We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
CED TO
FOUR
SERVANTS
BY MYRTLE GEBHART
eli g i
(in m
Billie Burke to-day practices gracefully .the art of living pleasantly with four servants instead of twenty when she was mistress of a great estate. She pauses, above, in the entrance hall of her rented Beverly Hills home.
FEW of us would regard as hardship a house and four servants. But to Billie Burke the situation is something of a comedown. As the wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, she presided over their estate at Hastings-on-theHudson, supervising twenty servants besides gardeners and chauffeurs.
His death left financial affairs tangled. She wonders, wistfully, what "they" have done with her precious ruby glassware, with stems a foot long, her fragile china, and her priceless laces. The few choice things which she salvaged furnish her rented Beverly Hills home.
She has bridged the gap from wealth to moderate luxury with gallantry and charm. In middle-age she must earn her comforts.
Into her eyes memories crowded: acres of terraced gardens, a sprawling mansion. A glamorous setting for redhaired, freckled, fluttery Billie Burke Ziegfeld and the little one, Patricia.
"What I miss most is Mr. Ziegfeld's beneficent protection," she said, her hand clasping mine. "I hadn't a care except to make his home beautiful, until sudden catastrophe turned my world topsy-turvy.
"Gradually, out of that numbness and all those hours with lawyers and creditors, one thing crystallized in my mind: I must make a home for Patricia and myself. I must earn it. The MGM Studio accorded me that privilege.
"This place was redecorated, following my designs, and the furniture is ours."
Between the bubble of Billie Burke, the hostess, directing Tony to serve orange juice 01 milk — sensible, healthful liquids, but presented with ceremony — and Mrs. Ziegfeld, there were distances.
N
FT
'i
pic I
I b
III!
inj
ioi k
v
(01
it:
Itij