings great surcease.
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There are but a few of these, however, more of them preferring cocaine,
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a "shot in the arm," and an occasional drag at the pipe.
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Take for instance a certain young actor [8], son of one of the country's
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foremost exponents of the spoken drama. [9] His face is yellow as saffron.
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He is a pipe smoker. Twice his father has had him committed to sanitariums.
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When his father's company comes to Los Angeles now the son secretes himself
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and after his father's departure writes and tells him how sorry he was to be
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away on location during his stay in the city.
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Then there is the case of the blonde with the Scandinavian name. [10]
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Last year it cost her a thousand dollars a month for her dope supply. She
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uses cocaine and heroin, goes to sleep on the set, slips over to her dressing
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room, takes a few "sniffs" and returns full of ginger, only to fade away in a
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short time again.
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A once noted song writer, now a movie scribbler, spends the greater part
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of his income for drugs. [11]
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An actor who has had a long and successful career with two of the big
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companies is one of the list.
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A well known director is another. [12]
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A young woman star, whose name has been very much in the public print of
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late, is still another. [13]
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The list is interminable--almost inexhaustible.
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These indulgences are not always confined to the privacy of the home,
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either. In certain more or less public resorts one may upon occasion find
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well known movie people partaking of ether cocktails or other concoctions--
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perfume dipped on sugar, for instance. Anything and everything in the nature
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of what the jazz mad world knows as a "kick."
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Walter, they say, still persists in giving an occasional party, though
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his wife has long since learned of his condition. But Walter has stamina.
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He is still the handsome young devil he always was. He gets away with it.
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And even whiskey still has a thrill for him. He dearly loves to go out-
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-to some other town, of course--and fight a couple of policemen, tear out
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sections of the hotel lobby and throw dishes at the head waiter.
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But there are two young girls who regret that they ever attended one of
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Walter's parties. They were new at the game, but they wanted to be "good
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fellows." They "hit the pipe," they "took a shot in the arm," they snuffed
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cocaine, just as the others did.
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One has returned to her home in Illinois--back to her parents--where
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they say that the drugs have so eaten into her system that she is dying of
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tuberculosis.
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The other, driven to desperation because of the insistent demand of her
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nerves calling for the drugs, is now an ordinary street walker. Her place of
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"business" is a shabby rooming house in the underworld district of Los
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Angeles; her "beat" is Main and Los Angeles streets. Occasionally when she
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can lure a sailor or a stranger to her room she gets from him whatever money
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she can and then, as soon as she can rid herself of her companion, she rushes
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frantically down to "John" and buys another "shot." It is all she lives for,
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that "shot." And she prays nightly that she will not live very long.
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There are other cases, of course. For it is the young and inexperienced
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who suffer most. It is they who are driven to despair, and there are many in
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Hollywood today.
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The Federal officers are trying to stamp out the plague, but somehow the
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dope users manage to obtain enough to keep them happy. It has made wrecks of
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several good men. One of them, in his efforts to break off the habit, has
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gone into the wilderness. He is trying to make a little farm pay him a
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livelihood, and his estimable wife is helping him. She has had a hard fight,
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but they say she is winning over the drug.
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But Walter, handsome, debonair, smiling Walter, goes serenely on, having
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a handsome salary, feeling, no doubt, that he is a benefactor to his friends.
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Didn't he give them a new thrill?
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Duck Blinds!
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There are no houses of prostitution in Hollywood. No foot-weary
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Magdalenes patrol the night. [14]
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Hollywood looks with contempt upon the hunger-driven sisterhood that
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haunts the streets and bawdy houses. Here the merchandising of sex has been
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made a fine art--its devotees are artists. The unskilled worker is a
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pariah--unwelcome.
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The old Barbary Coast--the old Tenderloin--Armour Avenue, at their
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height, are not Hollywood. There is no restricted district--no "other side
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of the railroad track."
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There is nothing crude or tawdry about Hollywood. Hollywood loves
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refinement.
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Wherefore, the "joy parlors" and the "love nests" of Hollywood are not
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all in Hollywood. The "artists" pay a little more for what they get than
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anyone else--go where they will and are welcomed.
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Foul fingers reach far out from the city into the green hills and
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valleys. The reek of city vice mingles with the scented air of the open
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places--Hollywood overlooks no bets.
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A thousand roads lead to canyon cabin, sequestered cottage or mountain
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shack. There are easy routes to a score of hidden bays and inlets where wait
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lavishly furnished yachts and house-boats. From San Diego to Del Monte, from
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the beach to the desert Hollywood drips its ooze.
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The private dens--or retreats, as it,--where the idols of our boys and
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girls disport and indulge their vices span a hundred miles in any direction.
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It is in these snug bowers that the "domesticity" the fan magazines so
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lovingly and so lyingly prattle of is revealed of in its true form. Here the
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veneer assumed for box office purposes vanishes--
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The language of the gutter resumes its place as the mother tongue--
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a space is a spade or even a harder name--passion is mad passion and nothing
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less.
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No frowning "Madam" calls a halt to maintain a show of order. Hollywood
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has eliminated the "madam" and the grafting policeman. They belong to the
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crude days.
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Hollywood knows no curb but sanitation and exhaustion.
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Half a dozen miles north of the Ridge Route on what is known as the
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inland highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco lies a small lake that
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nestles between the foothills and the highway. On its shores are scattered
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clumps of brush and a few blinds for duck hunters.
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In the stories we read of Sodom and Pompeii there is nothing about duck
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blinds. Hollywood is creative--requires no precedent.
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Hollywood has found a new use for duck blinds--
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On the far side of the lake about two hundred yards from the water's
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edge stands a frame house. It is painted a dark shade of green.
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The house and the acres that lie back of it are the property of two
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nationally famous film producers and a Los Angeles business man who runs with
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the film crowd.
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Silence holds the green house most of the time. The nearest neighbor is
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some distance away. Many shade trees hide his view of the green house.
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A few turkeys roam the hills.
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To the passing motorist the green house is but a speck on the landscape.
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The general aspect is one of serenity and peace. The scene is truly
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pastoral. The spot exudes an air of rural innocence.
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Hollywood knows the value of "atmosphere." That is part of Hollywood's
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business. In studio parlance "atmosphere" and camouflage go hand in hand.
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During the summer months the hills are hot and few visitors come to the
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green house. But as the days grow cooler and October draws near, signs of
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life appear. The duck season is approaching. Automobiles wind over the road
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back of the lake and unload their cargoes. Everything is made ready for
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hunter and huntress. By the first of October all is in shape for the
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season's sport.
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The green house duck hunter travels like the Mexican army. His women go
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with him. The laws of California are the same for men or women who hunt
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ducks. You must carry a hunting license.
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The law says nothing about a marriage license. So the little green
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house complies with the law. Also the law says nothing about chaperones for
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house parties of married people--who do not happen to be married to each
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other. Again the green house complies with the law.
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|
More than one noted screen beauty has spent the week end in the green
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house. More than one famed portrayer of sweet innocence has "hunted" on
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these shores. It is not every passing motorist that carries field glasses--
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and the naked eye does not carry across the lake far enough to recognize
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faces--
|
|
Form Friday to Sunday night through October, November and December, the
|
|
greenhouse walks with kings and queens of shadowland. It sees them at play--
|
|
in what the naturalist would call their native habit, untrammeled as it were
|
|
by the artificial conventions of society or the demands of business.
|
|
It sees them shorn of their gloss and their glamour.
|
|
Not long since a certain beauty [15] who was once the wife of a widely
|
|
advertised male vamp [16], a hunting went on the far shore of this lake. This
|
|
lady has achieved much fame. She first won her way into the heart of a noted
|
|
producer [17] by "hanging crepe" on the "lamp" of a rival who was at that time
|
|
basking in the sunshine of his favor and the public smile. Carmen stuff
|
|
comes natural to her. Although she and the producer in question are not the
|
|
pals they once were, their names are more or less interwoven, and they are
|
|
still very good friends.
|
|
Yes, very dear friends. He has a wife and family and must be more or
|
|
less careful.
|
|
Just as day was breaking the beauty was escorted to one of the blinds.
|
|
It was not quite light as yet and her escort, a noted screen celebrity, had
|
|
to help her. The blind is constructed in front of a row boat moored to the
|
|
shore.
|
|
It was cold. He had a bottle of which both partook freely. He emptied
|
|
it and produced another. It was real cold. So they partook freely--and
|
|
cuddled close against the wind.
|
|
There were few ducks that morning. In fact, the waters of the lake had
|
|
been particularly low and the birds hardly alighted before they flocked off
|
|
again on their way southward. There were chances for but few shots.
|
|
It grew a bit lighter but the cold wind grew colder. The sport began to
|
|
lag. Pretty soon she dropped her gun and snuggled closer to him and took a
|
|
few more drinks. He continued peering into the distance in search of passing
|
|
birds.
|
|
Up over the edge of a hill some distance back from the house a man with
|
|
field glasses gazed intently. As the woman cuddled closer he fixed his gaze
|
|
more intently. For weeks he had been watching the place unknown to its
|
|
owners.
|
|
Of course, he had no idea of the prominence of those he spied upon or he
|
|
might have hesitated. There is not much spice in the life of ranch hands.
|
|
When tales of strange carryings on came floating over the hills early in the
|
|
season, the man with the field glasses bethought himself of a good use for
|
|
them. More than once his vigil had been rewarded. But this time he was
|
|
puzzled. He could not tell what was coming. He did not know a new thrill
|
|
when he saw one. He was not an "artist."
|
|
His eyes remained riveted on the scene before him. Soon the woman's
|
|
male companion dropped his gun, rested his arm on the side of the boat, slid
|
|
down into the bottom with his legs sprawled over one of the seats and
|
|
appeared to have fallen asleep.
|
|
The beauty yawned, took another drink and sat down on the same seat.
|
|
For a long time the watcher on the hill could detect no sign of life. Clouds
|
|
came up and hid the sun. There was no stir in the green house. The other
|
|
occupants, if there were any, were evidently fast asleep.
|
|
A flock of birds made a sweep over the edge of the lake and settled.
|
|
Another bunch came and joined the first. Sun and sky remained obscured. The
|
|
pair in the boat will still inert. The watcher on the hill grew more puzzled
|
|
than ever. What had happened?
|
|
He stepped down and started to circle to the lower reaches of the ridge
|
|
over toward a pass in a canyon that led to the house. Cautiously he drew
|
|
nearer until he was on the rim of a high bluff directly overlooking the
|
|
blind.
|
|
On this bluff a hole had been dug into the ground and crawling toward it
|
|
he slid out of sight until he was entirely covered. From this vantage point
|
|
he could, with the aid of the glasses, see all that transpired.
|
|
More ducks came. No shots were fired. The mystery deepened. A slight
|
|
ripple danced away from the side of the boat as it slowly rocked. The
|
|
ripples grew larger and came more often. The boat rocked more violently.
|
|
The watcher lifted his glasses and gazed again. This time he did not remove
|
|
them from his eyes. The glasses remained fixed or rather transfixed. The
|
|
watcher was oblivious to all else but what was going on in the row boat on
|
|
the water's edge.
|
|
Suddenly the boat rocked more violently than ever. It seemed to be
|
|
having a spasm. The watcher jumped to the edge of the hole. He could stand
|
|
it no longer.
|
|
He waved his hands aloft.
|
|
"The dirty dogs," he cried out aloud as he walked into the open. There
|
|
was a flurry of wings as the startled ducks took to the air. The boat gave a
|
|
final lurch like a ship in a gale.
|
|
The watcher on the hill had recognized the beauty--he knew the face.
|
|
Had seen her in pictures a thousand times!
|
|
But he had never read of Sodom or Pompeii!
