Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

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Braunsteln's other fine stores For name of store nearest you write to Town at Country Club Dross Corp-* scion," "young tycoon," and "prominent bachelor." He wasn't any of those— not even a bachelor. In fact, not until Lana was married to him and expecting her baby, Cheryl, did she discover that Stevie wasn't even free to be her husband — he had another wife somewhere else! Tragically hoodwinked and unhappy, Lana still had to go through remarriage steps to protect her baby's name. And why did Steve Crane woo Lana in the first place? Because she was a beautiful, sweet kid he wanted to love and cherish — or because she was Lana Turner, the glamorous Hollywood star? One guess. Anyone who calls her Hollywood path rosy is color blind. She has been betrayed, fleeced, chastened, pilloried, used and abused. No girl ever had such a rough going over. Steve Crane and Artie Shaw, too, married her and left her in tears. If Lana has a happy ending with Bob Topping, she has paid for it — and paid for every movietown trap, being the girl she is, she had no chance'' to dodge. Steve Crane is an example of another thing a girl is up against in Hollywood. How can she ever know — if she's a famous star — that the man who whispers love vows in her ear wants her, herself, or a piece of her fame and of her fortune? Bette Davis has just paid off in terrible publicity, emotional damage and cold cash, too, for a mistake she should have known better than to make in the first place. She knew from her first marriage, to childhood sweetheart Ham Nelson, that she couldn't keep a husband hanging idle around the house and keep her marriage, too. But Bette desperately wanted a husband and children before it was too late. William Grant Sherry was a fine figure of a man, in trunks, but he never stood a chance of making Betty happy, even if he'd wanted to. He didn't match Bette's background, standing, or ambitions. And so, the ex-houseboy became just that again, as Mister Bette Davis, and now he's teamed up with his daughter's nursemaid and they'll probably live happily ever after — on Bette's money. Does this sound like Bill Sherry was ever in love with Bette Davis — or in love with what he could get out of her? There are plenty of right men for the right girls in Hollywood — and yet, only the most canny and wise wives, once they get their husbands, seem to reach the solid, satisfying goal of a normal, happy home life. Why? Because there are disturbing, destroying factors working night and day in this unreal movie world, built on ambition, success, high pressure, and distorted values. Often even the cagiest girl loses her home base bearings in that unreal atmosphere if she doesn't watch out, especially when her husband becomes her rival, or vice versa. Greer Garson told me the main thing that led to her divorce from Richard Ney was finding him rested from a day by the swimming pool and eager to go out, when she returned frayed and tired from a hard studio day, with another staring her in the face the next morning. That's exactly what made Ginger Rogers decide to divorce Jack Briggs. Husbands, too often, are excess baggage in Hollywood. And no girl, star or not, can keep her love and respect for a man who doesn't carry his own weight. There are too many delightful opportunities for idle husbands, and wives, to dally in greener fields around Hollywood, too many beautiful ladies on the make, too many handsome men with understanding ways — on sets' and off. Too much opportunity too, on vacations between pictures and long location trips. a certain star's loving husband. He was doing the sights of Montmartre with a cocotte, and when he spied me, he turned a pale green and ducked into a cafe quick. I didn't tell, but I had a mind to. Recently in New York I stepped into the elevator at my hotel, to confront a very great Hollywood star riding up with another star's spouse. She cut me cold and hasn't spoken to me since, horrified that I'd print what I saw. I haven't until right now, but I won't tell her name, so she can relax. I've known Hollywood wives who played it safe at home — but only by sacrifices. Eleanor Powell did, to be Glenn Ford's constant companion, wife and the mother of Peter Newton. She's not sorry. Glenn's the big star now, but Eleanor, who deliberately committed career suicide for a greater goal, is the winner, from a woman's standpoint, and she doesn't need me to tell her. So is Brenda Marshall, who was as big a star as Bill Holden when she married him, but who dabbles in a part now and then, only to keep her hand in — definitely no rival to Bill, and by her own choice. But that choice is a tough one to make for a girl whose acting ambitions brought her to Hollywood in the first place. Often it's an impossible one. Often the ambition is so powerful that it blots out the real goals of a girl's life. T\o you suppose Judy Garland had a ■L' thought for her daughter, Liza, or her husband, Vineente Minelli, when she locked herself in her bathroom and smashed a glass to stab at her throat? The only thought that filled Judy's head Talking about a well-known starlet, one Hollywood wit said: "She meens only half of what she says, but she says twice as much as she should." — Milton Epstein in The Film Daily then was, "I'm through — I'm through in pictures!" Did Ingrid Bergman think of her daughter, Pia, when she wrote Roberto Rossellini she was his whenever he beckoned? Only the hope of a great picture for the great Ingrid Bergman mattered at that moment. Wanda Hendrix knew all the time she was married to Audie Murphy that she couldn't keep him and her career, too. The twenty-four-hour demands of her picture life infuriated that touchy Texan and often he grumbled. "What's the good of a wife who's never home?" Still Wanda couldn't bring herself to sacrifice her ambition to her love Ambition is a wonderful thing, but it's also the hidden root of most of the evils which face a girl in Hollywood. It's why they do the things they do and land in trouble of one kind or another. I see girls start and I see them falter, and the more I look around me, the more I want to say "Careful — watch your step' to every new one who walks through the mirror into a far more frightening world than met Alice's eye in Wonderland. A few weeks ago, MGM offered a contract to Michelle Farmer, Gloria Swanson's daughter, and Gloria was all set to let her sign. But after making her own comeback in Sunset Boulevard, Gloria thought it over again, and wrote in protective clauses for Michelle too stiff for the studio to swallow. They canceled the offer, and I'm sure Michelle was heartbroken. Maybe someday Michelle will thank Gloria and consider herself a lucky girl, and maybe she won't. But if you ask me, Mama who's certainly been through the movie mill herself, knows best. She knows the lopsided odds. She knows that unless you're that one girl in a million, yov can't win. • ■ The E: _ ^^^^^^