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By HELEN LOUISE WALKER
oin
Symptom N-47 of Going Hollywood is
for all good boys and girls to come to
the aid of their party — sometimeij
thirst-aid
AL JOLSON was approached on the set at Warner's by a newspaper man who asked him to give him a ^ "quote" for a story he was doing.
"\\ hat is the story about?" inquired Mr. Jolson.
"Just a general article. I'll tell you the idea and quote your comment."
"No, indeed!" quoth Al, with mock indignation. "If the story isn't all about me, I won't play !"
The newspaper man, whose sense of humor, perhaps, was not quite equal to the Jolson brand of jocularity, walked away in some annoyajice.
Jolson called after him, "You may quote me, if you like, as saying I've 'gone Hollywood'!"
Friends fluttered up to him, protesting, "A\. you've said the wrong thing ! You don't want to be quoted as saying that."
Seeing the real concern in their faces. Jolson called after the reporter, "Say! Come on back! I'll talk. Don't quote me on that."
The newspaj^er man, really irked by what he doubtless considered a rebufif, tossed over his shoulder a laconic, "Sorry! You've committed yourself!" and walked on, amid the consternation of press agents.
Now the press agents doubtless exaggerated the significance of the remark. Nevertheless, it is true that the highest compliment you can pay anyone in the film colony is to say that he is "not at all Hollywood." And. by the same token, more contemjH is ])robably expressed by the phrase, "He's gone Hollywood !" or "He is very Hollywood !" than by any other comment that can be made.
It is a little bit like the Pittsburgh millionaires of twenty or thirty years ago. But it is more complicated. Those ]3eople had acquired money abruj^tly and with it ideas of grandeur. This made them very amusing to the
48
folks back East who had had their wealth for a generation or so and had got used to it.
Symptoms of Hollywoodness
Dux the Hollywood type differs from the steel magnates •^ and their wives and daughters in that it has other things besides sudden affluence to influence it.
We are concerned with Art.
We have Burning Messages and things like that.
We have Temperament and Aspirations to Count for SoiTiething.
And we have Sensibilities !
You can see for yourself that the thing is very involved.
In the first place, if one is an artist, then all the story books say that one must be bohemian. This seems to mean somewhat loose as to morals and very, very impulsive and uninhibited.
But there is a catch to that ! Reports of one's bohemianism must not get into the public prints. The mass of the American public clings to its Puritan ideals of conduct and finds difficulty in adjusting itself to the free-and-easy ways of us artists.
So the poor actor tries desperately to seem bohemian among his friends and to seem pure and noble, an upstanding example of young manhood or what-not — in the newspapers.
In other words, he strives to present a Boy Scout exterior to the fans and remain just a little Pagan to his intimates.
Although this thing of going Hollywood takes many forms and strikes as often in high places as low, there are some few characteristics common to all its victims. "
It is very Hollywood, for instance, to talk always in the