Hollywood (Jan - Oct 1934)

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Confessions of / A MOVIE ™ As told to SIGURD ERICSSON PLAY-GIRL I have gone to every gay party staged in Hollywood for three years. I have learned a lot about Hollywood --and that I was a fool" / The vivid story of a girl who thought she could take the easiest way to fame » bout Five Years Aao, a certain beauty contest winner /\ came to Hollywood and promptly won a contract *» with one of the major studios. She was — and is — one of the most beautiful girls who ever stepped before a movie camera. She has wit, vivacity, instinctive "clothes-sense" — in short, most of the qualities which make for stardom. Everyone predicted that she would become a great star. Instead, she has become a Hollywood play-girl! You would recognize her name if I revealed it, for, without being a success, she has played in innumerable minor "bits," and she has been a fixture in the gossip columns. Her name has been linked repeatedly with the names of Hollywood's greatest celebrities. Whenever and wherever the fun-seekers of Filmtown gather, she is not only in evidence, but the very life of the party. She has attended every premiere in the last three years, she knows every headwaiter by his nickname, and she could find her way, blindfolded, into every speakeasy between the border and Santa Barbara. I've persuaded her to tell her story— and in it you'll find the reasons for her screen failure. They're worth considering, for they blast many very popular misconceptions about Hollywood and its film workers. • "When I first came here," she told me, "I was blinded by my own egotism. I was insanely ambitious to become a great star —and I was ridiculously confident that I had only to play a few small parts, and be seen by a few directors, in order to ' j fa 'IF This colorful scene from Flying Down lo Rio illustrates the playgirl s conception of life in Hollywood. She discovered too late that Hollywood is not a glittering world where star, spend most of their time in a constant whirl of parties place my name in lights. I know now that I'll never be a star. I never could have been a star. My attitude was wrong from the start. "Before coming to Hollywood, I lived in a small Middle-Western town. I was the prettiest girl in that town— and don't think for a moment that I wasn't well aware of the "In high school, I was a ring-leader of the fastest crowd. I had a 'wild' reputation, and 1 was proud of it. I was in half-a-dozen scrapes by the time I was eighteen— but I managed to get out of them all without any actual scandal, ana they made me all the more conceited. I wanted to be considered a 'woman of the world, and 1 telt tnai I was irresistible. ... "I was married when I was nineteen— and 1 regreueu it before I was twenty. My husband was a good dancer, but he was lazy and shiftless, just a small town sheik. "I rebelled at the monotony, and longed to get away from that one-horse-town. Hollywood was the end ot my rainbow— and you can imagine my excitement when 1 won that beauty contest and was notified that I would be sent to Hollywood. My only regret was that my husband Decided to come with me. , . "I was given a screen test the day I arrived here and two days later, I was called to the studio and offered a contract. My starting salary was $125 a week, and eacn three months, if the studio exercised its options, my contract would be renewed and my salary increased. "The idea that the studio might refuse its options never penetrated my conceit ... and neither did the idea that I owed the studio anything in the way of honest e»°"o pictured Hollywood as a glittering world where gla™r°u* stars spent a few care-free hours now and then betore : in cameras, and the rest of their time in a constant whirl oi dizzy parties. My salary, during the final year of my ^con tract, was to be $2,500 a week, and I proceeded to spend five years in advance. To give my husband— ex-husband now — a]l due credit, he gave me enthusiastic help in incurring a mountain of debts. • "I was turned over to a dramatic coach, a kindly old veteran of the stage, who sincerely wanted to help me. He told me, repeatedly, that no actress could succeed without unceasing study and work. He cited examples, famous stage stars of whom I never had heard— and I laughed at him. I had read that many stars had never spent much time studying their 'art,' and I felt that I was a great deal more attractive than some of those stars. Several directors and several prominent leading men had shown me attention already. Everyone said that pull was the one sure road to screen success and that was the road I decided to take. "I played my firse role in an underworld melodrama. The director— I'll call him Stanley Feldman, although that isn't his real name— went 'on the make' for me the very first day of production, and I not only knew it, but encouraged him in every way possible. I knew that he had plenty of influence with the 'big boss. "Feldman took me to dinner several times and, of course, it got into the gossip columns. My husband was furious and we had several nasty quarrels. Finally, I left him and Feldman helped me pick out an apartment in one of the swankiest apartment houses in Hollywood. _ "What I didn't know was that Laura Daimler (thats not her real name, either), one of the biggest stars on the lot was in love with Feldman. And neither did I know just how stupid and amateurish my work in that first picture was. . "My first jolt came when the studio failed to take up my second option. I hadn't saved a dime and I was headover-heels in debt. "Feldman handed me my second jolt when he and Laura Daimler announced their engagement. He had been playing me for the little fool I was from the start. I was Plenar turn In pnKe fifty-one 43