Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

glamour from nine to five (Continued from page 29) calls her, "Our Little Gold Mine," and that she sings, dances and displays before the camera the most famous legs in the world. Because, at home. Mama hides what outsiders pay a fortune a year to see. Mama doesn't let glamour put one foot in her front door. Bettv's divided life is balanced as preciselv " as a doctor's prescription. She s been around Hollywood long enough to know that a career and home life are dvnamite if vou mix them. "At 5:00 p.m. sharp, no matter it genius is stirring, or inspiration is on fire at the studio. Mrs. Harrv James wipes off her makeup, jumps into her jalopy and heads for home. , There's no proiection machine m ner house, and no shop talk. Her own husband. Harrv. has seen her on the screen exactlv twice since they were married. One of the pictures, to Betty's dismay, was The Beautiful Blonde From Bashjul Bend That movie sent her diving from second to seventh place (although she's still top gal) at the box office, and even today when vou mention it she winces. Beautiful Blonde, oddly enough, was Vicki's favorite. She calls it "Mamas cowbov picture." because Betty was covered from head to toe in Western trappings most of the time. But with the public, that "covered-up" look fell flatter than a pancake. ItH be seven years come July nith that Betty's been Mrs. James. The job of pleasing him and the public, too, hasn_t been easv. Every year, the Women s Press Club of Holbywood nominates her for the "most uncooperative actress." (This year, though. Hedy Lamarr beat her out.) And long ago. her studio found out that unless thev tackle her before she leaves the studio for whatever publicity tie-ups thev want, she's a strictly gone gal. Just the other day, when she finished My Blue Heaven, the pent-up demand for Grable publicity overtook her. At the same time, a doctor had just decided that Vicki's infected tonsils had to come out. Riaht then nothing but Vicki mattered to Bettv. She rented a room next to Vicki s at the hospital, never left her side day or night, and when it was all over stayed home to nurse her. Maybe that cost something in magazine covers but Betty didnt give a hoot, switch-hitter . . . About that same time, Betty was booked for Chicago and the opening of Wabash Avenue. Nobody knew better than she that it was smart to help sell her picture. But a couple of other things happened just then: Betty found the house she and Harry had been hunting for, and it needed to be remodeled, decorated and furnished; Harry's annual band tour had come up (he'd" be gone from home 13 weeks once he'd left), and the few precious days to spend with him and the kids would be out if she made the trip. It was a tough decision for a trouper like Betty to make but home and Harry won. Yet only a few days before, that same home took second place in Betty's attention, when second place was what it deserved. Betty had worked all weekend with her decorator. Monday she had one of her toughest acts to catch with a camera for My Blue Heaven, and along about 4:30, when they'd been at it unsuccessfully for hours, she got a call on the set. Workmen at her house, she was told, were at a standstill, a crisis loomed at the new place. "We've got an impossible problem, Betty," said her decorator, "'you've got to come over here right away." The answer was a loud "No!" Betty made that plain and clicked the receiver quick. She was plenty sore that they'd called her. "Can you imagine me quitting work to go over there?" she said. "What do they think I have here but problems?" A few days after, when Betty was ducking around her new house among carpenters, drapers, plumbers and bricklayers, you couldn't have interested her in anything about My Blue Heaven either. A switch-hitter like that is hard to figure in Holh'wood. "Uncooperative" is a mild criticism compared to some Betty draws. She's been accused of laziness, indifference, hostility, ungratefulness, a long list of indictments. Well, let's see how they stand up — Betty is about as lazy as a beaver behind in his rent when she makes a picture. She shoots only two a year but each one runs four months, at least and My Blue Heaven lasted five. Practically all are in technicolor, which is tricky shooting. All are loaded with songs and elaborate dance numbers, long on tedious rehearsals and timing. A Fox efficiency expert recently figured out that twenty-seven separate things can go wrong with every Betty Grable dance scene — and wreck the take. Until My Blue Heaven too. every Grable film in the last six years has been a period picture with an intricate hair-do to whip up from scratch every morning, and Marie, her hairdresser, sighs, "For Betty you have to take each tiny little hair, one by one, and put it in exactly the right place." That's why she's up at six o'clock every morning for around 270 days out of every year! ball of fire , . . She's never had a makeup man, and always she's had a double job — face and body makeup, to put on and to take off. She goes through tiring wardrobe sittings six times as many as any other star. She usually burns through four pairs of shoes per picture and drops at least eight pounds. She's never late, because she'd wreck the day of a hundred-odd people if she were. She relaxgs only at lunch, and keeps an athlete's hours at night, with a nine o'clock curfew. While Betty made My Blue Heaven, for instance, her boss, Darryl Zanuck, had two big testimonial dinners tossed for him in Hollywood. They went on into the small hours. Every Fox star, great and small, showed up at both events — except Beth' Grable. This was pointed out to her by a gossip guy hunting a feud, who asked, "What's the matter, don't you like Zanuck any more?" Betty's comeback was, "I think maybe he'd rather have me in shape for the camera the next morning than clapping for him the night before." Director Henry Koster knows that Bettyknows exactly what she wants out of every scene. He okayed takes time after time throughout My Blue Heaven only to have her object, "No, it didn't feel right — can we do it over?" She's her own toughest audience. She also knows what is good and what is bad Grable. (She cooked up her lone turkey, Beautiful Blonde under protest and against her better judgment.) And Betty's determination to give her audiences only what they want cost her the only sniff she may ever get at an Oscar. She turned down the role of Sophie in The Razor's Edge, and that role won Anne Baxter an Academy Award. Betty has no regrets, though, because she's firmly convinced that she's a song-and-dance girl, and not a dramatic actress. Betty Grable could make herself tons more money than she pays the income tax man right now (not far from S300.000 a year) . She turned down S18.000 a week once for a radio program, and she knows PRODUCT OF ^UNITED STATES RUBBgjl A PKAUIUIl JT^ TO TPAIM AT HOME ACT NOW— HELP FILL THE NEED Now von can prepare for practical experience as a Trained Practical Nurse in spare time. Manveamwhilelearning. AgeslSto55. High chool not necessary. Easy payments. Write free information and sample lesson pages. WAYNE SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL NURSING, INC. 2525 Sheffield Ave., Desk K-53. Chicago 14. III. $Ci% EASILY MADE IN SPARC TIME beoufiful. 50 cords CordsforSl.OO.Noi 1 00 other boxes wir e0 tor SI .00. Also 25 , hcndsomely imprinted, profits to 1 00%. Bonus. REGAL. 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