Talking Screen (Jan-Aug 1930)

Not A Chance Dolores and Carewe were together much of the time; most of the time. True, their as^ociauon was a btrictly business affair but that needn't be mentioned. Nor would that ■show in photographs. So they lit on it as a swell idea and played it for all it was worth. Dolores and her husband were estranged, I an the whispers, and Dolores loves Edmund Carewf! Hot stuff! Tell everyone you meet! Dolores has outgrown her husband jnd is after a fancier one ! Great ! Think of the possibilities there for the boys with nimble pens! And now give a thought to Dolotes and Jaime. Imagine, if you can, her feelings when she had returned from location with Carewe and was at home with Jamc. If you think their marital condition rtmaiied unchanged you are mistaken. !..!ugh It off as much as they would, it was no use. The seed of discontent had been M)wn. Gone was the old normalness and simplicity. Gone was naturalness. And in Its place was :nan-made friction. The end, V<>u all know. Jaime died of a broken heart in luirope. Today Dohsres lives sadly and quietly with her mother in Hollywood. Nor did Carewe escaped unscathed. The rumpus caused an estrangement and divorce with his wife that has been but lately patched up. The stunt went over as far as the trouble makers were concerned. The world got its thrill. But now that the show is over and file damage done, who would be proud to uimit his part in it? Yet those same forces ,ire at wo'k todaj' in Hollywood to cause more trouble of the same kind. WHEN Janet Gaynor and Lydell Peck decided to marry, 1 heard an oldiimer of Hollywood say: "They haven't got a chance!" "I'hat man is close to the press .mil the great publicizing organization of Hollywood. He sees the wheels go round; Isfiows how they make it. It is only natural, therefore, that his prediction is coming true. 'I'or It IS a fact that Janet and Lydell are today hghting unmerciful odds to save their marriage. Their trouble began the moment ihey became man and wife. Because she and .( hailes Farrell had appeared together and were known as Amer/cj' Sv.\i.theails, ambitious publicists and idea men' sensed that lanet's marriage to another man had probibly broken Charlie's heart. Eroo: press stories immediately appeared carrying the title: The Boy She Left Beh'nid Her, or malicious rubbish to that effect. And just to make their point perfectly clear, the bright hoys tarr huge pictures of a slightly weepy Farrell (the tears were painted m) apparently -ilone in his grief. Other pictures too. < )ne that showed our Janet beside her plai'n looking husband, dressed in his rather wiiiikltd business suit and none too romantic looking. Alongside of which, on the same page, was one of Charlie, in soft-focused, .(.iimng mood. Leave a hack-writer alone Aith such pictures for a half-hour and the lesult will be a vicious little idyl entitled: ///'i She Choose Wisely;' or its equivalent. They're doing that now. A newspaper writer, .)i)e of the first to predict disaster for the match, repeatedly uses the Gaynor-Farrell''eck business for copy. And when Lydell iConliniied from page 51} Wired him that Janet and he were quite happy and wished to be left alone he simply made matters worse. The reporter printed his wire as proof of the worry and concern they felt over the affair. Nice gentlemanly stunt and typical of the underhandedness which the young couple is today facing. THE latest one they are retailing would have us believe that Charlie and Janet were caught in the act of running away together to Honolulu! And simply because they, quite unknown to each other, attempted to get passage on the same boat. A reporter tells of seeing them together on a ship in San Francisco that was about to leave for the Hawaiian Islands. Janet had her passage but Charlie had been unsuccessful in Don't eulogize my corpse And buy me roses And weep And sniffle. And get red noses. For I will be there ' With my sense of humor And stand by your side And laugh at the rumor I'm dead. — Estelle Taylor booking his. As he stood talking with Janet he quite freely admitted that he had tried to buy a ticket for the trip. And although no oiie actually believes Charlie or anyone else as well known would try a dumb trick like that, still you will probably see stories soon, if indeed you have not already, of Janet s fiustiated attempt at a second honeymoon with her dream-man in the magic isles of the Pacific.' BUT can't you see, " you may say to the gossips, "that if they intended to be tiigether in Honolulu, they would at least be tliscitet enough to take different boats — at different times! Isn't it perfectly plain that two such woild-famous people v/ould never think of eloping so brazenly? Doesn't the fact penettate that they made no attempt to conceal their identities and so could have been up to no mischief?' Better not to a gue, though. Far better to save your breath on those people. Because if there's tlie least chance for scandal they're going to grab It. Just as they did when, directly after Janet's marriage, they attributed a trip East by Charlie to the fact that he simply couldn't stay and face her; even after it was repeatedly explained that business, and nothing else, took him East. It is not the news-hungry reporters and word-jugglers alone who are to blame, 'though. After all they are only servants of the people. If the world weren't so ail-fired romantic; forever on the search for bigger and better romances, the stuff would never be written. And the world, stern tas,Wmaster, seems intent upon seeing Janet and Charlie married. It was, of course, seeing them togethet in Seventh Heaven and Street Angel that did it. Those nvo were more than movies to most people: things of flesh and blood that somehow got imder the skin. And the idea that, after playing in them, Janet could imagine marrying anyone other than Charlie, or Charlie not marry Janet, is one which the world would rather not believe. To most of us these two are not actor and actress. Rather are they a boy and girl ; two children who belong to each other, movie or no. The pov/ers in Hollywood who match couples for the pretty screen romances this time went further than they, or indeed anyone else, ever dreamt. The Universality of the love they represent has lifted them clear out of Hollywood. The wo.dd has claimed them for its own. IT IS not right that we look avidly for signs of Janet to break with Lydell and marry Charlie. But as /ar as that goes, we, the public have never let moral rightness in or wrongness sv/ay us in making our decisions. The demands we make are prompted by instinct rather than by calm and sound reasoning. The Roscoe Arbuckie case is enough proof of that. Although the courts found Arbuckie guilty of no crime, public ( pinion of him. shaped largely ^bv the press, is such that he may never return to the screen. That which he violated was a power far stronger than our laws. It was public confidence and for that he received public exile. a punishment far more awful than any of the lawmakers have on their books. As far as this generation goes, white-wash doesn't come white enough to cover up the tiagic San Francisco incident in which he hgured. You and I and our next door neighbors have written finis to his career. ■ And what, " we ask ourselves, "is happening to Hollywood today? Any news? Any scandal?" The gossips stir themselves. Suiely, they say, with all that demand for scaP'lal we should be able to find some. They study the list of married couples. They scout around at parties, teas and dances. And failing to find the dirt for which they're looking, they rely on hearsay, conjecture and pure invention to fill their pages. Failing, in short, to find scandal, they make it! Did my friend say a decent normal marriage hasn't a chance of succeeding in Hollywood? I'd change that. I'd say it hasn't the remotest possibility of success. Janet Gaynor Interviews Janet Gaynor This treat is in store for you in the September issue of Talking Screen. This latest self-inter^'iew is one of the finest of this entire exclusive series.