Modern Screen (Dec 1931 - Nov 1932 (assorted issues))

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WHITHER THESE FOUR? ♦ ♦ ♦ What of Mary and Doug? And the younger Doug and Joan? Do their futures bode happiness? Or will it be ... ? By HARRIET PARSONS THE past year has brought repeated rumors of the shattering of filmdom's greatest romance — that of Queen Mary and King Doug of Pickfair. Rumors which rocked Hollywood and the world and have not been laid at rest yet. And now, strangely, a parallel rumor hovers over the second generation of Hollywood's royal family — Prince Doug, the Second, and Princess Joan. The junior Fairbanks followed in the footsteps of Mary and Doug in their romantic marriage, their passionate and idealistic devotion to one another, and the sweeping publicity which accompanied it. And now, if reports can be believed, they are following again in the threatened breaking up of their marriage. Just how much credence can be lent to these reports that the two most publicized unions in motion picture history are approaching dissolution? Just what is the present situation between Mary and Doug — between Doug and Joan? Will there be divorce in the Fairbanks" dynasty? Will there, perhaps, be two divorces? Or will these two world-famous couples adjust their problems and keep their marriages intact? This much I know — that in spite of all denials and statements to the press there are marital complications and problems — serious ones — in both households. That there have been vital emotional situations to be faced and difficult adjustments to be made and that this marriage drama of the four Fairbanks is still going on, and no one can make more than a shrewd guess at its outcome. NOW, Doug, Jr., and Joan have grown more sensible in the past year. They go out more often. They see more of other people. There is less of the puppy love attitude about them. They seem to have passed through their adolescent and infatuated period of baby talk and public love-making and settled down into a more normal married life. In fact, much of this talk On the preceding pages, Elinor Clyn told her memories of Doug and Mary. Now Harriet Parsons tells what she knows— of their present emotional tangles. And Joan and young Doug's. A keen and sympathetic account of four people's problems of a separation between them is due to that very fact. If, in the first months of their marriage they had not spread things on quite so thickly and shown their feelings so much publicly, people would not notice so much now that they are less frantically doting. Curious, but much the same thing that happened to Mary and Doug is now happening to the younger Fairbanks. Mary and Doug were devotedly — almost frantically — absorbed in one another for many years. They kept their marriage at a romantic pitch for so long and built it into such a tradition that when, normally and inevitably, they ceased to feel and behave quite so feverishly, it caused a furor. Joan and Doug, Jr., started out to make the same mistake^— but their adjustment has apparently come much sooner. Joan and Doug began their married life under serious handicaps. There was first of all the fact that they were news — that their every move was in the limelight. This is the same handicap which has bitterly hampered Mary and Doug in bringing their marriage through a difficult and trying, but perfectly natural, period of adjustment. There was also the fact that so much had been written and said about Doug, Sr.'s disapproval of his son's match. Doug, Jr., was such a youngster — and Joan had rather a gay reputation. The general attitude was that she had set her cap for the young scion of the royal family and that ambition and not love was her ruling motive in marrying him. NOW Joan is a very intense person. She goes in for everything — from a new dance step to marriage — with complete passionate earnestness. During the first months of her marriage to young Doug she set out to prove to the world that their marriage was a real love match. She was determined to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was serious, and that she could make a success of matrimony and (Continued on page 107) 33