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
Strip Poker and Paddle Parties
|
|
|
|
"There surely must be some way of getting into the movies without
|
|
stooping below one's own level."
|
|
So thought Jane Evans, who had been in Hollywood some weeks without
|
|
making any impression on casting directors other than to invoke insinuating
|
|
invitations.
|
|
Surely the high-class stars were not so coarse. These men who talked so
|
|
openly were just the riff-raff. It could not possibly be otherwise. The
|
|
newspapers said such nice things about the great actors and actresses--
|
|
Soon opportunity came to Jane to mingle in the social whirl of the much
|
|
talked of celebrities. She had left her telephone number at all the studios.
|
|
One day she was telephoned to by some mysterious person. She was told it was
|
|
a business call. She went to the studio designated and found a young man
|
|
pawing over some photographs in a wire basket. She noticed that a picture of
|
|
herself, that she had left hopefully, lay segregated from the others. She
|
|
entered without being seen and was almost taken off her feed when she heard
|
|
the young man say: "I am rustling up some new ones for the Boss' party
|
|
tonight."
|
|
The young man picked up Jane's photograph and was going to say something
|
|
else when he noticed her presence.
|
|
"Ah, this is Miss -------?"
|
|
"I am," said Jane, "you telephoned for me."
|
|
"Do you ride and do you swim," he asked with a peculiar glance towards
|
|
another man that sat playing with another photograph and who was just then
|
|
ruining it utterly by poking a hole in it with a paper knife.
|
|
"I do a little of each."
|
|
"All right," said the young man. "Wait."
|
|
The youth went into an inner office and threw the picture on a desk by
|
|
which sat a very handsome man, well known as a screen favorite. He was
|
|
playing with a dog and drinking a cocktail.
|
|
"Not bad," he said, and sized up the picture. "I'll take a look."
|
|
He went towards the door and peeked out carefully. He came back and
|
|
said in a very cool and deliberate way:
|
|
"She is a new one on me. She'll do."
|
|
The young man came back and was all attention and politeness.
|
|
"Mr. -------, well, the boss, says that he will be pleased to have you
|
|
meet some of the members of the company at his house tonight," he said, "and
|
|
he wants you to be there promptly at midnight."
|
|
He wrote an address and a telephone number and gave it to Jane and
|
|
showed her the way out.
|
|
"Midnight?" asked Jane of herself. "How odd."
|
|
But then it occurred to her that perhaps the great men worked late and
|
|
she thought nothing more about it. She made up her mind to take the
|
|
opportunity and to let no chance to meet the great and near-great go by.
|
|
She spent the evening at her apartment and, after having written an
|
|
optimistic letter to her mother, she dressed in her best and soon looked very
|
|
charming.
|
|
Promptly at midnight she arrived at the address given. It was one of
|
|
the largest houses in the city and stood buried among magnificent trees in
|
|
the middle of a park-like garden. She approached the entrance. But the
|
|
house was dark, but for a small light in the hall. She thought at first that
|
|
she was at the wrong house, but rang the bell. At length the door was opened
|
|
by the young man she had met at the office and he asked her in.
|
|
"You are on time," he laughed. "That's enough. I know now that you
|
|
haven't been long in the movies. Nobody gives a whoop for appointments or
|
|
time. I guess they'll show up, though. They do at times."
|
|
The young man asked her to take a seat. Whether she removed her wraps
|
|
or not did not seem to bother him. He sat down and lighted a cigarette,
|
|
threw the match on the floor and smoked. He remarked suddenly that his name
|
|
was Mack. He made a move now and then as if he would sit down close by Jane,
|
|
but he looked towards the door and refrained from doing so.
|
|
Jane saw a light-button and deliberately turned on the lights.
|
|
"Go as far as you like," said the young man with a raucous laugh. "Most
|
|
o' them don't want no lights."
|
|
Jane pretended not to hear him.
|
|
"Is that you, Mack?" suddenly came a drawling voice from upstairs.
|
|
"Yes, sir" replied Mack, all attention. "I didn't know you was in."
|
|
"Is the little one there?" asked the voice.
|
|
"She has just came. She's kicking about more light."
|
|
"Give her a drink or two till I get down," said the voice. I'm having a
|
|
row with Clara."
|
|
"Who is Clara?" asked Jane, and rose to her feet.
|
|
"Nobody," replied Mack. "I think she is his wife. That's nothing."
|
|
Jane, frightened, got ready to leave when she heard a volley of laughter
|
|
outside and four boisterous persons came rushing in.
|
|
Jane now could see that they were under the influence of drink. They
|
|
made a rush for the decanters and the sideboard.
|
|
They all seemed to know where everything was in the house and helped
|
|
themselves liberally. Then one of the men noticed Jane and said to Mack.
|
|
"Mack, who have we here?"
|
|
"Gee, you didn't give me a chance to introduce her," said Mack. "She is
|
|
a new friend of the boss--and--"
|
|
"Great God," snapped one of the women, "Is he through with Clara
|
|
already?"
|
|
"Of course," laughed the other woman, "Clara has lasted longer than any
|
|
of them. Gee, what do you expect?"
|
|
"Where is his Nibs?" asked one of the men.
|
|
"Upstairs, scrapping," said Mack. "But he's told me to tell you--"
|
|
"That's enough," cried one of the women. "Get the cards and the
|
|
lubricants and we don't care if he never comes down."
|
|
Jane found herself swept on to a chair at the card table and soon a
|
|
poker game was in full progress. She was given an allotment of chips and had
|
|
no idea whether they represented money or not, or if so, how much. She did
|
|
not know what to do or say and nobody seemed to care.
|
|
"Ante-up," said Mack. "Gee, it's hell to be popular."
|
|
The game progressed. Jane knew enough of poker to keep up her play.
|
|
Soon one of the women lost all her chips. Jane thought she would now learn
|
|
what the stakes represented. She had heard of games where thousands of
|
|
dollars changed hands in a few minutes.
|
|
The losing woman stood up. Jane then witnessed a remarkable
|
|
performance. The woman calmly unhooked her shirtwaist and stripped it off
|
|
her and threw it on the floor. She picked up her cards and continued to
|
|
play, after lighting a cigarette.
|
|
"Are you warm?" asked Jane in bewilderment.
|
|
"Yes," laughed the woman. "Wait till you get your turn. Quit your
|
|
kidding."
|
|
The other woman was the next one to lose out and she calmly removed her
|
|
skirt and flung it away.
|
|
Jane had never heard of the popular game of "strip poker," and
|
|
consequently concluded that her companions were losing their minds as well as
|
|
their chips and clothes.
|
|
She felt a sinking feeling as she suddenly saw her last chips gone. She
|
|
noticed that they all stared at her, the men especially.
|
|
"Pay your loss," laughed one of them. "Strip off something."
|
|
She said she did not understand. They explained to her that the game
|
|
consisted of a system of undressing and that the losers had to strip off some
|
|
garment each time he or she lost their last chips.
|
|
Jane kicked off one of her slippers and smiled. The men looked
|
|
disgusted and the women turned up their noses and the game went on.
|
|
While Jane was so busy trying to devise some plan by which she could get
|
|
out of the house, she found her last chips again swept away in a large
|
|
jackpot.
|
|
"Nothing can be stripped off that some other player has removed before,"
|
|
laughed one of the men. "Now be a good sport and pay your bets. No waists
|
|
or skirts or shoes."
|
|
She became fearfully indignant. She arose and said she thought it was
|
|
time to leave.
|
|
"She is crawfishing," cried one of the women. "Make her pay, Al."
|
|
The man who answered the name of "Al" put his cigar more firmly into the
|
|
corner of his big flabby mouth and arose. He took hold of her and unhooked
|
|
the back of her dress.
|
|
The others roared and the other man wanted to know if "he wanted any
|
|
help?"
|
|
Jane began to cry. She tried to tear away from the man. He sunk his
|
|
dirty fingernails into her white full arm.
|
|
Just then the "boss" was heard coming down. He reached the scene at the
|
|
poker table with incredible haste.
|
|
He looked at Jane who was wiping a tear and tried to look calm.
|
|
Mack tried to intervene and explain. The big, handsome host took him by
|
|
the neck and flung him into a corner. He picked Jane up bodily and carried
|
|
her to a nearby sofa.
|
|
"There'll be no rough stuff while I am here. This is one of my homes,"
|
|
he said with apparent chivalry. "Nix on that."
|
|
"Who dragged this nice, young girl into a strip poker game?" he
|
|
demanded. For God's sake, don't you know a lady when you see one?"
|
|
The two men stood like whipped dogs and Mack sneaked out of the room.
|
|
But Jane did not see how her supposed champions winked to the men and
|
|
how they exchanged glances.
|
|
The big man walked over and sat down by Jane.
|
|
"Look here, he said, consolingly, "nobody is going to get neither me nor
|
|
any of my homes in bad. I am going to be your friend."
|
|
At last, thought Jane, she had met one of screenland's noblemen,
|
|
although he was rather rough in manner. But he seemed to have a heart as big
|
|
as his body.
|
|
It was past two o'clock and Jane said something about departing.
|
|
"Don't spoil the party," pleaded the host. "There ain't nobody here
|
|
yet. I expect a raft of ladies and gentlemen. The bunch seldom gets here
|
|
before two."
|
|
Little did Jane know that the foregoing was merely an overture to one of
|
|
the great bacchanalian parties, to one of the nauseating orgies which are the
|
|
order of the day in Movieland. Or, perhaps, it would be more correct to
|
|
style them the order of the night, or nights.
|
|
It was not long before the parlors of the house began to fill up. The
|
|
most remarkable etiquette seemed to prevail. Whether a man preceded a woman
|
|
through an open door, or if he conversed glibly with his cigar or cigarette
|
|
in his mouth, mattered not at all. Everybody called each other by their
|
|
first name and all of them smiled in a peculiar way when they met Jane. The
|
|
men smiled pleasantly and the women critically.
|
|
Jane recognized some of the leaders of the profession and was glad to
|
|
have a chance to view them and hear them at close range.
|
|
In a semi-circle, around a fire-place, sat a young handsome man with a
|
|
name like one of the country's most famous playwrights. [18]
|
|
He was jabbing a hypodermic needle into the pretty white arm of a young
|
|
girl, and then others were watching him intently, and still others sat in a
|
|
stupor and leered.
|
|
The girl evidently had not the courage to inject the narcotic drug into
|
|
her own arm. She was a novice. Then the needle was passed around just like
|
|
the pipe of peace was passed by the noble American Indians on the same spot
|
|
in days of yore.
|
|
A famous girl, in the meantime, was drinking perfume and another was
|
|
pouring perfume from the bottles on the dressing table on lumps of sugar, and
|
|
eating it.
|
|
The supply of liquor seemed inexhaustible. As fast as the bottles were
|
|
emptied fresh ones took their places. Bottles that had cost as much money as
|
|
would maintain an ordinary family for a week were emptied almost in one
|
|
swallow. Concoctions were mixed that even old time drinkers had never before
|
|
heard of.
