Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Jun 1929)

^ake A (^Memo, DADDY It's Things Like This That Give Anita Page's Father Headaches By DUNHAM THORP 'AFTER all, I'm her father, an' the father /\ oughta be the head of the family, sorta. /"A "It's knocked everything so darn A \ lopsided." At this point Anita Page poked me in the back, and asked me to tell her father that she wished to speak with him. The only vacant table large enough had been reserved for Joan Crawford, so Anita sat alone with her thoughts while I inter viewed the pater. " Daddy, please be sure to remind me that I must attend the luncheon Mr. Mayer is giving some visitors tomorrow. I forget so easily. Perhaps you'd better make a note of it." So Marino Pomares — yes, Page was Pomares in Astoria — ' pulled out a notebook and du tifully did as his daughter dictated. Now if you want to take time out to snicker, go ahead. I'd be the last to stop you. But when you've finished, let me tell you something: this guy's got a real problem, and he can't laugh ofF. Nineteen years ago he married. And then a year later Anita was born, and he became "the head of the family" in the strongest sense of the word: the man on whose shoulders the responsibility for the welfare of this little unit rested scjuarely. And they were good shoulders, too, for they never shirked that burden. Starting as a quite ordinary electrician, he saved his money and waited an opportunity. It came. In partnership with a friend, he started an electrical contracting business of his own. In ten years, he and his partner increased that business tenfold. Changing His Roles HERE was a prosperous and respected solid citizen, adding to the wealth of the community, and partaking of the wealth added by his neighbors. A member in good standing of the local Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, and Elks. Vice-president of his own business, and owner of the three-story brick home in which he and his family lived. A man able to support his family on the same plane as those of his neighbors. What more could be asked of him ? But now— If daughter makes the grade, and reaches the top of her profession, she may make more in a year than he could Before and after taking up a picture career: at the left is represented the importance of Anita Page in relation to her father center — when they lived in Astoria; at the right her present importance hope for in a lifetime. Laugh that off! This girl, whose main function in life was, but a very short time ago, to mind the baby, has now dethroned the father as the main breadwinner of the fam ily. But, to get back to the free lunch : Closing the notebook, and pocketing it in an almost belligerent manner, Pomares looked up at me — and the expression in his eyes really merited analysis. He was doing something; and no matter how small the task, still it was useful. But what about me.^ Would I understand.'' Or was I one of those guys who make nasty cracks about parasite-poppers.' He may have been boss in .A.storia, but here he was on the defensive. And the pathetic part of it was that no one knew it better than himself. "You see, it's in little things like that that I can be useful to her. I drive her down to the studio in the morning and back home again at night, and act as a sort of manager to handle her business and do anythmg 1 can. affairs, look after her interests. Her Career or His FR.'XNKLY, I don't know what to do. It's sure a tough problem, perhaps the toughest I've been up against in my life. This success in the movies is great for Anita, and the wife is wild about it — but it's sure played hob with me. "But for it, I'd have been going along in my own business, a business that's growing every year. We'd have been comfortable and well-to-do, even if never actually wealthy. I could have sent Anita through college; and the baby, too, when he grows up. And then maybe Anita would have wanted to marry — and if the boy she picked wasn't well set, I'd have been able to give him a start. " But now it doesn't look like that's to be. If Anita's got it in her and can make the grade, she can do things for the family financially that I could never even dream of. I've got to consider that. "And then, there's another thing. The wife and I have never been separated, except maybe a day or two now and then, for nineteen years and you get into habits that are hard to break. If 1 go back to New York and continue in [Continued on page 92) ^9