Silver Screen (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

In "There Goes My Heart," with Fredric March. (They are on this month's cover.) Mr. and Mrs. J. Walter Ruben. Marriage sometimes goes right. Bruce By Virginia does onlv one thing to preserve this rare beauty, and she really doesn't do it because it is the right thing to do, but simply because she likes it. She sleeps, and how. She loves to sleep. She insists upon having her eight hours, and if she can slip a few more hours in without the studio giving her hell she'll slip 'em in. Because she just couldn't get up in the morning she fell into the habit of arriving on her sets about half an hour late, a little habit that Bob Montgomery, who co-stars with her in many of her pictures, didn't approve of, being a punctual soul himself. There were a couple of sour looks but Virginia didn't worry about that. Then, one day, Mr. Mayer called her in to the "front office" and gave her a lecture on how many thousands of dollars the studio lost every minute she was sleeping, and since then Virginia, who is practical when it comes to money, has been the very soul of promptness. Though she likes to go dancing and partying (not so much now that she is so happily married) Virginia is not, and never has been, a stay-up-late. Long before curfew rings she is hurrying home to get her eight hours. She is the only movie star I have ever met who admits, and without trace of shame, that she goes in for ye olde tyme hearty breakfast. When Venus has had her shower she settles down to a large bowl of oatmeal (or some other hot cereal) with plenty of cream and sugar, and she tops this off with as much toast, and buttered, my dear, as she happens to want. And this, morning in and morning out the year around, even during those brief interludes when she goes on a diet. "I've always eaten oatmeal for breakfast with cream and sugar," says Virginia, "and I guess I always shall." And then she adds, "And I am bringing up Susan to like it too." When her husband gently suggests that she might help her dieting along by leaving off so much butter for breakfast, mJ^nkpfK Wileon Virginia says, "But butter helps my lZaDClIl VV llSOIl eyes. I read that some place." "You," says J. Walter Ruben, with admiration, "have the greatest store of misinformation of anyone I've . ever known." But —surprise, surprise— when Virginia sets her mind to losing weight she loses weight, and with plenty of butter. Virginia has that delightful homey quality of being able to make every situation seem like a back porch talk. No matter where you meet her, in the Whitney's box at the track, on the Selznick's yacht, on the dance floor at the Clover Club, in the sand pile with five-year-old Susan, or on the set of her picture she is always the same Virginia. Charming, chatty, and cozily social. She has none of the mannerisms of a star, none of the phoney little affectations, none of the snobbishness. Once she has met you she knows you, and by name, for the rest of eternity. On the set she is usually surrounded by gaffers, extras and the cast, in whom she seems to take a personal interest. Knitting away like mad (she does pretty needle-point, too) she exchanges recipes with the gaffers, diets with the extras, and cures colds with the cast. Any day on the "There Goes My Heart" set, her last picture which was made at the Hal Roach studio, you could find her with Alan Mowbray on one side and Freddie March in a studio chair on the other. But there was none of that bantering that goes on between the sexes— indeed no, Virginia would be giving her ideas on bringing up children, and comparing her ideas ("I shall certainly send Susan to a public school") with those of parents Mowbray and March. Alan Mowbray has a cute little girl named Patricia who, once a month, takes her idolized Daddy out to lunch at the BeverlyBrown Derby or the Vendome and does all the ordering and pays the check. "Gives her independence," says Mowbray proudly, "and you know that kid knows exactly how much to leave for a tip." "Well," says Freddie March, "you should have seen Penny at the beach yesterday." But Virginia usually tops them all with her recital of Susan's cute sayings. The day I visited the set Mrs. Ruben had everyone in hysterics over the story of how she walked in on Susan and a little neighborhood boy in the kitchen the other afternoon when the cook was out, The children were helping themselves to a jar of jam. "Hello, mother," said Susan, "we're having a jam session." Though she usually has an even, [Continued on page 72] for November 1938 19