|
|
The women were the first to show the effects. Their high kicking left
|
|
nothing to the imagination. The men encouraged them. One pair shimmied
|
|
three-quarters nude. There was nothing concealed in the climax to their
|
|
dance. The onlookers shook their shoulders and bodies in unison with the
|
|
dancers.
|
|
Suddenly the host, from the far end of the big room, called for silence.
|
|
In his arms he carried what looked like ordinary flat sticks of wood.
|
|
Painted on each one was a number.
|
|
At the same time Mack, his assistant, passed about among the women
|
|
pinning a paper tag with a number on it to each of their backs. Not knowing
|
|
what was coming, Jane permitted him to give her one. She thought it was a
|
|
new game. It was--to her. Possibly something like the old time donkey
|
|
parties they used to have at home? Not a bit!
|
|
Then Mack went around among the men and collected twenty dollars from
|
|
each of them. This money he placed in a heap on the table in front of the
|
|
host. The girls were told to gather in a corner and turn their backs to the
|
|
men leaving their numbers exposed to view.
|
|
"The new one is 18," said Mack in a low tone as he approached the table.
|
|
The host slipped that number into the table drawer.
|
|
"Awrit lesgo," cried the host. Mack spun the wheel that lay on the
|
|
table.
|
|
"Number 6," yelled the host. A dozen men grabbed for it. The victor
|
|
turned about and made a rush for the girl marked "6." Maudlin shouts and
|
|
suggestive grimaces greeted them. Mack handed the girl twenty dollars as the
|
|
pair walked to another part of the house. They were seen no more.
|
|
"Some paddle party," said Mack, as without hitch of any kind, one man
|
|
after another drew his girl. The girl took her money and each pair in turn
|
|
vanished.
|
|
During the sale of the "paddles," as Jane learned the wooden disks were
|
|
called, she had overheard enough to let her know what it meant. One of the
|
|
women even told her of a "paddle" party she had attended and what a "fine"
|
|
time everybody had--and money besides.
|
|
Jane found it easy to slip upstairs and find her coat. It was four
|
|
o'clock. She passed out of the house unnoticed, walked and ran until she was
|
|
a dozen blocks away. It was broad daylight when she reached home.
|
|
Her absence was not remarked until the room was almost emptied. Then
|
|
Mack noticed she was gone. He hunted everywhere. He went back and told the
|
|
host.
|
|
"Why in hell didn't you watch her," he growled at Mack, as he slipped
|
|
Jane's number out of the drawer and on to the table and replaced it with
|
|
another.
|
|
In this way the host drew a girl. Mack drew the blank that represented
|
|
Jane.
|
|
The big room was empty now but from every part of the house came
|
|
suppressed laughter. The lights went out.
|
|
Thus ended the function. It was regarded as a great success.
|
|
The morning sun shone through the windows, but the house was stale with
|
|
tobacco and liquor reeks and the sickening odor of "dope." Here and there
|
|
lay torn women's garments and in the halls were bits of lingerie.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
How the Great Letty Played Her Cards
|
|
|
|
Letty had aspirations to be somebody. [19] Early in life she learned
|
|
that if a girl cannot be good she must be fairly careful. This grew to be
|
|
her motto.
|
|
Born in a Western state where men see fit to provide for more than one
|
|
wife--brought up among these strange surroundings the girl had talent in more
|
|
ways than one. She learned to play the piano at first, then she took up the
|
|
violin. When fifteen years of age she sought and obtained a position playing
|
|
for dances with an orchestra.
|
|
Thus she was able to purchase the baubles and dresses which appealed to
|
|
her as the greatest possessions a girl could acquire.
|
|
But Letty was young then--only fifteen. She is older now--and wiser--
|
|
much wiser. The Past has a baleful look to her--a saddened chastened look.
|
|
A forbidding Memory haunts her, taunts her. And this is the story:
|
|
Growing into a fairly pretty girl who knew how to wear clothes, a
|
|
winsome expression, an innocent face, with a simulated poise that was always
|
|
on tap, Letty heard of the movies. She had played in a theater where
|
|
pictures were shown. The lure of the silent drama called to her in such
|
|
determined tones that she forsook her violin in the land of many wives and
|
|
hastened to Hollywood.
|
|
Letty found that the job of "extra girl" brings little remuneration--
|
|
unless--well, Letty didn't know the ropes--then. It was an assistant
|
|
director who first taught her the things she wanted to know. Assistant
|
|
directors are sometimes wonderful artists at teaching young girls many things-
|
|
-many tricks of the movie profession.
|
|
By the time the assistant director had shown Letty how she could be
|
|
successful as an actress, she was granted an opportunity to give her
|
|
education a test. The assistant had found a blonde who looked particularly
|
|
good to him, anyway. He was finished with Letty.
|
|
As a bathing girl, Letty got her first part. The director of comedies
|
|
merely wanted to see if she could screen in a bathing costume, he said. He
|
|
"looked her over" in the privacy of his office. The bathing suit was
|
|
particularly daring--even for the movies. The director approved of her
|
|
form--and in comedies he was one of the big directors. [20] That was Letty's
|
|
cue. She is a bright girl, is Letty.
|
|
Some girls would have started right in to vamp the great director--who,
|
|
incidentally, is part owner of the studio where he directs. Not so, Letty.
|
|
Letty had been schooled--by an assistant director. She had learned all about
|
|
the fine art of "yessing." Vamping is old.
|
|
True she displayed her physical charms as best she could--as much as she
|
|
dared. Not too much--just enough. She had been an apt pupil.
|
|
So Letty did bits and atmosphere--as a bathing girl. But this did not
|
|
last long. Letty came to life when she thought the time was ripe. She
|
|
showed a decided interest in the great comedy director. She patted him on
|
|
the cheek--she leaned against him when she conversed with him; she tantalized
|
|
him--and walked away. Letty had learned a great deal more than some of the
|
|
other girls--they had not all been schooled by an assistant director.
|
|
Soon the great director was seen out with Letty at a few of the
|
|
roadhouses at Venice, Playa del Rey, Beverly Glen. Letty and the great
|
|
director often exchanged knowing glances on the lot.
|
|
And with the passing of each day Letty kept getting wiser. She was wise
|
|
enough not to tax the great director too much. She needed clothes and other
|
|
things. There was a certain shoe merchant in Los Angeles. He liked movie
|
|
girls. Letty saw to it that she was the particular movie girl he liked.
|
|
Letty was nice to her director and nice to the shoe merchant--but each
|
|
had his place in her scheme for the future. The former was to be her
|
|
stepping stone. The latter supplied the wherewithal to keep her dressed for
|
|
the part until--well, one day his wife went to a department store and got the
|
|
wrong bill--it amounted to over Five hundred. Letty had to be more careful
|
|
after that--but not less ambitious.
|
|
There was heralded throughout Hollywood one day the news that a
|
|
wonderful director was coming to town--a master builder. [21]
|
|
Letty read the news with avidity. She began to plan. She had sense
|
|
enough to know that as a comedienne she never would arrive. No girl ever
|
|
amounted to anything in comedies. They were good enough to rub off the rough
|
|
spots, but that was all. She must have a chance a drama. She had tried
|
|
innumerable times--when the great comedy director did not know it--to get
|
|
even a bit in the big pictures, but always she had been turned away.
|
|
So she decided to use her wit--and her physical charm.
|
|
Patiently she waited till one evening the opportunity came when she
|
|
could meet the Great One--the wonderful director of master pictures. The
|
|
introduction was simple and brief. To Letty it was an event upon which she
|
|
was determined to capitalize.
|
|
The Great One gave her but passing notice. But Letty was patient as
|
|
ever. She bided her good time. There was but another step. The Great One
|
|
needed a girl to play the role of a woman member of a gang of thieves. With
|
|
the aid of a booking agent, she succeeded in selling herself--her services--
|
|
to the Great One for his big masterpiece--a picture that has been called the
|
|
equal of anything Griffith every produced. [22]
|
|
Letty's work made an impression. She knew how to be hard--to play the
|
|
embittered woman. She was wise but--it had cost something and the hardness
|
|
in the picture was not all acting.
|
|
By degrees she began to appear at places the Great One frequented--just
|
|
as if by accident. By the same slow process she practiced the wiles she had
|
|
learned from her two teachers--the assistant director and the great director-
|
|
-and soon she began to see progress. Slowly, but none the less surely, she
|
|
broke down the Great One's reserve and then--
|
|
Step by step she builded the foundation for her success. She intrigued
|
|
the Great One--without shame she permitted him to come to her in the great
|
|
silences of the whispering night; and in the pink tinted hours of the dawn
|
|
she bade him begone lest someone learn of their illicit love.
|
|
Then she twisted her mouth and to herself she smiled a smile of cynicism
|
|
and scorn. She had won over the Great One in spite of himself--
|
|
Later she told him many things and--he believe her. She had not
|
|
realized all her ambitions yet. She needed him.
|
|
At a cafe in New York he agreed to provide the funds for her own company-
|
|
-her triumph was complete. She had her publicity man call in all her bathing
|
|
girl pictures of the earlier days. The publisher of a motion picture trade
|
|
paper agreed to get a release for her pictures--It cost her only a smile to
|
|
secure this service without pay. The publisher and the Great One were
|
|
friends of long standing. The publisher had helped make the Great One great
|
|
and--it had paid well.
|
|
Mystery surrounded the formation of the company--Letty paid all the
|
|
bills at the studio--her name appeared on the pay checks. Hollywood
|
|
suspected but did not know. The Great One was involved in law suits over his
|
|
big picture and his name must not appear. The Great One chose an air of
|
|
mystery--well and good. Hollywood was used to mysteries--none of which were
|
|
really mysteries to Hollywood at all.
|
|
But Letty had started something--she had succeeded in making a slave of
|
|
the Great One. She had won him from his relatives, his friends and his
|
|
backers. She had made of him a servant who answered her every whim--he lived
|
|
only for her.
|
|
It was strange, too. For here was a brilliant man--a man with a
|
|
reputation for big things--a scholar, a gentleman, a connoisseur--yet he was
|
|
a veritable groveling slave to Letty, an uneducated, unrefined, mongrel type
|
|
of middle western girl.
|
|
But it was all too true--and sad.
|
|
Now there was a handsome young chap--and actor of a class--who
|
|
frequented the lot [23]--the young son of a famous theatrical father. [24] He
|
|
looked good to Letty, did Waldo. He was clean-cut, husky, clever and a good
|
|
dresser. Better looking by far than her Great One--and younger. Why, he had
|
|
no gray hairs at all.
|
|
So Letty fell really in love--or at least she thought it was love.
|
|
Anyway, Waldo appealed to her in a different way than did the Great One. She
|
|
began to cultivate Waldo, the young one. And Waldo appeared to like Letty.
|
|
Perhaps he was flattered, for Letty was now a star; the newspaper clippings
|
|
said so. For the Great One maintained a fine staff of press agents for the
|
|
express purpose of exploiting Letty.
|
|
Soon Waldo and Letty began to go about the roadhouses together; to
|
|
appear at public places in each other's company. He was always by her side
|
|
at the studio. Indeed, it soon became noised about that the young couple
|
|
were engaged, and neither one of them took the trouble to deny it. Even the
|
|
press agents failed to capitalize upon the choice bit of material.
|
|
The Great One called Letty into his office.
|
|
"What is this I hear about you--and young Waldo?" he wondered, as if
|
|
afraid to learn the truth.
|
|
"Search me," replied Letty, flippantly. "I haven't the slightest idea
|
|
what you have heard."
