Modern Screen (Dec 1948 - Oct 1949)

While Bob Taylor was in the Navy, she was pursued at a party by a young leading man who hoped to get a role in her next picture. He was so obviously certain the way to get it was to conduct a flirtation, that when he finally backed her into a corner, she competently disposed of him by asking, "What is this, the mating season?" Nor is she to be intimidated by the starchasing hoodlums who spend their days recklessly pursuing celebrities in foul ways or fair. Once when she was staying on the 25th floor of the Waldorf in New York, there was a terrific racket at her door. When she opened it, a dozen or so boisterous, demanding boys started to stampede through. With a strength born of determination and with no apology, she pushed them right back. One complained bitterly, "Say, we walked up 25 flights to get your autograph!" "Did anybody invite you?" she asked blandly. The door was locked behind them. She blames Bob Taylor entirely for attracting fans. She says they never recognize her unless she's with him. "Oh, once I was recognized," she'll admit. "I was having dinner without Bob at the Vine Street Derby. Chelios, the maitre d', asked me if I'd go . through the kitchen when I left. He said someone had spotted me and a mob of fans had gathered outside to wait for me and the officer on the beat was afraid of a disturbance. I was never so impressed in my life. So, the one time I was recognized without Taylor along, I got shown out the kitchen door!" Soothing compliments are met with that same "Nuts!" attitude. Someone recently told her she had such beautiful blonde hair. "Blonde, my eye!" she retorted. "Don't you know silver gray when you see it?" Another person, just before the latest Academy Awards, pointed out that, after three previous times up and no Oscar yet, she should have this year's Award for Sorry Wrong Number. "Huh!" she answered. "Olivia de Havilland should have it for The Snake Pit. I hope she doesnobody can be jealous of a great talent like hers. It's something you have to respect. Sentiment shouldn't enter into it." In case anyone suspects she was guilty of a bit of an Alphonse-Gaston act herself, he should have heard her when she failed to win the Award a few years back for her fine work in Stella Dallas. "I really thought I'd get it. My heart's blood was in it," she said simply. In that era of sweetness and light on the part of the loser, her words came as a shock. As did her remark to a. big businessman recently. She was at the home of some non-professional friends when the tycoon happened to drop in. She was telling about a personal experience in a big store which had just opened in Los Angeles. He tried to impress her with his business acumen by making involved predictions concerning the store's future. She kept moving away from him, but he kept following. Having at long last unlimbered himself with a barrage of boring facts, figures and opinions to back up his predictions he said, "Now that I've told you all this, have you come to any conclusion?" She ignored him at first, trying to avoid creating a situation. But he raised his voice and repeated, "I said, have you come to any conclusion?" "Yes," she answered. Then, creating the impression she had gone to the top of a grand staircase for her pronouncement, she said, "The conclusion of this conversation." And she departed for home. While she never tells stories of how she's squelched someone, she's quick to tell of others' ability to do so. She has two current favorites. One was delivered by Dr. Joel Pressman, Claudette Colbert's husband. He'd treated Mrs. William Paley, one of the late Dr. Harvey Cushing's beautiful daughters and recently acclaimed the year's best-dressed woman, for a minor throat ailment. That evening at a party, a gushing woman said, "Oh! Dr. Pressman! Wasn't it exciting to treat the best-dressed woman in the world9'' "I was under the impression I was treating the daughter of the world's greatest brain specialist," he said softly. The other one is on herself. While at Slapsie Maxie's one night to see Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform, she was invited to dance by Jerry Lewis. An enthusiastic jitterbugger, she was no more than two minutes on the dance floor when he threw her arms off him and said, "I won't dance unless you let me lead." Well, that's the lady who says "Nuts!" Not long ago, she was in the office of her personal press representative, Helen Ferguson. Helen and her staff keep a pot of coffee going all the time. Barbara was offered some and took a couple of swallows before she left. A couple of hours later, a magnificent, fool-proof coffee maker was delivered to Miss Ferguson. Accompanying it was a note which read: Dear Helen: If you use this you won't be serving poison. Missy P. S. Rude, ain't she? "But magnificently so, magnificently so," her friends, many of whom are converted critics, remind you. The End MY DAZE— BY RONALD REAGAN (Continued from page 37) 30 hours straight — and my body finally agreed with my mind that we were on a new schedule. I slept like a log all night, and never had any more trouble. I'd gone to London last November to play the role of Yank in The Hasty Heart. (The script described him as being "in his early thirties, more wholesome than handsome, with a manner more relaxed than lazy." "Type casting," my friends had grinned.) I'd never been outside the U. S. before in my life and when I found myself jogging along in one of those famous London cabs on my way from the station to the Savoy Hotel, I felt a little uncertain about this Yank's reaction to England. As I peered out into the blanketlike fog I was already a little homesick. I wondered if I were going to feel that way throughout the four months I'd be there. Within a minute of registering at the hotel desk I had my answer. I had just put down the pen after signing my name when a girl's voice called, "Ronnie!" I turned — and there stood Elizabeth Taylor and her mother. In London to make The Conspirator, they too were staying at the Savoy. "We just got a big food package from home, full of roast beef," Elizabeth said, "and you are hereby invited to join us at dinner!" So that night we three Hollywoodites sat in the Savoy's dining room having Hollywood roast beef, especially prepared by the chef. Homesick, indeed! I told the Taylors what I could of the West Coast, and they told me news of the other Hollywoodites in London. 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