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

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♦ ♦ ♦ An amazing revelation as to how Hollywood obtains such very quick divorces RENO? "Huh!" sniffs Hollywood. "We know a better way than that!" People throw up their hands in horror over Reno, where a divorce may be got in six weeks. Hollywood knows a place where you can not only get one in four weeks, but marry again the same day! And there is at least one case on record of a popular young leading man doing just exactly that! He filed his papers, waited the necessary month until he heard that the judge was ready to grant the decree, then rushed into court with his new bride-to-be on his arm. No sooner did the judge conclude reading the papers which marked the exit of the old wife, than he assumed the role of Cupid and married the young star to his new one. The whole affair took something like five minutes flat. Then the bridal party adjourned to Agua Cahente and enjoyed what is known out west as a beer bust. Where can such things happen? To mention Agua Caliente, the famous resort to which Hollywood adjourns when it feels like betting on the ponies or squanderingmoney at black-jack, chuckaluck, and roulette, gives away the secret. Agua Caliente, translated into English, means Hot Water. The stars get into Hot Water often enough, although that isn't what they drink when they go there. And Agua Caliente is in — Mexico! Or, as the (Left) When Grant Withers wanted to marry Loretta Young he obtained a quick divorce from the woman who was his wife at the time. Yes, he used the post office method. (Right) And so did Nancy Carroll when she divorced Jack Kirkland. Do you know that any American husband or wife can now obtain a divorce in thirty days ? You don't need to leave your own sitting-room to do it. Have you often wondered how the Hollywood stars manage to get so many divorces ? MODERN SCREEN reveals here, for the first time, how the trick is done. natives insist upon spelling it, Mejico— the divorce ground of Hollywood. PEOPLE in Hollywood have known for a long while that, after a divorce, it was possible to re-marry in Mexico without waiting the year required by California law. You may remember that Charlie Chaplin, after his California divorce, went to Mexico to marry Lita Grey. But it is news to discover that anyone — you, or I — can get a Mexican divorce in thirty days, without so much as setting foot in Mexican territory. At first Hollywood distrusted the news : it seemed too good to be true, perhaps! One Mexican divorce had been set aside, and the question rose whether all such divorces might not be regarded as illegal in the American courts. Milton Golden, Hollywood's representative in the State Legislature and the friend and legal adviser of many of the stars, investigated and found out that this new kind of divorce was perfectly all right. It would hold water, he reported, in any court. That means that a star can get a divorce without losing a single day's work at the studio. Everything necessary can be done, in fact, without the star's so much as budging out of his own front parlor. A signature on a dotted line, and — presto! — Uncle Sam does all the rest, for the price of a two-cent stamp. Indeed, a Mexican divorce is surer than a Reno one! S. S. Hahn, another favorite Hollywood lawyer, points out that Jack Dempsey's Reno divorce from Estelle Taylor — and it now seems to be quite thoroughly settled — Jack really got one — is much less water-tight than a Mexican one would be. "All Estelle has to do, if she wants to have it set aside," Hahn gives his opinion, "is to prove that Jack went to Reno for the purpose of getting the divorce. Any judge will take that as evidence that Jack was never at any time a bona fide resident of Nevada ; and that knocks the props out from under his divorce." If Jack should marry again, in other words, Estelle could charge him with bigamy. He would be married to two women at the same time. Not that there is much danger of Estelle trying to void the divorce, when she was the party who most wanted it. Hollywood insists that she had excellent reason to want one, though liking Jack too well to tell any tales out of school. At any rate, Estelle has taken the precaution of getting a divorce on her own hook. Complicated, these affairs are ! DIVORCE is a shameful and disastrous thing which destroys the home, many persons believe. An equal number of people think divorce should be made even easier to get than it now is. There is something to be said on both sides of the question, and Modern Screen has no wish to enter into the controversy. It is the duty of a magazine merely to present (Continued on page 96) 45