|
|
"It isn't true, is it, Letty? You are not going to marry him--and leave
|
|
me are you, Letty, dear?"
|
|
"Aw, what's the matter with you again?" burst out the girl. "You always
|
|
manage to think up something to razz me about. What's eating you, anyhow?
|
|
Haven't I got a right to do as I damn please? Who the hell do you think you
|
|
are, anyway--King of Ireland, or something?"
|
|
And she walked away from him.
|
|
Had she looked back she might have seen the Great One drop his head in
|
|
his hands as he settled back in his chair. The Great One was very, very
|
|
tired.
|
|
Letty's picture was finished and released. It was regarded as a good
|
|
one. The Great One was given little time to rest.
|
|
In order to hold the girl, he supervised another picture--and his
|
|
assistant completed it. This picture, of course, starred Letty. It was not
|
|
such a wonderful picture--mediocre, in fact. But the publicity brought about
|
|
by the success of the masterpiece made of Letty a well known actress. It
|
|
made her famous. And her name carried the second photoplay past the booking
|
|
offices and into the projection rooms of the theaters throughout the land.
|
|
By this time Letty was flaunting the Great One openly. She turned from
|
|
him, head uplifted, eyes straight ahead. But she had succeeded only too well
|
|
in her efforts to drive the Great One from her. Indeed, she had broken his
|
|
heart.
|
|
He took to his bed and for many weeks lay there, paying no attention to
|
|
anyone. Apparently he did not want to get well.
|
|
Before his death the company which he had formed for the purpose of
|
|
starring Letty went into the discard. But Letty was "made." The death of
|
|
her benefactor brought about the solution of her problem--a problem she had
|
|
been trying to solve for several months. That problem was How to Become a
|
|
Star for One of the Biggest Companies in the Business.
|
|
For immediately one of the Biggest Directors sent for her. Letty knows
|
|
men. She had clothes now, and a name. She wore her clothes well. They
|
|
displayed just enough of her physical charms to attract the Big Director.
|
|
And she knows just how much to say--and how much to hint. Letty is a very
|
|
intelligent girl--along certain lines.
|
|
Today Letty is listed among the Stars. Every day she climbs higher.
|
|
Her position appears to be secure. Her escapades seem to be confined to
|
|
playing a quiet game with those who can do her the most good.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
The "Gold Digger" and the Wife
|
|
|
|
He is famous now, this comedian--famous and rich. [25] Children of all
|
|
ages laugh in joyful glee at his screen antics. His salary extends into the
|
|
thousands per year. For he is one of the greatest in his line.
|
|
But it was not always thus. Time was when he was a plugger--a worker in
|
|
another line of endeavor--a newspaper man.
|
|
Happily married was this comedian whom we shall call Parry. He stayed
|
|
at home those days and employed the society of his loving wife and happy
|
|
little child--his daughter.
|
|
Through the years of struggling for a livelihood, fighting off the
|
|
spectre of debt which followed in the wake of the birth of their baby, the
|
|
wife was ever at his side cheering him, praising him, helping him to make a
|
|
success in life. That was her job--she was a helpmate.
|
|
Then--he became a motion picture actor.
|
|
At first he was only ordinary and commonplace. But his trained
|
|
newspaper sense showed him that many comedians who were funny were
|
|
overlooking some important features--ideas which make for fun on the screen.
|
|
"Gags," the comedians call them.
|
|
So Parry began to try out new stunts--"gags." From the first he was
|
|
successful in his new idea. His employers saw that he "had something" and
|
|
they permitted him to spend all the money he required to properly "put over"
|
|
his stunts.
|
|
And soon he became known as a real comedian--not because of his acting,
|
|
for he is not an actor--but for the reason that his "gags" were novel and
|
|
new.
|
|
Soon his head became slightly enlarged--he was becoming famous. His
|
|
letters to his wife, who still remained in New York, became more and more
|
|
infrequent.
|
|
He was so busy.
|
|
There came to the "lot" one day a dark-haired, fair-skinned girl of,
|
|
say, twenty years. [26] Her smile--to Parry, was infectious. She had "a way"
|
|
about her. And, indeed, she had. The "way" had become a habit with her.
|
|
She had employed it for many years for just the purpose of decoying men to do
|
|
her bidding. She was clever, none can gainsay that.
|
|
It was no trick at all for her to ingratiate herself in the good graces
|
|
of the comedian. And at once she became his leading woman. She was a
|
|
comedienne. She admitted it to Parry and he believed it.
|
|
In time he bought her a handsome light blue car--a limousine. Parry was
|
|
her slave. He visited her apartments. Virtually he lived there--day and
|
|
night. A paid chauffeur drove her to the studio. Parry drove a nondescript
|
|
car. Of course, they did not arrive at the studio together. That would be
|
|
too crude.
|
|
Back in New York a little woman began to eat her heart out. The cry of
|
|
mate for mate went out across the continent, but Parry heard it not. His
|
|
tiny daughter, now a beautiful young girl, sent tearful messages to her
|
|
daddy, but Parry ignored those appeals.
|
|
Came the time for action. The wife had been receiving a fairly liberal
|
|
allowance, but no endearing words from her now famous husband. She wondered
|
|
why. Later she wondered why her allowance was being gradually cut down. The
|
|
little daughter, too, now old enough to see that her mother was terribly
|
|
worried and sad, wondered. She tried vainly to cheer her saddened mother--to
|
|
tell her that "Daddy" would come home some day--or perhaps send for them--and
|
|
they would all be happy together once more.
|
|
But the long days dragged themselves out and no word came from the
|
|
comedian. True a small check occasionally drifted along, but nothing
|
|
accompanied them--no words of love for the wife and little one.
|
|
The wife could stand it no longer. She decided that once and for all
|
|
she must find out what the trouble was--what influence was turning her own
|
|
lawful husband against her--and their baby.
|
|
So she packed up and with her daughter they came to Hollywood. Vainly
|
|
did she try to get on the "lot" where her comedian husband was employed. The
|
|
gate keeper had his instructions--for she had wired that she was coming.
|
|
Yes, she had telegraphed Parry--but he did not meet her at the train. The
|
|
little daughter mingled her tears with those of her mother that night in the
|
|
gloomy hotel room.
|
|
Telephone calls received no response--Parry was not at home. Than it
|
|
began to dawn upon the wife of the comedian that he was deliberately turning
|
|
her down--flaunting her love.
|
|
The wife learned of a noted attorney--a lawyer who knew all the movie
|
|
folks, for they were his clients--many of them. To this attorney she went.
|
|
The gruff, old lawyer's heart was touched at the pathos of it all. He
|
|
knew the kind of a man Parry was--of his philandering, of his infatuation for
|
|
his leading woman.
|
|
So he sent for Parry. Parry came at the lawyer's bidding. Many of the
|
|
film workers do. They know what he knows. They are afraid not to answer
|
|
when he beckons.
|
|
Parry came--and met his loving wife and his tearful daughter at the
|
|
gruff, but kind hearted lawyer's office.
|
|
Joyfully did the little girl bounce to the side of her "Daddy."
|
|
"Daddy! Oh, my Daddy!" she cried, throwing her arms about the
|
|
comedian's neck.
|
|
Roughly the comedian loosed the tiny arms that encircled his neck. Then
|
|
he turned to his wife--the wife he had promised to love and cherish--the wife
|
|
who had helped him when he needed help most. The woman stood aghast at his
|
|
actions. It was incredible!
|
|
"Still nagging, I see," he said, sneeringly. "Still hounding me! Well,
|
|
what do you want?"
|
|
The wife fell upon her knees before the comedian, begged him for the
|
|
sake of the baby to make a home for them--to love them--to live with them.
|
|
But her turned away from her--whistling.
|
|
"Let's get it over with," he said to the lawyer. "What does this woman
|
|
want?"
|
|
"She wants--and we intend to get--all that is coming to her--in money,"
|
|
answered the attorney. "She wants your love and your kindness--she wants a
|
|
father for her daughter--she wants a home. But this she sees now she cannot
|
|
have. She wants happiness--and you are denying her that. So she must have
|
|
money--to properly bring up your daughter--and hers."
|
|
"Well, how much?" asked the comedian. "I'm not a millionaire, you know.
|
|
It costs me a lot of money to live here--"
|
|
"We know your salary--never fear. We'll get what she wants--in our own
|
|
way--unless you see fit to be fair right now."
|
|
The comedian did not see fit to be fair. But before he left the
|
|
attorney's office he had paid--paid in hard coin--and he is still paying.
|
|
And he will continue to pay--for the contract is iron bound and certain.
|
|
That is the kind of contracts the lawyer draws--because he knows some of the
|
|
movie folks for what they are.
|
|
Tear-stained faces now peer from the windows of their apartments in New
|
|
York--two saddened hearts beat dully, yet occasionally with a faster beating
|
|
of hope--for some day, maybe, "Daddy" will see the error of his ways and come
|
|
home--some day--maybe.
|
|
For Lucy--as she shall be called--now has the upper hand. She is what
|
|
is termed in Hollywood "a gold digger." She has extracted every dime she can
|
|
from the comedian--her rent, her car, her jewels, her clothes, her pleasures.
|
|
But even to the man who has brought her all these she oftentimes is not
|
|
at home.
|
|
And why?
|
|
Because oftentimes other men are there--men she has lured; men who are
|
|
fond of her charms; men who do not leave her apartments until daybreak--and
|
|
later.
|
|
Every know and then she makes a trip to New York--fatigued from being
|
|
too closely wedded to her art--she needs a change.
|
|
And Parry pays the bills as she flits in and out of the Tenderloin's
|
|
mazes. Her face is familiar in every hotel lobby on Broadway. She has many
|
|
telephone calls--many midnight suppers.
|
|
Parry pays for these jaunts to the same city where a little fatherless
|
|
girl sits and waits with her face pressed against the pane--waits alone for
|
|
her "Daddy" who never comes.
|
|
Every day Parry talks to Lucy from Los Angeles--if he fails to reach her
|
|
he comes home sick. She disappeared for two days on her last trip and they
|
|
had to get a doctor for Parry. His assistant and his "Yes Men" were sorry
|
|
for him so they tried to frame lying excuses, but they knew where she was and
|
|
under their breaths they cursed her.
|
|
Finally she wrote and said she was not coming back--the going was too
|
|
good in New York. So after a couple of weeks of illness, during which he was
|
|
under the doctor's care; the doctor knew what he needed and didn't dare tell
|
|
him--Parry went to work with a new leading woman.
|
|
His friends and faithful assistant were happy--Parry was cured. He was
|
|
through with Lucy, through with his parasite. But they did not know Lucy.
|
|
When she tired of New York she came back, smiled and Parry and the next
|
|
morning the new leading woman was fired. Lucy resumed her place as sole
|
|
occupant of the harem--
|
|
That evening she recounted to a group of laughing and screaming studio
|
|
pals the wonderful time she had in New York. She told of all the men she had
|
|
met, and set the bunch roaring with glee again and again as she re-told her
|
|
adventures.
|
|
Lucy enjoyed playing the wanton, and her friends enjoyed hearing about
|
|
it.
|
|
Yes, she is wanton--wanton and cruel and selfish. Think not that the
|
|
"entertains" other men because she is so fond of their society--because she
|
|
is a "man's woman." No, she is just a "gold digger." Parry's money is
|
|
good--but it is not enough. She wants more--always more. And then Parry may
|
|
be a great comedy star but he is not much for looks. She wants more and more
|
|
and more. And that is her way of getting it. Soon Lucy will be rich--for in
|
|
proportion as their men grew poorer. the "gold digger" grows richer.
