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Service With
By
CEDRIC BELFRAGE
Illustrations y E I d 0 n K e I I e y .
HOLLV^yOOD— the domestic servant's paradise. Why work harder for less? Come to Hollywood, ye Marthas and Janes and Lizzies, ye Rastuses and Chin Lees, and work for a movie star . . . call your employer by his first name . . . make yourself thoroughly at home . . . act just like one of the family. Earn big money this easy way!
Is it just the spirit of healthy American democracy that creates the friendly, almost intimate relationship between masters and servants in our glorious film capital? One would like to think that it was. For in truth, there is often a very definite charm in the sheer naivete of that relationship. I know of no other place on earth where such a strange atmosphere is to be found, an atmosphere in which Above and Below Stairs are merged in a hearty, romping good-fellowship. Hollywood domestics sometimes consent to wear the appropriate costume of their trade; but were it not for that, it would frequently be difficult to distinguish them from their employers and from the guests in the house.
But — ah, how always there is a but! — I am afraid that healthy American democracy has very little to do with it. I am afraid that most of the equalizing movement is from Below Stairs up, rather than from Above down. It is true that there are one or two stars of a truly democratic turn of mind, who encourage their servants to eschew servility simply because they dislike any sort of starchy atmosphere in the home. The large majority, however, get freshness from their domestics only because they do not know how to get respect. To such a state of affairs, I must gravely and dutifully announce, do most of the signs point.
Service with a smile is doubtless a good idea, but when
Their grins are faintly obscene
Hollywood domestics sometimes consent to wear the appropriate costume of their trade — the only way, sometimes, that guests can distinguish them from the hosts
the smile spreads into a faintly obscene grin and service fades into the background, it begins to look as if something is wrong. Domestic servants, as everybody knows, are as a class the worst snobs in the world. Although most of them would strenuously deny it, nothing pleases thf'm more than to preserve the virginity of Above and Below Stairs distinctions — provided the inhabitants of the higher regions can convince them that those distinctions are based on a solid foundation of superiority. Make a domestic believe you are a better man than he is, and he will give you service; fail to do so, and he will give you a smile. Really to get both, one would have to be a genius. And Hollywood, in spite of all press-agentry to the contrary, is not highly stocked with geniuses.
From my observations in dozens of stars' homes, I should hazard that the number of those Fortunate Beings who get genuine service from their domestic entourage could easily be counted on the fingers of a hand. They do not pay any higher wages, for cash will not buy service from a domestic. No . . . they are merely the happy few who are able to command respect from those who minister unto them, either by constant
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