Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

.luce. Somebody gave that girl some veryad advice. Every year talent scouts comb the couniy and flood Hollywood with girls txerly unequipped and hopelessly misin>rmed about what they'll be up against •hen they land here. Mostly, they're exloited and then most of them expelled. That eventually happens to a lot of them, d rather not say. But when the bubble ops, they can't believe it, and that's hen the "leave-it-to-me" boys step in — -ildcat agents and press-agents, prototers, exploiters. Girls draw bad comany, bad advice — and bad ends. It's a lame and nine times out of ten it should ever have happened in the first place. talked to a pretty girl named Norma Eberhardt, not long ago. She had a stuio contract and Life magazine had printed er picture. She thought that qualified er to act like a star. She raised so much •ouble with her demands that in barely »ore than a month they dropped her. She -as nowhere near being a star, but she anted to live like one, right now. £>idn't *eryone in Hollywood? She found that le answer was ''No." It took a terrificily talented girl, Marie Wilson, eighteen ears to get her star break, and she's still ist acting, not acting up. Howard Hughes' next big star is a girl ho's been learning her business for nine ong years. But today, Faith Domergue ready and she's getting the biggest uild-up of any girl in Hollywood. If you're seasoned with serious strivings ke Barbara Hale or blessed with galanized guts like Ruth Roman, there's ttle danger of tumbling for the siren . . Bob Roarlc tells about the unpopular ctor who received a wire from an ill-isher saying: "Drop dead. Nasty letter allows." . . . ong of your own publicity, which is the asiest mistake to make of all. And some I eteran stars are still making it. Hedy j amarr has had a dozen years in Holly' -ood to size herself up for the skimpilyalented, decorative doll that she is. But i 'edy, from the Ecstasy nudist start she I ad and fashion model posings in Algiers, ■ zt the firm conviction she was a great rtist, like Garbo and Dietrich. She has ; een rude and demanding — tossing temerament right and left — and once a pubcity man on her own lot presented her ■ith a book, "How To Act in Public," as not-so-subtle hint. Hedy's career was ery dim before Samson and Delilah — nether strictly face-and-body role. But ae's still believing the publicity blurbs 'iat alone make her a great actress. The ther day she demanded $5,000 to appear t a press party — aimed at promoting the ery legend which she still believes right own to the last adjective! Shelley Winters is running the same igh-riding risk right today. Shelley is iready telling the studio that made her 7hat she will and won't do, and demandig everything her own way. Shelley's ublicity has gone to her curly head, and "at's dangerous. She's been told for lonths she's just about the cutest thing n wheels. Now she's acting cute — too ute. The other day Shelley was reLonsible for a very talented designer, 5rry Kelly, quitting his job. Ifs a funny ort of story in one way, but it points n cminous trail which too many flatteryjddled girls choose to take. Orry was responsible for making Shel=y look well in her clothes. He designed er a dress and sewed in a "falsy" or two 3 bolster the budding Shelley Winters legend. But on the set, Shelley slipped in three extra aids to busty glamor. It ruined the dress and ■ her looks, and got Orry Kelly in hot water. But when he protested, Shelley said, "I'll do what I like. I know what's best for me!" "Put in fifteen on one side and ten on the other for all I care," sighed Kelly, and shortly after he left, and with him the guidance to smartness Shelley badly needs. A girl has to be on her guard constantly, not to get too big for her britches or bras. Cathy O'Donnell had one of the rosiest futures in Hollywood until she turned temperamental and refused to make Roseanna McCoy for Sam Goldwyn. Roseanna made Joan Evans, who stepped right in, a star — and where is Cathy now? It takes a level head for a girl to keep an even keel to her career. She has to keep a level heart, too, in chasing what's ten times more important and ten times as tough to find in Hollywood — a, happy, contented private life. "C'very girl wants and needs a man in her life. And girls in Hollywood, even if they're stars, are like girls everywhere. But almost everything stacks up against them. The setting for romance in Hollywood is as artificial as the sets that frame its fictional love stories. A girl must be seen to get her name in the glamor columns. So a studio arranges dates and a tour of the glamor night-club show-boxes, gigolo style. Or, if the girl happens to be a real beauty and surely star-bound, a hundred hopeful, publicity-seeking young actors and ageing playboys latch on to her for reflected glory. Lois Andrews, Lana Turner, Gene Tierney sampled that. In each case every date is a "romance," and more than two add up to an engagement. Pretty soon the giddy girl reads about how in love she is and begins to believe it. Or, she's prodded and trapped until she says "Yes" — almost always to the wrong man. Even experienced people act like characters out of scripts when they get that funny feeling too fast. Evelyn Keyes and John Huston flew away to get married five hours after their first date at Romanoff's. They barely knew each other, and they were mismated. Next stop was divorce. John Huston, of course, is a brilliant, fine man. But what about some of the prizes a girl is likely to draw in a Hollywood romance? TJollywood has a fatal attraction and always had for fortune hunters and phonies. It used to be said that even a bogus title was worth a year's free living in Hollywood. A real one could be a pension for life. The Marrying Mdivanis proved that, running through movie fortunes on their peanut prince ratings. The Marquis de la Falaise cost Gloria Swanson and Constance Bennett a pretty penny. But those boys were catches compared to some who show up on the movie marriage mart — and make profitable "I do" deals — profitable for themselves, ruinous to the stars they hypnotize. The passport to Hollywood eligibility, too often, is merely a flashy wardrobe and a smooth tongue. Nobody investigates, nobody asks questions, until too late. A few years ago, "The Moonlight Burglar," a charming crook, cut a swath in some of our best Hollywood star homes by day; by night he climbed in their windows and ransacked their jewel safes. And Bugsy Siegel, the notorious mobster, can show up in the Pickfair receiving line, as he did, with a countess on his arm. 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