|
|
And back in New York with her little face pressed against the pane a
|
|
little girl waits and watches--alone she waits for her "Daddy" who never
|
|
comes.
|
|
And a lone woman dreams of the days when she was the helpmate--the happy
|
|
wife of a poor newspaper artist--and in her heart curses the hour motion
|
|
pictures came into being.
|
|
But some time--some day--there may come a familiar step--and with a
|
|
great joy, that will fill their tender hearts to overflowing, they will dash
|
|
down the stairs and fall into the arms of their "Daddy"--if he sees the light
|
|
in time--in time.
|
|
But, of course, that will only be when Lucy gets ready.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
A Battle Royal That Led to Stardom
|
|
|
|
Love brings strange contrasts--it upsets traditions and turns precedent
|
|
all topsy-turvy. But what is love?
|
|
Long years ago when motion pictures were struggling along in baby
|
|
clothes there was a man whose total histrionic experience had been confined
|
|
to carrying a spear on the speaking stage. He was a "super."
|
|
It was D. W. Griffith who gave him his first chance in the pictures--and
|
|
he still carried the spear well. That, in fact, was about all he ever could
|
|
do successfully.
|
|
But it did not keep him from becoming a maker of pictures--of many
|
|
popular pictures.
|
|
But right at first it was a struggle. Somehow he managed to break away
|
|
from a job--induced half a dozen others to put in their wages along with his
|
|
and take a chance on making a comedy.
|
|
Finally, they sold their finished production and realized a profit.
|
|
With this money they made another picture and by degrees the spear-carrier
|
|
became the sole owner of the company--the others worked for him.
|
|
Such is the law of humans. The man with the executive ability wins
|
|
always in business. This man was an executive. To make it easier to
|
|
comprehend his title we shall call him Jack--which is not his name. [27]
|
|
Now there was a girl--a comedienne--who started out with Jack. She was
|
|
his leading woman through all the vicissitudes which accompanied the first
|
|
experiments in pictures. It was Molly [28] who cheered Jack up when things
|
|
went wrong, who kept all the players in good spirits.
|
|
And so it came about that Jack learned in his crude way to care for her.
|
|
So did many another. But from the beginning it seemed that Molly's affection
|
|
leaned more toward Jack than any other of her pals in the "good old days"
|
|
when custard pies and stuffed bricks were coined into golden ducats.
|
|
Time went on and gradually the other suitors pulled away--Jack was
|
|
winning out. True now he had much money and fame was beginning to look in on
|
|
him when he was at home. The world looked particularly good to Jack.
|
|
With some of his now easily earned money he fitted up a handsome
|
|
apartment. To this love nest Molly came often. No, they were not married.
|
|
It seemed fair enough to Molly, she who had been reared to look lightly
|
|
upon moral conditions. She could see the point. As a married woman she
|
|
would not be so popular in pictures.
|
|
And so they drifted along for a year--two years--and then--
|
|
One day there came on the "lot" an attractive brunette. Straightway the
|
|
girl [29]--shall we call her Mae?--and Molly became friends, then pals. It
|
|
was Mae who proposed that they be good friends. At first Molly demurred,
|
|
then she agreed. It was a diplomatic move. There was a good deal of talk
|
|
going on around the "lot." She wanted to stop that talk. So she frolicked
|
|
with Mae.
|
|
Jack was true to her--this the girl knew. Of course, there were a large
|
|
number of new faces around the studios these days--they were necessary in the
|
|
sort of pictures Jack was making. But Molly worried none about them. Her
|
|
Jack was hers--always.
|
|
And so blissfully working her way along toward stardom. Molly drove to
|
|
the "lot" with a song in her heart each morning, and with a happy smile on
|
|
her face in the evening. Wasn't she "kept" by the great maker of pictures,
|
|
himself? Was not she soon to become a star? Was she not earning a
|
|
wonderfully big salary?
|
|
But Jack began to get young ideas. True, in his way he loved Molly; he
|
|
does yet. But Temptation tossed her curls and beckoned him to come and play
|
|
along the Highways of Immorality. Temptation, guised as a shapely maid with
|
|
alluring lips and firm, rounded bosom called to him and he began to take
|
|
heed.
|
|
Temptation's other name was Mae--
|
|
There were little parties arranged--quiet parties in secluded places.
|
|
Molly, all blissfully ignorant of these meeting places, still went about her
|
|
work with a song in her heart.
|
|
Once she was called out of town for a couple of days. She returned one
|
|
day ahead of her planned schedule. A friend whispered a word to her. She
|
|
was dumbfounded. Certainly it could not be true. Her Jack would not do such
|
|
a thing.
|
|
The friend offered proof. All she needed to do, she was told, was to
|
|
quietly go to a certain apartment that evening--late--and she would learn
|
|
something.
|
|
Molly dashed to the apartment, the friend following. They took Mae by
|
|
storm. She opened the door. Mae was naked to her skin.
|
|
Molly's worst fears were confirmed. For there, occupying the bed,
|
|
was--Jack.
|
|
Like a tigress Molly tore at the head of the sleeping Mae. But she
|
|
reckoned without her adversary. Mae was the stronger, the more cat-like of
|
|
the two. With a bound she was up and fighting her former chum. Grasping her
|
|
head, Mae thrust Molly's head against the wall. Time and again she battered
|
|
it against the wooden casing of the window, lacerating the scalp, tearing
|
|
long gashes in her cheek.
|
|
Jack hurriedly dressed and like a slinking coward, sneaked out and down
|
|
the elevator and fled.
|
|
Molly fell unconscious, her head bleeding, her breath coming in gasps.
|
|
Mae, waiting only to see the havoc she had wrought, too hurriedly dressed and
|
|
went to a hotel for the night.
|
|
Molly, with beating head and too weak from loss of blood to go
|
|
downstairs, called in her physician.
|
|
The next morning, Jack quaking with fear, called up the apartment. She
|
|
was deathly ill, he was told. No he could not see her. The doctor said she
|
|
was too ill. Well, then, was there anything he could do.
|
|
He was told to go to Hell!
|
|
That scared him all the more, just as Molly and her friend expected it
|
|
would. So he called up the doctor. Yes, Molly was in bad shape--the end in
|
|
grave doubt--only hope for the best.
|
|
Jack started sending flowers and gifts of every description and wanted
|
|
to hire all the nurses and doctors in town. But it was no use, they would
|
|
not let him see her. Every day he was told she was getting worse.
|
|
Then about a week after the eventful night, one of the Los Angeles
|
|
papers came out with a seven column scream headline "MOLLY DYING."
|
|
Jack was petrified with fear. He called in his man Friday--at that time
|
|
a cadaverous young man with a reputation as a clever fixer.
|
|
Friday got busy. The first thing to do was to quiet the papers. By the
|
|
pulling of a few advertising strings the newspaper stuff began to abate. The
|
|
journal that ran the seven column head in its first edition on the first page
|
|
buried the story in the center of the second edition under the smallest head
|
|
it could find type for.
|
|
Of course, the editor had been convinced that he was in error, that the
|
|
lady was really getting better already--was mending rapidly.
|
|
Jack had a very busy fortnight following the battle. Between keeping
|
|
the papers under control and trying to find out just how ill Molly was, he
|
|
didn't have much time to make comedies. Every request that he see Molly was
|
|
denied. She was too ill, far too ill to see him or anyone else.
|
|
Yet, somehow or other the papers had allowed the story to drop--
|
|
It was two weeks later that Jack received a curt summons to call at the
|
|
apartments of Molly. Her head was still swathed in bandages. She was pale
|
|
and thin. The doctor said she might not get well.
|
|
Jack was offered an ultimatum. The ultimatum was this: He must
|
|
immediately build a new studio away from his "lot." He must employ one of
|
|
the finest directors obtainable. He must buy a first-class story--a comedy-
|
|
drama, something to which Molly aspired. Then he must star her, advertise
|
|
her, spend money in making her name know, offer her hundreds of luxuries to
|
|
which she had never before been accustomed. And he must pay in an enormous
|
|
salary--away into the hundreds of dollars per week.
|
|
There was another alternative: The doctor said she might die. Mae
|
|
would be held for murder, Jack would be an accessory. The whole sordid
|
|
affair would be aired. Jack would be ruined.
|
|
The producer faced either ruin--or the necessity of spending a fortune
|
|
on the woman he said he loved--if she lived.
|
|
Now, as a matter of cold, sordid fact, Molly was not ill--she was not
|
|
suffering from her injuries--she had been cured. But doctors are odd
|
|
persons, and this one was her friend.
|
|
Nearly two years were spent on the production in which Molly was
|
|
starred. Of course, the new studio was built; many a first-class director
|
|
went down to defeat before the picture was completed. But she received
|
|
everything she demanded--and what she demanded was a plenty.
|
|
The picture was not released for still another year. But it was a good
|
|
one. It made the star famous--and rich. Jack made a lot of money in the
|
|
meantime, and he needed it. Molly took heavy toll.
|
|
Finally, when her big picture was cut, titled and released, she found
|
|
that she must go to New York. There she remained until her name was spread
|
|
about the land as a great star.
|
|
Daily there came to her frantic telegrams begging, pleading with her to
|
|
come back--to her Jack. He needed her now more than ever, he said. And he
|
|
wanted so to be forgiven--and they would start all over again.
|
|
There was a long silence; finally Jack received a telegram. It said:
|
|
"Just signed a long term contract with____________ [30] I am to be
|
|
starred in comedy-dramas at a salary, the basis of which you started. You
|
|
and I are all through. Goodbye. P.S.--You made me what I am today, I hope
|
|
you're satisfied.
|
|
Molly."
