Motion Picture (Aug 1931-Jan 1932)

How Hollywood Gets Its Wild Reputation people trouble is bound to happen, just as surely as it happens occasionally in any city of seventeen thousand people. But why should these unknowns, who often have no connection with Hollywood whatsoever, give the city its reputation? Because a bank clerk occasionally steals money, prominent bankers don't get the reputation of being thieves. Specific cases, however, are better than generalities. So just to check up on how Hollywood gets its reputation, I clipped all the local Los Angeles and Hollywood newspapers for film-scandal stories for a period of sixty days. (I hate to think what the intake would have been in a year!) The names involved I checked with the Central Casting Bureau and the Hays organization. I must confess that practically all of these names were strange to me, and I know Hollywood fairly well. I think they'll be strange to you, too. In most of the cases — and this is important— the people were strange to these two organizations. And among the employees of Central Casting are people who know practically everyone who has been in pictures in Hollywood for 20 years! They hold their jobs because their memories are good. Ever Hear of Marion Brazier 1 FOR instance, stories recently appeared in all the local papers under an Eastern date-line, telling how Marion Brazier, "onetime Hollywood film star," had sawed her way out of a Hackensack, N. J. jail a few years ago, leaving a fresh note for a detective, and how that worthy had recently met her when she left a penitentiary in Massachusetts and re-arrested her on the old charge. Pictures of this "one-time star" later appeared, and in one Los Angeles paper were spread over five columns. I never heard of Marion Brazier in pictures. Did you? I can find no record of her in any of the film year books, and certainly she was never a "star" in the Hollywood sense of the word. But what is more important, nobody at Central Casting, according to information forwarded me by the Hays organization, had ever heard of her, either as an extra or a star. Yet those dispatches and pictures were carried in probably three thousand daily papers in the United States, and millions of readers will never be disillusioned. It will only add one more nail of surety to their conviction that Hollywood actresses are wild, wild women ! Some nights ago, while going down Hollywood Boulevard, I heard the newsboys' shouting: "Woman Whips Movie Star." I stopped and bought a paper. The headline read,: WIFE TELLS COURT STORY OF WHIPPING "OTHER WOMAN"— Film Actress Thrashed in Jealous Rage. Another Star Gone Wrong? THIS must be hot stuff," thousands of newspaper readers must have said as they got a paper. ' {Continued from page 45) Pickford, or Norma Shearer, or Dorothy Mackaill, or Joan Crawford? Say, this Hollywood is certainly a wild place." Well, here's the story as it ran, for a column or more, in the paper: "Sure I thrashed her — why not? She deserved it — and I took matters into my own hands." With this proffered justification Mrs. Mary Baxter, living at 2001 Nortli Gramercy Place told, in Judge Georgis Bullock's court yesterday how on March 2.5 she had beaten Miss Lois Fournier, of 1663 Waterloo St., a film actress. Her reason, she said, was that Miss Fournier had This picture shows you another view of the movie capital — which looks like any busy suburb of any big town, no better and no worse. Note the hills that prevent Hollywood from growing much larger gone to Tia Juana with her husband, Harry C. Baxter, a certified public accountant, etc." The italics are mine. You will notice that the "film actress" angle was mentioned twice, once in the headline and again at the beginning of the story. Here is the report Central Casting gave me, through the Hays organization, on Miss Fournier's Hollywood prominence. (And by the way, I hadn't heard of her, had you?) She is not registered with Central Casting. (Nor do the film annuals reveal her as an actress — and these annuals list players above "extra" prominence who have received screen credit.) The people at Central Casting, however, have heard of her and understand that she has done a small amount of picture work. "Two Typical Wild Parties" THEN I picked up another headline: POLICE BREAK UP WILD PARTY IN LAUREL CANYON— MOVIE DIRECTOR IS ARRESTED. I refrain from mentioning the names in this case, as the party turned out to be not so wild after all. It was one of those social standabouts with a little kitchen-drinking in that portion of Laurel Canyon known as the "Whispering Gallery" because the neighbors half a mile away, due to peculiar acoustics, can hear echoes of each others' social doings, and because there are a number of crabs who turn each other over to the police. The "movie director" mentioned in this story was not a director at all, but a second assistant director who had never worked in a major studio. The charges were dismissed, as he was not intoxicated. He had merely objected to having the cops appear, and they pinched him for having "sassed" them. As for the rest of the party, it was so tame that it wouldn't even have caused 'Wonder if it's Mary a ripple in Des Moines, Iowa. But that was how another "wild Hollywood party" broke into print. Then there was a big banner-line a few days later: POLICE RAID FILM PARTY —HOLLYWOOD LEADING MAN BATTLES WITH OFFICER. The actor who was arrested in this case was from the stage. He had arrived in Hollywood only ten days before. It was his first trip. He had engaged a house, and was holding a housewarming, but there wasn't a single film player present when the police arrived. The actor has since appeared in the lead of one picture, and has gone back to the stage. But Hollywood film folk got the credit for the party! Tied Up With a Murder HERE, however, is the most flagrant case in recent months of a newspaper's abuse of the good name of the film players for pure purposes of circulation. It is the deliberate creating of a headline sensation, using the name of an innocent film actress who was attempting to aid the police. Of course, there is no news quite so juicy to millions of newspaper readers as the fact that a film player is mixed up in a murder. Draw your own conclusions as to these headlines, which appeared in practically every Los Angeles and Hollywood paper in one day: ACTRESS RELATES EVENTS AFTER DOUBLE SLAYING— Film Player Tells of Seeing Three Men Leave Crawford's Office. — FILM BEAUTYAIDS MURDER PROBE!— FILM ACTRESS NEW WITNESS IN CRAWFORD MURDER! Certainly sounds bad, doesn't it? Another movie star mixed up in a murder! Sub-heads referred to her as a "pretty blonde Hollywood film actress," and captions said she "loomed today as a possible key-witness in the Crawford murder, following disclosures she made to the police." But what are the facts? Why, Miss Jean Riley happened to be driving down Sunset Boulevard, where thousands of cars pass in an hour, at four-thirty one afternoon when two or three men came running from the bungalow office of Charles Crawford, a Los Angeles politician, just after he and Herbert Spencer, a newspaperman, had been shot. Miss Riley told the police she had seen the men running from the office. She Only Did Her Duty I INQUIRED of the Hays organization who Miss Jean Riley was. It seems that she was once featured in movies some years ago, and is to-day the mother of a child who sometimes gets minor rdles. She not only had every right, but it was a civic duty, to report to the police. Yet eight-column banner-lines heralded to the world that another "film player" was mixed up in a murder! Wild Hollywood — that's one of the ways it gets its reputation. Do you know the following people — you picture fans? Well, here's a story that ap.peared recently in a Los Angeles paper, 90