Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1939)

What American Women Think of Hollywood Women (Continued from page 21) affair out there is wrecked because one or the other partner put his or her career ahead of family life. This fact in connection with a Hollywood divorce carries less blame, curiously enough, than it does in the ordinary community. What else can they do? They have to work hard, keep make-up on their faces all day, be massaged in their free moments. My Tom or Dick, thinks the average woman, wouldn't put up with that! But, of course, we don't believe that the Hollywood woman would marry Tom or Dick, any more than she would cook the dinners or count the laundry or exchange recipes. If she does such things at all, they are as publicity stunts. So we think. So we say. One very possible injustice that the average American woman does the Hollywood woman is to believe that she does, and must do, everything for publicity. And doesn't mind it. As we learn more about the Hollywood woman, we respect her for various qualities. We know that the Hollywood woman who achieves success works hard, counts her calories and watches not only her morals but every appearance of evil. The fact that Hollywood life has plenty of attendant discipline is generally known and believed. Sometimes the average woman, comfortable in her velvet chair in the dark of a movie house, realizing the amount of labor that goes to the making of a picture, wonders if it's worth it, in spite of the glamour, and if it isn't better to be one of the audience and not have the strain. We feel, too, that the Hollywood woman is relieved from many of the responsibilities of ordinary citizenship; that, in fact, such things don't exist in Hollywood. Almost every average American ■woman has some civic responsibility. She either seeks it or can't avoid it. She belongs to something, the League of Women Voters, the Musical Society, the Woman's Club, the P. T. A., the Junior League, the Farm and Home Club. She can't imagine a Hollywood branch of any of these organizations. Hollywood isn't a place where you grew up with the man who runs for mayor. Looking around at the women in a P. T. A. meeting, conscientious and serious, whose faces are often tired and who aren't made up more than very sketchily, who may look as if they've been up all night with the baby, it seems a far cry from Hollywood, so far a cry that it would never be heard there. If women got together in Hollywood to discuss child problems, we imagine that the discussion would be one of child custody or child salaries. Fair or not, that is the impression. One can't imagine Carole Lombard being interested in the social welfare clinic, or spending her hours there like the ordinary debutante. One can't imagine Bette Davis giving a paper on foreign affairs to the Tuesday Morning Study Group. The Hollywood woman wouldn't make a practice of lunching at the club on Friday. Besides, she is always on a diet. They haven't the time for these things. The American woman somehow exempts the Hollywood woman from the responsibilities as well as the pleasure of simple leisure. We know— because we read it over and over again — that there are quiet women and normal children in the Hollywood of today. We know that there must be friendships there as well as love affairs. We know that there are all the usual sports. But we feel that the bright light which is partly klieg and partly California sun makes these things different from our sports and our friendships. And then, too, there is the cost. I HE Hollywood woman is again set apart from most ordinary women by the report of what she spends. In Hollywood everyone seems, from what we hear, to be either rich or starving, building a big house or going into bankruptcy. No one gets along and saves money on three thousand a year. If they do, we don't hear of it. Everything is reported to be expensive. There are rumors of what houses cost to rent, to buy; of how they are built for entertaining on the grand scale. We have no doubt that these entertainments are splendid and glamorous. But we can't believe that the Hollywood woman just asks somebody in for dinner, as we do. It's hard to believe that Norma Shearer says. "I must have the Coopers over for dinner. Did we have a marmalade souffle last time they were here?'' No, when the Coopers come, so does everybody else and they take motion pictures of the guests as they come in the gate. They are out of scale. They are out of reach, these Hollywood women. We feel that. Then, what is it that keeps average women poring over movie magazines, studying pictures of stars? Most of them do. They don't admit or even realize how much they do of this, but the man at the magazine stand or the hairdresser could tell you. Every beauty shop provides movie magazines for women who "never read them." Why are they read so constantly and with such interest? Because we copy the Hollywood woman. Sometimes it is done with obviousness, sometimes subtlely. Walk down any street, come up behind a country girl studying herself in her mirror, and you'll see. If the average girl or woman is told that she has a resemblance to Luise Rainer or Clauette Colbert, quite definitely she is marked for life. She slants her eyes, lifts her eyebrows, reaccents herself until it's sometimes hard to bear. We copy the stars' swift bright talk, their modulated voices, their wisecracks. There was a great speed-up in suburban dialogue after ''The Thin Man." We like the way they talk, quick with a comeback, perfect in the expression of emotional feeling. Maybe it's taught to them — but they learned it. For that we admire them. We try on a hat that is extreme in style, a coat very extravagant with fur, and say, "That makes me look like Hollywood — I couldn't wear that!" We decide not to buy it but, then, we often do buy it just the same. For she isn't like us, the Hollywood woman. That's why it is so. tempting to be a little like her. '■YOU MADE ME WHAT I AM TODAY—" This might well be Hollywood's theme song when it confronts its studio beauticians.' Did you absorb all that fascinating advice from leading make-up artists in this month's "Miracle Men at Work— To Make You Lovelier"? Then you'll be doubly eager to scan the next instalment for its easy-to-follow tips on hair-styling, in August Photoplay.' in the new Silhouetting Swim Suits designed by B.V.D.! True daughters of Neptune, the lovely young girls who star in "Billy Rose's Aquacade—New York World's Fair 1939." And every one of them wears *B. V. D. Suits exclusively! The reasons— form-fitting glamour and figure control. ..flexible, buoyant fabrics and sparkling aquatic colors. Wear them— and see for yourself! Uplift Control— There's silhouette sorcery in the bustline control of B.V. D. suits. It's done with clever cut and exclusive elastic design that raises and slenderizes the bust. Midriff Sculpturing— Figure magic is yours in every B. V. D. fabric— in every B.V. D. suit that holds you firmly, comfortably at the waistline, makes you look slimas-a-stalk. Evening Gown Brilliance — From the ballroom to the beach go the latest, loveliest evening gown lines in these stunning new B.V. D. swim suits — distinguished for their beauty and comfort. Trunkline Triumph — B. V. D. trunks are carefully cut, smoothly tailored with a fullness that gives you ease and comfort—assures good looks— whether you are active or indolent. HalfSkirted and "strapless," this new swim suit in lovely *B.V. D. Stitch features a high, tucked bustline for flattery, and cleverly hidden straps that tie, halter-fashion, for active wear. $5.95 ■"\ ■ WVV mm SWIM SUITS Eleanor Holm, lovely star of Billy Rose's N. Y. World's Fair Aquacade 1939, wears a swim suit of lustrous *"Sea Satin" by *B.V. 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