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
A Wonderful Lover!
|
|
|
|
"What a lover! Doesn't he just make you tingle all over!" cried the
|
|
foolish wife of a prominent citizen.
|
|
"Oh, what wouldn't I give to go through that last scene with him. Where
|
|
he hugs her as only he can hug. When I think of that kiss my head gets
|
|
light," chirruped the idle spouse of the local usurer.
|
|
"Well, girls, those kisses and wondrous embraces are easy enough to
|
|
get--if you have the price," remarked the big woman who sat between them.
|
|
She had been doing comedy characters at the studios ever since pictures were
|
|
pictures. She travelled in the train of the prosperous pair because she told
|
|
raw stories rawly, was witty and clever, was their connecting link with the
|
|
movies--they had nothing else to think of; no washing to do; and besides--her
|
|
cosily furnished bungalow on the edge of the foothills came in very handy at
|
|
times--very, very handy.
|
|
"I'd be willing to pay. He can have me any time he wants me. You only
|
|
live once," said Mrs. Usurer.
|
|
"What my husband don't know won't hurt him," said Mrs. Prominent Cit.
|
|
"And besides I've got enough on him to make him look sick. If ever Adolfo
|
|
[31] comes my way watch me grab."
|
|
"You're both wrong again girls," laughed the big woman. "I don't mean
|
|
what you mean. That's easy--any woman can give that. When I said 'price,' my
|
|
good wimmien, I meant cash, spondulix, mazuma, golden ducats."
|
|
"What DO you mean," cried both in a breath.
|
|
"I mean, children, that Adolfo has put a cash value on what he's got.
|
|
He accommodates the ladies at so much per accommodate or--well, you can have
|
|
his services by the week, month, or hour. It's all according to how you
|
|
feel."
|
|
"Right now?" cried Mrs. Prominent Citizen and Mrs. Usurer, in chorus.
|
|
"Now girls, don't get excited, don't be foolish. 'Right now'," mimicked
|
|
the big woman. "Right now, he's a great star. The mammas and the daughters
|
|
all over this dry nation fight like cave women to get good seats whenever and
|
|
wherever his love making appears on the screen. He does not have to live the
|
|
old way any more. He's just like the successful bucket shop operator--in the
|
|
high finance class--probably contributes to the fund to clean-up the bucket
|
|
shops--or the lounge lizards--take your pick.
|
|
"All right. Tell us the whole story, teacher," said Mrs. Prominent
|
|
Citizen.
|
|
"Yes, please, teacher," implored Mrs. Usurer.
|
|
"Time was," began the big woman, "when our hero was not as prosperous as
|
|
he is today. He wasn't very prominent (nodding toward Mrs. Prominent Cit.).
|
|
And he did not have any money to loan out at high rates of interest.
|
|
(Nodding toward Mrs. Usurer) So he had to do the best he could. Now, it
|
|
happened that the boy had brains in his feet as well as his head. Also he
|
|
had no scruples. No scruples a-tall. Adolfo was what they call a dancing
|
|
fool. The 'dancing' part was okay, but they were wrong on the 'fool.' Very,
|
|
very wrong.
|
|
"With his little old dress suit--that was his wardrobe, he came to
|
|
Pasadena. There was in Pasadena in those days just as there is now a group
|
|
of hotels that were as swell as--as--Hell. The papas and mammas of the War
|
|
Babies--the sugar guys--the oil guys--the munition guys--all that bunch, came
|
|
there to play. And more often than not mamma had to come alone because papa
|
|
had to stay home and nurse little War Baby. And this made mamma a very
|
|
lonesome and a very miserable woman.
|
|
"So that every night at the ultra ultra Hotel Miseryland and the also
|
|
ultra ultra Hotel Wantington there were sundry women, not too good looking,
|
|
not too fair of form, nor too young, who sat by the side lines and enviously
|
|
eyed the young girls who had no difficulty in securing partners. What good
|
|
were their diamonds and their gold embroidered dresses and their limousines
|
|
'n everything when they couldn't get them a dancing partner. So there was
|
|
gloom, deep impenetrable gloom and disappointment among the mammas of the War
|
|
Babies.
|
|
"Then along came little Dolfy. His appraising eye surveyed the field.
|
|
He saw what he saw. The diamonds did not blind him. In the dazzling light
|
|
he only opened his eyes all the wider. He looked over the young ones and he
|
|
looked over the old ones. For the time being--at least until after the
|
|
campaign was over--he determined to turn his back on the flappers. They
|
|
would have to wait.
|
|
"He pulled no 'boners.' He was a bright young man. He danced the old
|
|
girls dizzy. He started out by dancing with the young ones and flirting with
|
|
the old ones over his partners' shoulders. No, he was not bold. This was
|
|
work that called for a certain kind of finesse. No matter how much he needed
|
|
them, he must hold tight until they came after him.
|
|
"You see, Adolfo had once read the story of Potipher's wife and how she
|
|
chased little Joseph, a nice Jewish boy with black eyes and pretty hair, all
|
|
over her husband's preserves just because Joseph handled the proposition
|
|
right. He made her come after him. 'Them Jews have always been good
|
|
business men,' he said to himself. Wherefore, he planned his campaign along
|
|
Josephian lines. He made them come after him.
|
|
"Well, he danced and he danced and it wasn't long before he had the
|
|
rivals for his attentions glaring at one another and saying little spiteful
|
|
things about--and often right to--each other. The young girls laughed and
|
|
sneered and the old girls cried--in the privacy of their rooms whenever they
|
|
didn't get their full share of dances with him. And, believe me, the boy
|
|
could dance. He made very dowager think she had it on Mrs. Vernon Castle.
|
|
My, but he was the popular boy.
|
|
"There is no use in prolonging this story too much, children. Adolfo
|
|
was going great. Funds were getting very, very low, when the contest came to
|
|
a climax. The rivalry for his favors narrowed down to just two contestants.
|
|
One was the wife of a very rich Easterner. She had come to Pasadena a month
|
|
or two before with her young daughter. They occupied a lavishly appointed
|
|
apartment near the Miseryland. The other was the more or less well known
|
|
wife of a gay blade whose people had amassed millions in the packing game.
|
|
Wherever people eat her husband's family draws revenue.
|
|
"For some time, he played with them both. On one occasion he rode home
|
|
with the pair in a big limousine. They met the next day. Said the one from
|
|
the East: "Dolfy was wonderful last night. He squeezed my hand all the way
|
|
home." "That was when he wasn't squeezing mine," snapped the other.
|
|
"Finally the lady from the East forged to the front and took possession
|
|
of Adolfo. He lived well, had plenty of money and prospered. The apartment
|
|
was cosy and comfortable and there was always room for him. This lasted
|
|
until the woman who ran the apartment house decided things were getting a
|
|
little bold. The lady was asked to move. Which she did and Adolfo went
|
|
along. But the time came for going home and her husband's insistence could
|
|
be overcome no longer. She departed sorrowingly.
|
|
"After that it was one after another. He was making a good living. He
|
|
finally began to drift over to Los Angeles. He enlarged his territory. He
|
|
became a four o'clock tea hound at the principal downtown hotel. He walked
|
|
about the lobby with his hat off. Was thoroughly at home. The four o'clock
|
|
teas were patronized by a group of women who didn't care. He found many
|
|
patrons here and basked in the sunshine of success and plenty.
|
|
"On one occasion a florist who had received a bad check from Adolfo went
|
|
over to the hotel, where he had been informed he spent his afternoons. He
|
|
found him and demanded payment in no uncertain terms. Dolfy asked him to
|
|
wait. But the florist followed him into the tea room and there our hero
|
|
whispered a word or two to a sportive looking matron and came back smiling
|
|
with the money to make good the check.
|
|
"The Dolfy met a movie girl. [32] She was just on the edge of stardom,
|
|
just going over the top. She helped him. Then she married him. That was
|
|
his entry into pictures. He had done a few bits but was comparatively
|
|
unknown.
|
|
"With the opportunities and the personal contact his marriage gave him,
|
|
Adolfo moved fast. He met the right people. He had talent. Brains in both
|
|
head and feet. His opportunity came and he took advantage of it. He could
|
|
act. Had been acting all his life. That's how he lived. His lessons in
|
|
love-making stood him in good stead. All he had to do was be natural.
|
|
"When he finally hit the high mark he didn't need the movie girl any
|
|
more. She was a liability now, not an asset. So he canned her. Her career
|
|
is about ended. His is just beginning.
|
|
"He draws a fat salary. His love-making is an art. He learned it in a
|
|
great school and was paid while learning. He's a big star. Nice girls and
|
|
nasty ones are all in the same boat. They all love Dolfy's way of loving."
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
Whiskey Fumes and Orange Blossoms
|
|
|
|
They met on the broad walk at Venice--three motion picture "extra girls"
|
|
and three natty students of aeronautics.
|
|
For a week the three uniformed men had been drunk; gloriously pickled.
|
|
They were on a three weeks' leave and this was to be their last day in Los
|
|
Angeles.
|
|
"Well, if there ain't a flock o' chickens!" spoke up one of the
|
|
staggering representatives of Uncle Sam. "Where'n hell you goin'?" he asked
|
|
the trio.
|
|
The girls giggled. It was a very humorous situation indeed.
|
|
"Watchin' the sad sea waves," said pretty little Babette, tossing her
|
|
curls. "Who wants t' know?"
|
|
"Le's all go together--six lil' pals," suggested O'Mara, one of the
|
|
airmen, and a prominent figure in the life of Hollywood's wild set. "Le's
|
|
all go together an' shee th' shad waves wavin'."
|
|
"Where d'ya get that pal stuff?" wondered one of the girls. "Who said
|
|
so?"
|
|
"You--all get funny wi' me an' my pals an' I'll sp-sp-spank you where it
|
|
hurts," said one of the students.
|
|
The girls giggled again. The party was getting good.
|
|
"Well, if you guys'll buy us a drink, maybe we might consider your
|
|
proposition," said one of the "extras."
|
|
"You're on," said O'Mara.
|
|
And so then, arm in arm, they went down the broad walk and into a cafe
|
|
noted for catering to the motion picture profession.
|
|
It was mid-afternoon when they emerged, each a bit worse for the visit,
|
|
but all contentedly munching peanuts.
|
|
Babette, though, was a bit overjoyous. She lifted her skirts a little
|
|
too high for street decorum and she shimmied down the broad walk, but Venice
|
|
is used to that.
|
|
Suddenly O'Mara stopped dead in his tracks, for the moment half sobered.
|
|
"My Gawd!" he said in a stage whisper. "I just thought of somethin'
|
|
damn important."
|
|
"Aw, hell, there ain't nothin' as important as goin' somewhere and
|
|
gettin' anozzer drink," said one of the "extras."
|
|
"'Simportant t' me, jus' same," insisted O'Mara.
|
|
"What's so damned important?" Babette wanted to know.
|
|
"This 's my weddin' day," said O'Mara. Then singing lustily: "Call me
|
|
early, mother, darling, I'm goin'--goin'--t' be queen o' th' May."
|
|
"You're just a plain damn drunk an' you ain't gonna be queen o' May or
|
|
Mabel or anybody," asserted Babette.
|
|
"Hell I ain't," insisted O'Mara. "I'll bet an'body six-bitx I'm goin'
|
|
t' be married today. Thass all."
|
|
"Who's the dame?" wondered Babette.
|
|
"Damfino," said O'Mara. "But it's sure as hell somebody."
|
|
"Say, whassa idea, anyhow?" queried one of the girls. "What th' hell
|
|
you wanta go an' spoil perfe'tly good party with a damn weddin' for?"
|
|
"Ain't spoilin' no party. Maker it fine party," said O'Mara. "Damn it,
|
|
le's all get married."
|
|
"See if I care," giggled Babette.
|
|
"I wouldn't mind it so much, but it always makes m' wife sore whenever I
|
|
go out and get married," said one of the other students.
|
|
"Me, too," spoke the third.
|
|
"I gotta get me a wifie t'day, somehow," insisted O'Mara. "Where in
|
|
hell 'm I goin' t' get me a wife?"
|
|
"Gawd, if it's s' damn important as that, I'll marry you, you damn drunk
|
|
fool," said Babette.
|
|
"'S go," said O'Mara. "Le's go."
|
|
So they went.
|
|
So to the city hall they went, arm in arm, where they procured a
|
|
marriage license, and from there to a Justice of the Peace who performed the
|
|
ceremony. After which they had a fine wedding supper, consisting to a large
|
|
extent of spirituous liquors. Then at nightfall the three girls accompanied
|
|
the students to the Southern Pacific station where the boys entrained for a
|
|
point in Texas where their training school was located.
|
|
The bride and her two friends returned to their homes, none of them
|
|
remembering the details of the party. But they all insisted that it
|
|
certainly was a very enjoyable affair--it gave them a new thrill.
|
|
Sobered, O'Mara explained to his friends the necessity for his marriage
|
|
to a girl he had never seen before.
