Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

LL aboard," yelled the conductor, and Gulliver — Dorothy in person — climbed onto the observation-car at Salt Lake City. She waved her hand in tearful farewell to her friends. "Crocodile tears," she grinned to herself as she settled down in her Pullman seat. "That was the happiest moment of my life!" She is still breathless as she tells of it. "For I'd won the Beauty Contest for the Salt Lake Telegram and was on my way to Hollywood." Sixteen, and the world an unopened book. Small wonder the distance from Salt Lake City to California was long and wild and wonderful to Dorothy Gulliver! That was only three years ago, but in those three years the unknown daughter of a workman in Salt Lake City has climbed from obscurity to leads in feature pictures. Her latest triumph was to be chosen as one of this season's Wampas Baby Stars. And she's still traveling. My introduction to her was unique. I waited unnoticed in the anteroom of the publicity department at Universal. It was the lunch hour, and five or six young press agents lounged around in the outer office while Dorothy Gulliver sat on the desk nearest the door. "Get down ofFa that desk," the kid of the office force remonstrated with her, plainly scandalized. Movie celebrities do not sit on desks, as a rule. Gaily swinging her feet, she began to sing the chorus of "I Ain't That Kind of a Baby," and the boys all joined in on the song. Another youth sauntered in, strumming a uke. The girl on the desk sprang up suddenly and there was a clip, clip sound of the Black Bottom being danced on the bare floor. A round of applause followed, in which the critical 76 1 ravels Dorothy's Young, Dorothy's Pretty, But Dorothy Doesn't Want to be Itty By MARY BARTOL Johnny of the office force joined. "Gee, kid, you had oughta study dancing," he commended. "You've got IT." "Now John, be careful, or you'll grow up to be a press-agent," Dorothy warned him. Five masculine voices joined in protest. "He's right — you have got IT," and the argument was settled for all time in my mind, for what press-agents don't know about that little pronoun which has been elevated to an improper noun in Hollywood isn't worth knowing! And when five out of five men agree on any subject, it must be true. dotty's dimples ERE I interrupted, and Dorothy and I together walked across the lot to the studio cafe. Dorothy is the sort who could nicely be abbreviated into "Dot." She's about five feet tall. The curls with which she first started her career have been shorn. She blondined them for a picture and they just weren't becoming, so she cut them ofF. Now the mahogany brown bob clings around her face attractively. A dimple plays in one cheek when she smiles. Her eyes are deep brown. She talked without affectation. Not learnedly — but interestedly — of work, and home, and the Wampas Ball and of her next picture. She likes to sketch a little, and she loves to sing. Sometimes she sings over the radio, but never has her real name announced. "Just jazz songs, of course," she explained. At last I got round to asking her about IT. Why had she never used that for advertising and publicity, and so on? She looked embarrassed. SHE HAD TO LEARN ABOUT IT IT WASN'T the first time she'd heard she had it. The Gulliver child learned about having it and all that goes with it when she'd been in Hollywood — well, perhaps a week. Maybe it was all of ten days, but it wasn't long after her arrival. The effect was rather startling. She's not a bit "clinging viney" nor shy — but it frightened her. {Continued on page qq)