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The Real Reasons For
^Ann G}tar dings
Divorce!
Wi
"E, Harry Bannister and Ann Harding Bannister, are getting a divorce— "
It was unbelievable — even though a messenger had delivered notes bearing this message to the Hollywood office of Motion Picture Magazine, even though they were typed on the personal stationery of Ann Harding and Harry Bannister, even though they were signed: "Ann Harding Bannister" and "Harry C. Bannister." Why, this was the happiest marriage in screendom — the one out-and-out case of love that was lasting ! How could they even be thinking of divorce?
"There is nothing," said Ann Harding to the world, holding her golden head high, " that I can add to the statements Mr. Bannister and I released to the press. They are, I believe, self-explanatory."
The statements that burst like a bomb all over America are self-explanatory — so far as they go. They state that Harry Bannister and Ann Harding are to seek a divorce because Harry has been gradually losing his identity and is being looked upon merely as "Ann Harding's husband"; and — strangest phrase of all! — "in order to pre serve this love and as the quickest and best solution to our eventual complete happiness."
In this town where people believe in few things, the love between Ann Harding and Harry Bannister was believed in. For three years, writers have poured out their most idealistic words on stories of their mutual devotion, their happy home, their beloved baby. They were pointed out as triumphal proof that married happiness was possible even in Hollywood.
"When we decided to come out here," Ann Harding once told an interviewer, "our friends warned us that our marriage would go to pieces like other film mar
40
If Harry Bannister (left) had had a screen "break," would he have written the statement below?
riages. But we knew better. We knew that Hollywood couldn't hurt us."
Ann on Verge of Breakdown
ND, again, only two
weeks before these
statements were sent to the
press, Ann Harding smiled
confidently at another writer
and told him, "My career
means nothing to me in
comparison to my husband
and my home."
Yet, at this moment, Ann Harding lies in a darkened bedroom in her broken home on the mountain top, hovering on the edge of a breakdown, while Harry Bannister has established a residence in Reno and is bringing suit for divorce at the end of six weeks — though a Los Angeles divorce attorney publicly doubts that a divorce for such friendly reasons as the couple have announced is possible, even in Nevada.
Right, a typical home picture of the Bannisters— with Harry helping Ann even in a game of solitaire