|
|
He had applied for and had received so many leaves of absence that his
|
|
commander grew tired of permitting him to go off on his periodical drunks.
|
|
This time O'Mara had to have a good excuse. Marriage was the only alibi he
|
|
could think of. Indeed, it was the only excuse his commander would tolerate.
|
|
So he said he was going to be married. He was given three weeks' leave. He
|
|
had to bring the license back with him. He brought it.
|
|
When the armistice was signed, O'Mara was one of the first to return to
|
|
Hollywood. He had a reason--he wanted to see what his new wife really looked
|
|
like; he wanted also to be certain whether or not he was married. He found
|
|
out that he was--securely.
|
|
Then came the inevitable. It was but a few short months till Babette
|
|
was in court applying for a divorce. Her new husband beat her, cursed her,
|
|
hated her, she said. To his friends and hers she made vile charges against
|
|
him. She obtained a divorce and alimony.
|
|
O'Mara is one of the most brilliant young men in the motion picture
|
|
industry. He has held several splendid positions at the biggest studios in
|
|
Hollywood. He is popular at parties and very much in demand among a certain
|
|
set.
|
|
Babette is receiving regular money now, the first she ever received.
|
|
Being an "extra" doesn't pay well, or regularly. Alimony is much easier.
|
|
The court collects that.
|
|
And this is only one of a dozen similar cases.
|
|
Take Jim Brown, for instance. Jim met a charming young married woman at
|
|
a movie party one night. Her husband, a young and coming director, was
|
|
dancing quite frequently with his leading woman, and the young wife, piqued,
|
|
flirted with Jim Brown.
|
|
The liquor flowed freely, as it usually flows at movie parties. Jim
|
|
Brown and the director's wife went out for a walk. The director found them
|
|
there spooning in the tonneau of Brown's car. Brown whipped the young
|
|
director. The young wife said she was afraid to go home. Brown said she
|
|
should go with him. She did.
|
|
But the young wife, possibly repenting, decided the following day to
|
|
return to her home and beg her husband's forgiveness.
|
|
Quietly she stole into the house, for it was night. Noiselessly she
|
|
switched on the lights--and occupying her place in her bed was her husband's
|
|
leading woman
|
|
The young wife returned to Jim Brown. They are still living together--
|
|
and her husband is living with his leading woman!
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
A Movie Queen and A Broken Home
|
|
|
|
Hollywood drafts its workers from the Trenches of Life--
|
|
Argosies from all the seven seas--caravans from every clime--bring their
|
|
contributions of ambitious toilers to the movie mill.
|
|
A vivid, living mirage of everything the human heart desires lures alike
|
|
the innocent blue-eyed girl, the sophisticated damsel, the flower and the
|
|
froth of mankind, into the yawning mouth of the abyss--the tragic realm of
|
|
Moviedom--
|
|
Showers of gold, luxury realized beyond the wildest dreams, a life
|
|
resplendent with jewels, gowns that bewilder the eye, ravishing silks and
|
|
satins, sables and ermine, fortune, fame--and shame!
|
|
Pugilists become actors, song writers become directors, physicians
|
|
become character men, bartenders and button-hole makers become producers,
|
|
artists models and modistes' manikins become stars--in some cases almost over
|
|
night--and police court lawyers become arbiters of the public taste!
|
|
There are numerous stories of how men--popular idols--have abandoned
|
|
their wives--their children, to carry on illicit relations with the women of
|
|
the studios; of how wives have left their husbands to associate with a stage
|
|
carpenter or an assistant camera man. These cases are of common knowledge.
|
|
The winning of another man's wife or another woman's husband was a sort
|
|
of friendly contest. A game in which many played a hand. The incident of
|
|
the leading woman who took away the husband--of a prominent actor and
|
|
director--of the wife who discovered her and selected her for the position,
|
|
is but one example of this kind.
|
|
At a dance another leading woman openly boasted that she was going to
|
|
win a certain assistant director, then present, away from his wife and child.
|
|
She did. The pair are now in Australia. The wife is working in a Los
|
|
Angeles office, supporting herself and the girl. They never hear from the
|
|
husband and father.
|
|
Only a few months before, this, then happy family, had enjoyed a
|
|
wonderful Christmas--a fine big tree, gifts for the girl, games and good
|
|
food, friends dropping in all day. Whenever the wife passes that house--the
|
|
place of her last happy memories, the tears start. But--the leading woman
|
|
wanted that man. She got him. Movie conditions--close, unrestrained
|
|
contact--helped her.
|
|
But a recent case, a very recent case, involving a certain woman star
|
|
and a married man, once admired by all who knew him as a model husband--
|
|
father of two children--is receiving more than passing notice. It has
|
|
shocked even shockless Moviedom.
|
|
The facts:
|
|
There came to Hollywood a few years ago a man who had once been a famous
|
|
football player. In the East he had been known as a great varsity athlete.
|
|
He is a fine specimen of physical manhood. He is good to look at. His
|
|
father is a prominent financier, rich and liberal.
|
|
He came to Los Angeles with his wife and child. He made friends fast.
|
|
Everybody liked Hefty [33]--which we will call him hereafter but which is not
|
|
his name.
|
|
He started to serve his time in pictures. He had been a gridiron star.
|
|
He was naturally affable and a regular fellow. Why not reach stardom on the
|
|
screen? He worked conscientiously. He was determined to make his way
|
|
without any fatherly aid.
|
|
Hefty and his wife took a modest apartment. At night Hefty came home
|
|
and helped--helped with the baby--with the dishes. With the exception of
|
|
going to an occasional prize fight, his only pleasure was running out to see
|
|
the few intimate friends they had made.
|
|
He struggled on. He was good looking--a type. He had strength and
|
|
physical appeal. Before long he was much in demand--had work almost all the
|
|
time. He was living clean. No scandal attached itself to his name.
|
|
V------- [34], the woman in the case--had reached Hollywood long before.
|
|
She had already won her way to stardom when Hefty arrived. Aided and abetted
|
|
by her girlish appearance, her good looks, her insinuating manner, her easy
|
|
morals--and a capable mother who handled her affairs--she was living in easy
|
|
opulence on a salary that ran into four figures.
|
|
She was known to have been married at least once, although the concern
|
|
that owned her pictures made much capital of her "innocent" youth. According
|
|
to the press notices she was still in her teens. She had been married to a
|
|
director. [35] The flu carried him off.
|
|
Sometime before Hefty appeared on the scene she had been "playing"--as
|
|
they say in Hollywood--a famous aviator, a man who received enormous fees for
|
|
his dare-devil exploits. More than once he had risked his neck after hours
|
|
spent in V-----'s society. For a while the aviator forgot his wife in Texas
|
|
to be with V-----. They had a merry, merry time while it lasted. Then the
|
|
aviator was killed. [36]
|
|
At the time Hefty arrived on the scene V----- had not yet selected a
|
|
successor to the aviator. There were what might be called a few casuals who
|
|
filled in the lapse--a wild party or two--but nothing in the way of a
|
|
prolonged liason.
|
|
Where or how they met is of little consequence. Somehow or other they
|
|
manage to meet in the movies. Their first meetings were but friendly visits.
|
|
Then V----- saw to it that Hefty should see more of her. Hefty was willing.
|
|
Before long he wanted to be with her often--oftener than he would care to
|
|
have his wife know.
|
|
It required cunning with a wife and baby but somehow they managed it.
|
|
It is more simple--in pictures. There is night work--long trips on location.
|
|
Numerous excuses and opportunities that exist in no other walk of life.
|
|
In time Hefty's friends--and he had made a lot of them--began to notice
|
|
things--to open their eyes. Hefty and V----- were growing careless--were
|
|
taking no pains to avoid a scandal. The studios began to talk.
|
|
Hefty's friends were worried. They felt bad about the thing for they
|
|
all liked his wife. She was as good a fellow as her big husband. She was a
|
|
good wife, a good mother and a good friend. They were willing to overlook
|
|
ordinary lapses, but this affair was growing dangerous--and besides Hefty's
|
|
wife was soon again to become a mother. Happy, she had told her intimates of
|
|
her condition.
|
|
But Hefty and V----- didn't seem to be particularly concerned about what
|
|
their friends had to say or what they thought. Hefty remained away from home
|
|
more often now--made few if any excuses and saw his wife and home only when
|
|
he could not be with V-----.
|
|
Events were fast drawing to a head. The affair was now a matter of
|
|
common gossip. At last the wife heard the whole story--learned all the
|
|
details. Most of them Hefty himself told her. The telling was cold and
|
|
brutal.
|
|
Two or three days before the anticipated arrival of their second child,
|
|
he came home and informed his wife he was going to leave. He did leave.
|
|
Entreaty proved unavailing. She pleaded and implored--but Hefty went. The
|
|
unborn babe had no influence!
|
|
Then friends abandoned Hefty and came to the wife's aid. They promised
|
|
to help her. This gave her courage. She was told to threaten. They showed
|
|
her the only way to reach the victims of movie viceitis. She followed their
|
|
advice. She would expose them--ruin their careers, their money making
|
|
powers. This appeal succeeds in Hollywood when the calls of humanity and
|
|
decency fall flat.
|
|
So they settled in cash and its equivalents. Hefty made provision for
|
|
his family. The wife agreed to keep quiet--but her friends say that she will
|
|
never be able to quiet the aching heart that will not heal.
|
|
V----- is still a star. The alleged movie "clean-up" has passed her by.
|
|
And Hefty's friends do not think so much of Hefty--not even in callous
|
|
Hollywood.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
Making Sodom Look Sick
|
|
|
|
Measured by the pace set at some movie star parties there must have been
|
|
a lot of weak and sterile minds in ancient Sodom and Babylon--Rome and
|
|
Pompeii.
|
|
Either that or the historians have been holding out on us--have not told
|
|
us all there is to tell.
|
|
Possibly there was a limit beyond which even a Pagan emperor dared not
|
|
go. It may be that the truth was not so easily suppressed in those days.
|
|
There was no phalanx of press agents in the armies of the ancients. There
|
|
were no million dollar advertising appropriations to help still the
|
|
journalistic conscience. No sixteen page displays such as ran recently for
|
|
ten consecutive days in a certain Western daily.
|
|
In the light of revealed history it is certain--whatever may have been
|
|
the cause--that ancient degenerates had to exercise a certain amount of
|
|
prudence.
|
|
There were no modern safeguards such as surround the kings and queens of
|
|
Moviedom. No ramification of interests to suppress the truth at every step.
|
|
Moviedom's imagination had free play--unfettered, unrestrained it made the
|
|
scarlet sins of Sodom and Babylon, of Rome and Pompeii fade into a pale, pale
|
|
yellow!
|
|
Not so long ago a certain popular young actress returned from a trip.
|
|
She had been away for ten days. Her friends felt that there ought to be a
|
|
special welcome awaiting her. Rostrand [37], a famous comedian, decided to
|
|
stage another of his unusual affairs. He rented ten rooms on the top floor
|
|
of a large exclusive hotel and only guests who had the proper invitations
|
|
were admitted.
|
|
After all of the guests--male and female--were seated, a female dog was
|
|
led out into the middle of the largest room. Then a male dog was brought in.
|
|
A dignified man in clerical garb stepped forward and with all due solemnity
|
|
performed a marriage ceremony for the dogs.
|
|
It was a decided hit. The guests laughed and applauded heartily and the
|
|
comedian was called a genius. Which fact pleased him immensely. But the
|
|
"best" was yet to come.
