Hollywood Studio Magazine (November 1971)

understand that it could be true since some stars remain today who shy from the press, the public and the press agent. Usually, there are reasons why stars try to stay in holes in the ground, and I have grown more and more sure over the years that I was witness back in 1926 to the start of Garbo’s reluctance to make her life an open book. That spring, I was going into the second half of my first year as director of sports publicity for the University of Southern California. Although I had been editor of the Trojan (campus paper) my senior year, I had really never seen any film personahties in the flesh. Once, Buster Keaton had spent two days making some comedy baseball scenes on Bovard Field and Harold Lloyd had done some running around the track. But that was all. Then, having returned to USC from newspapering in Pomona, I began to get calls from an old friend, Don Gillum. During my undergraduate days, Don had carried a heavy graphlex 4 by 5 camera and a bag of plate holders wherever he went around the campus. He put himself through college shooting photos for downtown papers (there were six of them then) and selling others to college groups. Suddenly, Don was in publicity at MGM, shooting gag pictures with starlets and young actors and writing “Yok” stories about them. The first time Don asked me to set up a photo session for him, he brought Johnny Mack Brown and two bright-eyed blonde dolls to the athletic field. Johnny, former Alabama football great, put on football togs and the girls wore shorts. I’d never seen anything like the professional loveliness of those two cookies. I helped pose pictures all afternoon. I wish I could remember their names. I told Don that anytime he had “fresh tomatoes” at the studio. I’d gladly cooperate. There were other occasions, including a trip by Howard Jones and four of his “Thundering Herd” gridders to the set of “Ben Hur” to cavort with those chariots. Then track season started and Don was on the telephone. He had this new young Swedish dish available. She was on salary and his boss had said to use her. Why not pose her in a track suit (that means brief shorts and tight jersey, you know) with Coach Dean Cromwell and some of his champions? I said “Sure.” Um! A Swedish pastry! Don said he had thought of this because the girl spoke little English, and he remembered that the USC trainer was Jannes Anderson, not long from Sweden. Could I ask Jannes if he would interpret? It turned out that Jannes and Garbo knew each other through mutual The world’s press claimed that the great love of the century was that between John Gilbert and Greta Garbo, shown here when they co-starred in “Queen Christina.” acquaintances. In fact, Garbo had just received a letter that day from a friend in Sweden whom Anderson knew. She let Jannes read it. While she was getting into that revealing track suit belonging to Weldon Draper, a small but lightning-fast sprinter, Don made a photo for me of myself with Cromwell and Anderson. And Jannes was holding the letter. Through Jannes, Don told the girl what he wanted — which was plenty strange. She crouched “on mark” while Cromwell held a starter’s pistol. She stood under the high jump bar while Henry Coggeshall cleared it. She squatted so that hurdlers Leighton Dye and Ron Siever skimmed over her. She tried to hold up Clarence (Bud) Houser’s 16-pound shot . . . and other such things. She became more and more frightened of all the gawking while Don went about showing the limit of her legs. She was overwhelmed by a brash Hollywoodian doing his job. Don had been trained by news photographers who abound in “guttiness.” Shyness isn’t sacred to them. Besides, wasn’t this gal from Europe where movie-struck sex pots know all about pleasing photographers and editors? I got a chance to whisper to Jannes. “The girl doesn’t look happy.” “She’s appalled. She thought she was going to be an actress over here, not a performer.” “No wonder she’s scared. She’s learning about Hollywood.” Jannes shrugged. “She says she may go home.” Of course, Garbo didn’t go home. I later was to have a hard time trying to remember her name. So did Cromwell. A George Hurrell made this picture of the ‘mature’ Garbo after she became an international star, week later, he asked me, when Anderson was not available, what it was. I said I wasn’t sure but not to worry since chances were nobody else ever would remember. What a star-picker I was. Not long afterwards, I saw a news photo of her in the paper, which was far worse than posing in a track suit. Don had taken her to Gay’s Lion farm, and she had sat on a chair next to a snarling male lion. What made the picture was the terror in her eyes as she cringed away from that beast. I thought: If that doesn’t scare her home, nothing will. It only scared her away from a rapport with the old-time Hollywood type of press agent. Before the year ended, she was introduced in “The Torrent.” The whole world took her in its arms. I’m glad I never saw her later walking through the studio. I might have blushed at the idea that she could have recognized me as one of Jhose who had been there when guys with hairy legs jumped over her head.*** 11