It took nine tailors (1948)

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180 IT TOOK NINE TAILORS sophisticate. I also became an author and philosopher giving out with profound inanities in ghostwritten articles. I think the most awe-inspiring and omniscient of these was "Love, Women, and Marriage," by Adolphe Menjou, in which I cribbed a bit from Shakespeare, Schopenhauer, Plato, Freud, and several other excellent sources. I often wonder whether people read those things and if so why the insurance rate on actors is not higher. But the aspect of my movie character that the publicity men exploited with their best adjectives was my wardrobe. That was something concrete and real and easy to write about. They didn't have to cudgel their brains or read up on psychoanalysis to write stories about clothes; besides, it was very salable material. They gave their imaginations full play and used my by-line with reckless abandon. I found my name signed to many variations of an article entitled "How to Spend Money for Clothes," in which I discovered that my annual budget for wardrobe was $14,500— a slightly inflated figure, but no doubt an impressive one to the fans. This bulging budget included $50 for garters and $100 for suspenders. I found, however, that I was very democratic about the matter of clothes. I itemized a list of expenditures whereby most men could dress presentably for only $500 a year and could hold up their socks for $3— no allowance for holding up their trousers; plebeians could use pieces of rope, I presume. For the benefit of junior executives, customers' men, and the like, I explained that a man might get by without looking too shabby on a budget of $2,500, which included four suits, two overcoats, $50 worth of pajamas and $8 worth of garters, but not even a safety pin to hold up his pants. Another favorite of the press department was the article in which I created my own list of best-dressed men; and, of course, I was also an authoritv on beautiful women. But I was as variable j as a weather vane. One day I would declare that Cleveland had the best-dressed men and the most beautiful women in the world. A month later it might be London or Dallas, Texas.