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A N N D
V O R A K
(Opposite page, lower) Ann and Leslie Fenton as they arrived in New York on their famous recent trip. (Opposite page, upper) With Clark Gable— when they were both pretty unknown. (On this page, above) Ann as she looked some years ago— before she had learnt to study "style"— a trick she got from Joan Crawford, incidentally. (Right) As she is today. See the difference in the two Ann Dvoraks?
About that time Joan Crawford fell into the habit of dropping over to the "revue" set to watch the chorus practice. Perhaps she had been told that there was a dancer on the lot who looked a little like her. Anyway, she talked to Ann, who was naturally flattered by this recognition.
JOAN told me she could see that I was working very hard," Ann later related. "She said: 'Don't ever stop working hard. I think you have something. Hard work is all that counts.' "
After a fashion Joan and Ann became quite friendly. Joan was very sweet ahout suggesting Ann for small roles that came up in her pictures, but the star's influence didn't help much in furthering Ann's career. One director, I remember, objected to Ann in one of the Crawford pictures because he saw a similarity between the two girls.
Ann was quite delighted, rather than discouraged, at this directorial edict. For several weeks I suspected her of attempting to look as much like Joan Crawford as possible. It seemed to me that she was even beginning to talk like Joan. Her clothes were selected with an eye toward a "Crawford flare" and I must say that Ann's style sense seemed to improve. During this marked Crawford influence she began to think more and more of her figure and carriage. In the next two months the
change in my tall, ungainly Ann was quite remarkable.
In spite of the fact that her appearance had improved considerably, nothing to further her ambitions seemed to occur. When she was made dance assistant in charge of teaching new choruses step routines I began to think that she might never appear before the camera again. At the end of six weeks, with the waning in the fad of musical movies, she decided to give up dancing and go into some other line of studio work. Ann asked for a job as a script girl but there was no position open.
One day, Ann, in a very blue and discouraged frame of mind was crossing the lot when someone stopped her, introducing her to a newcomer who was beginning to click, Karen Morley. The two girls became the best of friends from that first meeting.
KAREN invited Ann to lunch with her after which, in Karen's dressing room, they talked for hours about Ann's chances. Ann had almost reached the point where she was about ready to turn to another line of work . . . her professional dancing, or back to an attempt to write again. But Karen would protest : "Please don't.
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