Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

Whom Fortune Would Destroy 25 Olive Borden's manner used to be that of a grand duchess checking up her serfs. told me some time ago, after he had cured himself of Hollywooditis. On first coming to Hollywood, he attracted considerable attention. He felt sure he was some one to be envied and admired. The usual things occurred. He leased a house, and crowds of hangers-on infested the place morning, noon, and of course night. "They ate my food, wore my clothes and made a road house of my home/' Hall related. "I began to consider myself a guest, and felt I ought not to expect too much from the establishment." Edward Silton, his manager, wisely put a stop to it all. He had Jimmie vacate his house, and establish himself in an apartment. There is a pleasing, but determined, telephone operator in the lobby of the building, who prevents any unwelcome visitors from gaining admittance. To-day Jimmie is as free from hangers-on as he is from Hollywooditis. He placidly views Hollywood from the stained-glass windows of his apartment, and admits only a few intimates.^ Frankly admitting his past ignorance, Jimmie has preserved some humorous verses sent him by a fan. The verses make fun of his attack of Hollywooditis and his self-cure. No one appreciates this more than Jimmie himself. George O'Hara was sweeping up to fame and, moreover, winning it, some four years ago. Then he dropped out of sight. To-day George is earning a good living as a scenario writer. He is clever. He possesses what a great many young players haven't got — the ability to do several things besides acting. When he flashed over the country in the "Fighting Blood" series, he became a desirable mark for the hangers-on of Hollywood. It is ever thus. So much did he become an attraction that his work was given second place. He soon caught Hollywooditis, parties were the call of the hour, and George soon dropped out of the front ranks. To-dav George realizes his mistakes. But the O'Hara is Irish and is never beaten. Knowing the picture business from the ground up, George can do anything in it. Being intelligent he can, for instance, write. So he is making writing his work. Perhaps the most complex personality among the younger actors is Leslie Fenton. Three years ago he started in Fox pictures, after attracting some attention on the stage in "The Goose Hangs High." After playing in a series of films, he left Fox to freelance. Almost immediately he was chosen from a considerable number of wellknown juveniles for the stage presentation of Dreiser's "An American Tragedy." As the pathetic, misunderstood Clyde Griffiths, Leslie reaped great success. The play had a run of six or seven months in Hollywood, going up to San Francisco and returning to Los Angeles again. Leslie Fenton affected a bored, sophisticated pose, but he has recovered from it. Parties every night ! Publicity galore! If Leslie were dumb, the beautiful nonsense would have fitted him. As he is genuinely intellectual, a brilliant companion, and in every way pleasing as a friend, it merely goes to prove that the greatest are likely to catch the contagion if they don't watch out. He didn't watch out sharply enough. Leslie took on a bored, sophisticated pose and lived up to it, fast and furiously. Then he realized what he had done. To-day, because of his stage experience, he is much in demand for talking pictures. Paramount signed him for "The Woman Who Needed Killing," after he completed Pathe's "The Office L Scandal," before which he worked on the diai logue sequences in Conrad Veidt's "Erik the PP Great." Becoming cognizant of his attack of Hollywooditis in time, Leslie is to-day climbing ahead, as he was before the contagion caught him. Now let us come to the young bloods who are nearing the danger point, and who may not know it until they read this. One of the outstanding apostles of naturalness is Charles Farrell. No one can say that success has gone to his head — exactly. I know Charlie quite well, and admire him. I have lauded his lack of pose, and his being "regular," in Picture Play before now, but I have commenced wondering whether he, Continued on page 92