Modern Screen (Dec 1938 - Nov 1939 (assorted issues))

MODERN SCREEN Revive your skins Glamour while you Sleep! . Maybe he meant that I was stretching some mental muscles or something. "It was Elizabeth, anyway, who started me playing Professor Quiz with myself, asking myself whether I've been a fool ail my life, whether, if I had everything to do over again, I'd do as I have done, or not. And like the answers to all such sweeping questions, the answer is 'yes and no.' "If I had it to do over again, I know one thing, I wouldn't have come to Hollywood when I did. I would have given myself three more years in New York on the stage, thus saving myself three years of agony out here. I wouldn't, if I had it to do over again, allow myself to be as much myself as I was." (There, I thought, she's wrong. She couldn't have helped being herself then, any more than she can help being herself right now. The metal rings true; there's no alloy. Only alloys masquerade.) "There I was," Bette was sort of yelping, "no make-up, hair in a bun, New England as hell. Nothing Hollywood would ever look at, much less understand. I was a fool there, I'm sure. It doesn't do any harm, in the beginning, anyway, to do the glamor stuff. When in Rome do as the Romans do is an old cliche but, like most old cliches, it survived because there's good sense to it. ON the other hand, had I gone glamor, I might not have been picked to be a character actress. Because I was neither a pretty miss nor the sex appeal type seething with seduction, I did escape typing. But I've played appallingly unpleasant characters. I've dared to be hated. And there, again, I ask myself, 'Have I been a fool?' (The Oscars winked, both of 'em. 'Would we be here,' they seemed to whisper, 'if you had been a fool?') "Why," said Bette, feet planted on the floor, knees wide apart, "why, they couldn't hire an actress in this town to play the part of Mildred in 'Of Human Bondage.' When I all but got down on my knees and begged my studio to allow me to do it, they said to me, 'If you want to hang yourself, my dear, go and hang yourself, my dear.' It's a wonder I didn't. It's a wonder I didn't convince everyone, for all time, that I was the most disagreeable young woman on earth. In my very first picture I played a wallflower, and I was one! People must have said, 'This is a hopeless young woman!' Yes, I think I was a fool to be quite that Spartan about myself. It never does any harm to sugar-coat the pill a bit. I set myself back at least a year. "I don't think I've been a fool, or have I, about living as I have? I mean, in small houses, unpretentiously, as I would have lived at home in New England. When Ham and I had our little house on what might be called 'the wrong side of the tracks,' I lived there because I wanted to live there. Rather annoying it was, though, to read that I was living there as a 'pose.' People who work as hard as I do may put on a screwy hat, } drive around on stripped gears, do little, INFORMATION DESK. MODERN SCREEN. 149 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. Please send me your chart listing the heights, ages, birthdays and marriages of all the important stars. I enclose 5c (stamps or coin) to cover cost of mailing. Name Street Leave on a film of this invigorating cream overnight, to help keep skin active; overcome unlovely dryness. ALL day your skin combats fatigue, exJ\ posure, strain — influences that tend to make it sluggish and dry. To help your skin regain its fresh vitality while you sleep, use the fragrant beauty cream by Woodbury, faithfully. Woodbury Cold Cream, as thousands of women have reported, cleanses and refreshes tired skin. Its fine oils help overcome unbecoming dryness. A skin-invigorating Vitamin in this cream promotes the skin's vitality. And Woodbury's germ-free purity assures immaculate protection. Use Woodbury Cold Cream at bedtime. Let it help you toward the beauty that wins Prince Charming. $1.00, 50^, 25)4, 10ji. WOODBURY MAIL FOR NEW 4-PIECE MAKE-UP KIT John H. Woodbury, inc., 6709 Alfred St., Cincinnati, Ohio (In Canada) John H. Woodbury, Ltd., Perth, Ont. Please send me new Woodbury Beauty Make-up Kit, containing generous tube of Woodbury Cold Cream; smart attractive metal compacts of exquisite Woodbury Facial Powder, Rouge and Lipstick. I enclose 10(! to cover packing and postage. CHECK MAKE-UP DESIRED CHAMPAGNE r— , WINDSOR ROSE r— i (For golden skin) \ | (For pink skin) I I Name ■ Address City State