|
|
The dogs were unleashed. There before the assembled and unblushing
|
|
young girls and their male escorts was enacted an unspeakable scene. Even
|
|
truth cannot justify the publication of such details.
|
|
Another recent party that was given by Count ______, a "prince" of a
|
|
fellow, at his palatial mansion. Nearly two hundred guests were present. A
|
|
jazz orchestra furnished sensuous music. The guests, women and men,
|
|
disrobed. Then a nude dance was staged which lasted until morning.
|
|
Some of the guests were outraged. They departed. Others remained and
|
|
took part in the orgy which did not stop with mere dancing for some of them.
|
|
But these nude parties were common. There is another comedian of no
|
|
mean ability, whose home for several months had been the meeting place of
|
|
these nude dancers. Recently a raid on the home of this comedian was
|
|
scheduled, but he was "tipped off" in time to be acting perfectly decorous
|
|
when the officers arrived. The neighbors, however, knew better.
|
|
A type of "citizen" well known in certain quarters--handsome, young,
|
|
well proportioned men who work as "extras" in the pictures--is the paid
|
|
escort or "kept man."
|
|
Deplorable as it may seem these beings have found patrons as far north
|
|
as the exclusive precincts of Del Monte. Montecito, Pasadena, San Diego are
|
|
familiar to them. Women of a certain sort used to have the telephone number
|
|
of the establishment where these men held forth and many calls came to them
|
|
every day and night. Pay for their "company" ran high. Only the few could
|
|
afford it.
|
|
Recent events suggested that it might be best to close this
|
|
establishment but the former "club members" still hover about plying their
|
|
profession.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
The Girl Who Wanted Work
|
|
|
|
The girl came from Atlanta. So we will car her by that name just to
|
|
mark her for identification, as the lawyers would say.
|
|
Tired, yet brave, she entered the great sanctum of the great producer.
|
|
There was an outer and an inner office. In the outer office nobody paid the
|
|
slightest attention to her, so she walked into the inner room. Half of the
|
|
walls were unpainted. On a large near-leather sofa lay a man, snoring
|
|
lustily with a newspaper over his face. His funny derby hat was threatening
|
|
to fall off.
|
|
At the desk sat a frizzy stenographer. She was sucking an orange with
|
|
much smacking and now and then took a bite, peel and all. With the other
|
|
free hand she typed a little spasmodically. She had her limbs crossed with
|
|
great abandon and wore rolled-up stockings with wild lace curtain effects.
|
|
At last Atlanta was in the presence of a great film magnate. Everything
|
|
seemed eccentric, to say the least. The great man on the sofa was snoring
|
|
with a struggling noise as if he expected to die every minute. The
|
|
stenographer said, without looking at the girl,
|
|
"Leave your photos on the desk--is your name and phone number on the
|
|
back?"
|
|
"I beg pardon," said Atlanta. "I have a letter of introduction to
|
|
Mr. Junius." [38]
|
|
The blonde frizzy-haired head turned and the stenographer gazed at the
|
|
girl as if she had dropped down from another planet. She wiped her rouged
|
|
lips on the back of her hand and said while inhaling a mouthful of orange
|
|
juice:
|
|
"Wasn't you going to register for a job?"
|
|
Atlanta stated that she had a letter. She also asked when she might be
|
|
able to interview Mr. Junius.
|
|
"For the love of Mike," said the girl. "How should I know. There he is
|
|
on the sofa. He's dead or something. He gets awful sore if I wakes him up."
|
|
"I have been here all day," said Atlanta.
|
|
"Gee, in this game you're lucky if you see somebody the first week,"
|
|
laughed the girl, and took another bite of the orange. "I don't want to wake
|
|
him."
|
|
He was small, dark haired, with a bullet head and a low, receding brow.
|
|
He looked very boyish. His trousers were much too long for him. He was bow-
|
|
legged and wore a silk shirt with huge monograms on both sleeves. He had a
|
|
large nose and small ratty eyes and dangling from his ear hung a pair of
|
|
goggle-like eyeglasses.
|
|
Suddenly the telephone rang. The man sat up and rubbed his eyes,
|
|
mumbled something of an anathema in a language that Atlanta did not
|
|
understand and he walked to the desk and answered the telephone. He did not
|
|
seem to see her.
|
|
He snatched the telephone receiver off and thundered:
|
|
"Vat the hell?"
|
|
He listened for a moment and then replied to somebody with a flow of
|
|
excited and lurid language. The substance of the conversation seemed to be
|
|
the practicability of using an African elephant in an Indian scene.
|
|
"Golly, go to it," he snapped. "Who knows the difference between an
|
|
African elephant and a American elephant. I don't Nobody does. Vat the
|
|
hell?"
|
|
He slammed up the receiver and then saw his stenographer through the
|
|
door.
|
|
"For why don't you answer the telephone," he snapped. "Vat I pay you
|
|
for, here?"
|
|
He turned and was going to lie down when he saw Atlanta.
|
|
She wore some very pretty stockings that day and very trim slippers.
|
|
"Vell," he said, looking at her ankles. "Vat do you want?" Then he put
|
|
on his hat.
|
|
"Are you Mr. Junius?" began the girl.
|
|
"No, I'm Kristopher Columbus," he smiled. "Who do you think I am?"
|
|
"I have a letter of introduction to you from Mr. Riddle, the theatre-man
|
|
of Denver," she said, presenting the letter. He evidently could not read it.
|
|
"Are you vun of his checkens and he wants to get rid of you, eh?" he
|
|
smirked.
|
|
Atlanta was so suddenly taken "off her feet" that she did not get time
|
|
to get fully indignant. The little man's eyes gleamed with merriment over
|
|
his own cheap witticism and his ears stood out like the wings on a biplane.
|
|
He shook his bullet head and the little "derby" hat, of the "fried egg"
|
|
type, fairly danced on his head. Then he saw how the girl's lower lip
|
|
quivered, and he decided to try another tack.
|
|
"Sit down, dear," he said, "you are a friend of a friend of mine."
|
|
Then he shouted out to the stenographer:
|
|
"It's time for your lunch, eh?"
|
|
Although it was in the middle of the afternoon, the girl said "yes,
|
|
sir," with a wink and left closing the door behind her. Atlanta heard a snap
|
|
lock go shut.
|
|
"Vell," he smiled, and pushed his chair close up to where the girl sat.
|
|
"Speak your piece."
|
|
Determined to succeed and to tolerate his idiosyncrasies, Atlanta began:
|
|
"I want to get into the motion pictures and will work very, very hard."
|
|
"You have a nice figure," said Junius, and looked her over.
|
|
"I have had some dramatic experience," she stuttered.
|
|
"Vy don't you act that way, then," he smiled. "You are camouflaging,
|
|
and vhy?"
|
|
"In high school plays and in--"
|
|
"You have swell ankles and pretty knees, I think--" he continued. "Vat
|
|
do you veigh--live weight?"
|
|
"I weigh one hundred and twenty-two," said the girl. "As I was going to
|
|
say--I--want to be given a chance--"
|
|
"It's up to you," replied Junius. "You are a high kicker, yes?" He
|
|
held his hat high above his head, invitingly.
|
|
"Can you do anything for me?" she asked, ignoring his personal remarks
|
|
and attempting to overlook his leering glances.
|
|
"I told you it vas up to you personally," said the man, insistently.
|
|
"Do you live with your mother or have you an apartment. If you live with
|
|
your mother--well, there's nothing doing--"
|
|
Atlanta could stand it no longer. She arose, trembling and disgusted.
|
|
"You shouldn't be so particular," he laughed. "Anybody that's been
|
|
Riddle's chicken. I know Sol and his wife and family. Are you the girl he
|
|
bought them squirrel furs for, eh? He vas telling me."
|
|
"I--I don't accept presents from men and I don't know Mr. Riddle,"
|
|
snapped Atlanta. "My mother does."
|
|
"Ah," smirked Junius, "the old lady is gayer than the daughter, eh?"
|
|
This remark about her mother proved the last straw. With super-human
|
|
effort she kept outwardly cool as she walked towards the door.
|
|
Either ignoring her state of mind or two calloused to understand that he
|
|
had hurt every sensibility in the girl, Junius asked, with an attempt to
|
|
tighten her coat around her:
|
|
"How you look in a bathing suit, yes?"
|
|
Atlanta snatched her hatpin from her hat and held in menacingly towards
|
|
him. He turned pale and opened the door. The boy was outside.
|
|
"Show this one out, Teddy," said Junius. "She is a flivver! Look out,
|
|
she has a hatpin."
|
|
Scarcely knowing what she was doing Atlanta found herself on the
|
|
sidewalk and as she passed the window of Junius' office he looked out and
|
|
shook his finger at her.
|
|
"I'll qveer you all over town," he said, "you--you are a lemon!"
|
|
Of course, the girl did not know till later that he was a member of a
|
|
producers association, and that the blacklist was one of his weapons for
|
|
stubborn girls with "false" standards of virtue.
|
|
|
|
(The End)
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
NOTES:
|
|
[1] There were two other well-discussed scandal publications in 1922:
|
|
HOLLYWOOD CONFIDENTIAL (not to be confused with later publications bearing
|
|
the same name) and an issue of FREE LANCE. We have not been able to locate
|
|
copies of either; if photocopies are made available we will reprint them in
|
|
future issues of TAYLOROLOGY.
|
|
[2] This is a reference to Bebe Daniels' arrest and incarceration for
|
|
speeding.
|
|
[3] Wallace Reid.
|
|
[4] Dorothy Davenport Reid.
|
|
[5] See TAYLOROLOGY #20.
|
|
[6] Lottie Pickford.
|
|
[7] Flo Hart.
|
|
[8] Henry Miller, Jr.
|
|
[9] Henry Miller, Sr. (the actor and dramatist, not the later writer).
|
|
[10] Juanita Hansen.
|
|
[11] Harry Williams. See TAYLOROLOGY #22.
|
|
[12] Probably Marshall Neilan. See TAYLOROLOGY #8.
|
|
[13] Mabel Normand.
|
|
[14] Alas for the good old days!
|
|
[15] Dorothy Dalton.
|
|
[16] Lew Cody.
|
|
[17] Thomas Ince.
|
|
[18] Jay Belasco.
|
|
[19] Betty Compson.
|
|
[20] Al Christie.
|
|
[21] George Loane Tucker.
|
|
[22] "The Miracle Man."
|
|
[23] Walter Morosco.
|
|
[24] Oliver Morosco.
|
|
[25] Larry Semon.
|
|
[26] Lucile Carlisle.
|
|
[27] Mack Sennett.
|
|
[28] Mabel Normand.
|
|
[29] Mae Busch.
|
|
[30] Goldwyn. In reality, she signed her contract with Goldwyn long before
|
|
the film "Mickey" was released.
|
|
[31] Rudolph Valentino.
|
|
[32] Jean Acker.
|
|
[33] Lefty Flynn.
|
|
[34] Viola Dana.
|
|
[35] John Collins.
|
|
[36] Ormer Locklear.
|
|
[37] Roscoe Arbuckle.
|
|
[38] Julius Stern.
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
For more information about Taylor, see
|
|
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
|
|
Back issues of Taylorology are available via Gopher or FTP at
|
|
etext.archive.umich.edu
|
|
in the directory pub/Zines/Taylorology
|
|
***************************************************************************** |