Hollywood (Jan - Oct 1934)

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//It // I'm Through With Love! The story of Russ Columbo whose life has been stranger than fiction by RUTH BIERY Russ Colombo has one of the most sensational stories that I know. It is ready-made for the screen. Natural drama that few writers could imagine. And yet I wonder just how it all could come about in three years. I remember the Russ Colombo to whom nothing had ever happened so well. He used to sit in my living room night after night, with his pal, Lansing Brown and yearn for a break "like other fellows." He would play the piano and sing. A full-blooded Italian — music was a part of him. With the birth of the talkies, they had taken him from the orchestra at the Cocoanut Grove with big promises of glamorous roles. But promises in Hollywood are as easy to secure as sand in the desert. He doubled for the famous male stars when they were supposed to be singing in those first talkies. Of course he had tests — at almost every studio in the city. And the verdict was always the same. "You are too dark; too Latin. The Latin type went out with Valentino! But we'll double your voice for so-andso. I wish I could bring you a true picture of this boy as I knew him then. Wistful. Sad. Discouraged. The youngest of twelve children — the only one left to support his mother and father. How we tried to encourage him. "You'll get your break, Russ. You've got the goods — " At first, his eyes would gleam with ambition but as the months rolled by and even doubling became scarce — until he had been out of work for eight months, he faced it squarely. "There's no chance for me. I'm going back to being a musician. I'm putting an orchestra into The Pyramid Club on Hollywood Boulevard. It's new. It may not mean much. But — " He shrugged. He was thoroughly discouraged. Four months later he was collecting $7,500 per week on Broadway as a crooner! • I did not see him again until the night Broadway Thru a Keyhole was previewed in Los Angeles. I knew that this boy was realizing the climax of a life's ambition when he saw his name heading the cast of a motion picture. We could not talk there. Hundreds were crowding forward to beg his autograph. He has just left my house again. He has filled in the blank spaces of that story. And has left me dizzy. Yes, dizzy. His first words were so unexpected. "Well, I left here broke. You know that. I came back the same way. I made a quarter of a million dollars in three years and I had less than $10,000 when I crawled into Los Angeles, sick and tired of it all and hid out at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. No one knew I was there. For four months, no one knew I was even in the city — " The three years reads like a movie scenario with the FEBRUARY, 1934 — Jack Fn'ulich Russ Columbo was broke and discouraged in Hollywood when opportunity beckoned. Four months later he was collecting $7,500 per week on Broadway as a crooner. Reverses followed this success but now his future in pictures is assured first scene at the Pyramid Club when a song writer approached him. "How would you like to go to New York?" "He offered to pay my expenses to New York. He was to manage me and get one-third of all I made. I'd never been out of California. I — well, it was the impulse of a moment. I went with him. "He told some National Broadcasting officials and they Please turn to page sixty-three 39