Modern Screen (Jan - Nov 1940)

SOONER or later — usually sooner — every Hollywood party gets around to the subject of sex. This one had arrived at the topic of legs. There was a lively debate about who owned the prettiest pair in Filmdom. Marlene Dietrich had her defenders. Ann Sheridan had hers. Lana Turner had hers. Betty Grable, someone insisted, deserved the honor. Up spoke a visitor from New York, "I remember a girl who came out here with the reputation of having the prettiest legs on Broadway. But no one out here seems a bit conscious of her very shapely pins." "What's her name?" asked a chorus of disbelievers.. "Claudette Colbert," said the visitor from New York. For a moment there was silence. "I remember when Claudette arrived in Hollywood," conceded a director. "There was a bit of hullabaloo about her legs." "What made it die down?" asked a newly-arrived blonde. "I didn't know press agents ever let anybody forget that a girl had legs." She crossed her own self-consciously. "You certainly never see any Colbert bathing-suit art," commented a drama-page editor. "Maybe she doesn't swim," someone cracked. "Say," said the blonde, indignantly, "I don't swim, but I spend my life posing for bathing-suit art." From a discussion of Hollywood legs in general, the conversation turned into a discussion of the Colbert legs in particular. Why had they been forgotten? Here was a titillating mystery. This sort of thing just didn't happen in Hollywood. Either a girl showed her legs and people said she had sex appeal, or she didn't show her legs and people said she didn't have sex appeal. Claudette didn't go in for self-exposure, yet nobody said she lacked sex appeal. The party didn't solve the mystery. Apparently only Claudette could explain it. So we went to Claudette. We found her in the Guest Star dressing-room at M-G-M, where at the moment she was co-starring with Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr in a superspecial entitled "Boom Town." One entire corner of the room was window-glass, with a right-angle divan built into the corner. Sitting diagonally across from us on the divan, she looked trim and pert in a blue skirt, white blouse and checkered sports jacket. Claudette laughed when told of the mystery we were there to solve. "Come, come!" she said chidingly. "Don't make me out an oddity. Don't tell me I'm the only actress in Hollywood who has refrained from leg art." We challenged her to name any other actress who had refrained as she had. "Well, there's Greta Garbo, for one," said Claudette, tentatively. But Garbo, when she first came to Hollywood, posed smilingly in bathing suits and, believe it or not, in running trunks. "There's Norma Shearer," said Claudette, hopefully. But M-G-M has a whole file of early photos of Norma in a bathing suit — some of them even showing her poised on a diving tower. She named several other actresses who, she thought, had avoided art beside a swimming pool. Every case she cited could be refuted, with the single exception of Luise Rainer. And Luise didn't come to Hollywood with the reputation of having "the most beautiful legs on Broadway." "No," said Claudette, with mock ruefulness, "she was spared that embarrassment. And don't think I wasn't embarrassed about it." Why? Claudette temporarily dodged the question. She said, "You know how it all started, don't you? Walter Winchell started it. I opened in the play called 'The Barker.' It was the first big thing I had done, and Winchell was there, opening night, reviewing it. After the second act, my brother went to the men's lounge and bumped into Winchell, who didn't know that he was my brother. "Charles said to Winchell, 'What do you think of the play?' "Winchell said, 'I can't keep my mind on the play. I can't take my eyes off that doll's legs.' "Charles waxed a bit huffy and said, "That doll, as you call her, happens to be my sister!' "Winchell harrumphed and said, 'Now don't take it that way, Charlie. I meant it as a compliment,' and so forth, and eased out. "If it hadn't been for that incident, probably he would never have printed anything about my legs. It amused him that he had almost stepped into something, wise-cracking about them. So he printed in his column that I had 'the prettiest legs on Broadway,' or some such thing. Whatever made him notice them in the first place has always been a puzzle to me." (That's easily explained. At the time that Claudette made her hit in "The Barker," (Continued on page 64) BY JAMES REID TE S N They drew raves in the Broadway columnsstill Hollywood apparently ignores them. Why' 40 MODERN SCREEN