Hollywood (1941)

going places, just like Tom. It's not too pleasant a thought. "Especially because I feel I'd like to be romanced by Dick Hamilton, the local young Mr. Moneybags, whom I've never met. All I know is that he drives a Hispano Suiza car, which is nice indeed. I conclude that he'd make a fine husband, provided I could learn to love him. Thanks to handling a long distance call at my switchboard, I learn he's carrying on with a Big Town debbie. But I don't give up. "As luck would have it, the very next day I meet up with the Hispano Suiza (and a casual, but charming, young man at the wheel) at a traffic signal. I climb into the car without being asked. He's intrigued and asks for a date — for that night. I accept. Imagine my consternation when this very casual person shows up without the Hispano Suiza. It develops that he's only Harry, a garage mechanic, who was testing Dick Hamilton's car. Anyhow, we go out and spend the evening at a penny arcade and he blows $1.80 on me — the spender! By the time we say good night I begin to appreciate his wonderful attitude toward life. He doesn't figure success is worth the headache. We become engaged. "I dream again and it's wonderful. My future with Harry is love in a shanty. Our kids are strange-looking urchins, anything but go-getters. Harry is so romantic and money-indifferent that he makes love to me in a haystack while we listen to the radio. When the 'Pile of Dough' program announces that Harry is to win $10,000 if he'll answer his phone, Harry goes right on making love and the devil take the $10,000. "In time I actually meet Dick (Alan Marshall) . He's very handsome and rich. He takes me to Chicago in his plane. We have a marvelous time. On the way home I maneuver a proposal from him and I accept. I'm now engaged to all three; the go-getter, the romantic nobody, and the rich man's son." "Quite a situation, isn't it?" we remarked. "Especially when I find Tom and Harry waiting for us on the front stoop. Well, what I do about it is to invite all three to breakfast the next morning and promise to tell them which of them I'll marry." "Who's the lucky man?" we queried. "Heaven only knows," Miss R. said. "Or rather only Garson Kanin. We won't know until the last scene is shot. In fact, one of the favorite forms of wagering money around the set is to lay a bet on which lad I annex for the fade-out." Over in the northwest corner of the set we bumped into a moppet of serious mien. She must have been twelve. "Haven't we met somewhere?" we led off, the usual way. "I'm Lenore Lonergan. The Broadway play, Philadelphia Story — remember?" "Oh yes," we remembered. "You were Katie's sister. And a mighty good one, too." "Do you have any pennies?" Miss Lonergan asked, ignoring our comment. "What for?" "We can go over to the Penny Arcade set where Burgess Meredith entertained Ginger Rogers for $1.80 — it was really much less than that — and see all those oldfashioned penny movies." And she led the way. We gave her two cents and she made her first plunge. She dropped it down the slot and turned the crank like mad. Picture finished, she looked disgusted. "Very amateurish," she said. We examined the miniature marquee, sporting a photograph of a lady in the process of disrobing herself. The production was called What the House Detective Saw. Miss Lonergan used up the other penny in the fortune-telling machine. She read the little card and handed it over. "Beware of a tall stranger who professes friendship." "That must be you," she said, turning on her heel. We ambled over to where Meredith, Murphy and Kanin were in a huddle. Mr. Kanin had the floor. By the time you read this, gentle readers, Mr. Kanin will be all through having the floor for quite a while. He's going into the army (directly the picture is over), where there will be gentlemen from sergeants to major generals who will be having the floor all around him. They tagged him just after he had begun the picture. "The moment this wonderwork is in the can, boys," is what he is said to have said to Uncle Sam. But to get back to his story. "Funny that I should be telling Buzz here what to do," Mr. Kanin, dressed in slacks and pull-over, sleeveless, red sweater, was saying. "Back in 1933 when I was trying to lick Broadway I was all set to land a very choice part as a reform school alumnus in a something called Little Ol' Boy when who should arrive at the try-outs but this guy Meredith, who, mind you, was playing in a lulu called Three Penny Director Garson Kanin talks to Ginger about a scene, while assistant cameraman Haddow Ledge lines up for a shot. See story for amusing explanation of men's formal attire Opera at that very instant. He read the lines better than the rest of the contestants and was given the part above my protests, all of them silent. I managed to wind up with a glorified walk-on. All during rehearsals I glowered at this interloper who had moved right from Three Penny Opera into a part that the good Lord had designed for me. "Well, the play went off well — despite Meredith, who happened to be playing the lead. There was cheering and shouting. All of us, of course, went out to celebrate — and you know how. "It must have been four in the morning when I ran into a little guy sitting on the curbstone of Christopher Street down in the Village and philosophizing about spring. I was feeling that way myself, so I sat down beside him. It was Buzz Meredith. " 'What are you doing here?' " I asked him. " 'Waiting for the papers.' " "At that stage of things, nothing really mattered, not even the company I was in. We sat there on the sidewalk saying nothing until a truck driver almost conked us with a bundle of papers. We were sitting in front of a stationery store, it seems. We got up. Buzz had a knife and he opened up the bundle. We read the reviews by lamplight, right there on the sidewalk." " 'Look!' " Buzz pointed out, even before I saw it, " 'the guy says you did a good job.' " I looked. There was a line of six words. Above it were three paragraphs telling about 'the triumph of a young man named Meredith.' I gave up hating him and we took off for a near-by cafeteria for coffee and doughnuts." Murphy chuckled. Miss Rogers was looking very soulful. "Cute story, Kanin, very cute, as a matter of fact," Meredith said. "Mister Kanin to you," the little dynamo came back. "Shall we do the next scene?" "Righto, Private Kanin," all three chorused. ■ Between scenes, Ginger gives her famous dancing feet a workout by performing a fancv rumba with Director Kanin 23 Boca kS ■I