Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

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Easy to adiust; its result will save you soon from further humiliation and will improve your personal appearance 100 per cent. Write today for copyrighted Physiological and Anatomical book and experience of others without obligation. Enclose a dime for postage. M. TRILETY, SPECIALIST Dept. 1672-L Binghamton, N. Y. has its perils, undreamed of in the comfortable days of obscurity. The spotlight attracts a swarm of creatures with stings. Since Fay Wray signed her contract with Famous Players, she has been the victim of four law suits, anonymous telephone calls, blackmailing letters and at least one projected attempt upon the life of herself and her mother. Bills for imaginary services come in on every mail, people who hardly know her suddenly discover that they were responsible for her contract. A MOB OF MEDDLERS SUCCESS has not only brought her a host of unknown friends. It has also disclosed the fact that she has absolutely unsuspected enemies. She finds herself, this little high school girl with the lovely line of profile and the strange oriental eyes, suddenly surrounded by people who fawn and flatter, who beg and bully, who pry into her heart, and poke about among her few simple experiences, who admire and envy — and hate her for succeeding. " It seems to be an American indoor sport to set up idols for the pleasure of knocking them down," John Monk Saunders says in his nice Oxford voice, with his nice Yankee smile. "A champion is never so popular as when he is overthrown. Look at Lindbergh even. As soon as he came back from Europe, people began to find fault with him and write articles and editorials criticizing him. The public resents too much success. That's why gossip about great names spreads so fast: people want to believe it." "It's funny," Fay says softly, "I always thought to myself that if I ever got my chance in the movies I wouldn't do like the others and give interviews. I hate to talk about myself. After I went to Famous Players I tried not to give out stories about my family and my childhood and my schooldays, but everyone told me that the fans wouldn't like me unless they knew my life story. Then, as soon as it was printed, I began to hear from people I didn't know existed — from the Canadian town where I was born, and from Salt Lake City where I grew up, saying how much they'd always thought of me, and asking for money or for some favor. Everybody seems to want something of you as soon as you get a movie contract. Even people I knew very well—" There was a family, she goes on to explain, who had been great friends of her family's. When Fay came out to Hollywood, they invited her to visit them and she stayed at their house for several weeks. Since then she had been to see them many times. Just recently, when her contract was noised about town, her host and friend sent her a bill for seven hundred dollars for board and lodging. That is Hollywood hospitality for you. No wonder, as she says wistfully, you get suspicious and cynical about people. AFRAID OF THEIR FRIENDS THERE'S something about somebody else's success," pursues Saunders, "that often seems to bring out the worst traits in people. Sometimes it's jealousy — 'Why shouldn't I have as much as she has?' Sometimes it's greed. They begin to scheme how they can get some advantage from it themselves. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it happen over and over with Fay. That's why so many players keep their telephone numbers secret and let only their best friends know where they live. And even then their friends are sure to send their best friends around to try to sell insurance or real estate or automobiles, or to get one of their relatives a job at the studio, or to sell a scenario. You get so you suspect even gifts. "On our honeymoon trip a perfectly charming Voice called Fay up on the phone and asked her what her favorite perfume was. She wanted, she said, to make her a wedding present of some. Of course Fay told her, and the voice at the other end of the wire asked if she would please stop at the perfumery department of one of the big department stores and ask for the package. We happened to be passing by that morning and did stop and inquire for it. The clerk was very much perturbed. She said there was no such package, but that the same thing had occurred in the case of two other motion picture actresses recently. Figure that one out. Some crank, of course, but why should she pick out a perfect stranger to annoy? The motion picture business seems to have some strange fascination for unbalanced people." No wonder so many picture people make their faces famous under assumed names. No wonder they conceal their perfectly innocent pasts under a faked biography, to escape their former acquaintances and friends. If Fay Wray had played up to her long, foreign-looking eyes and claimed Odessa as her birthplace, and a Russian nobleman as her father, she would not have attracted the attention of the ambitious Salt Lake City schoolfellow of hers who sent her recently a blood-curdling letter threatening her life unless she left two thousand dollars in a box on a vacant lot. If she had cultivated an accent and passed herself off as a new foreign find, an enterprising agent might not have sued her for a huge commission for getting her her contract, and a hard working attorney might not have put in a staggering bill for imaginary services. FANS WHO'VE NEVER SEEN HER "' I SHEY tried to get me to change my 1 name to June Darling when I first had a bit in an independent picture," Fay admits, "but I didn't see why I should. I was proud of my name, and I wanted to make it well known if I could. I never dreamed that success could bring me so much trouble. And yet the publicity I've had has done a great deal for me too. I've only had two pictures released, so far: 'The Legion of the Condemned' and 'The Street of Sin. ' More than half of my fan mail is from people who have never seen me on the screen. But they've read about me in the fan magazines and newspapers and they write me wonderful letters. ' I hope to see you soon' they say, or 'I'm looking ahead to your first picture. ' Perfect strangers write me their good wishes. I've got thousands of fan friends who will go to the movies to see me just because they've read about me and are interested. It's hard to know what to do. " . The answer seems to be simple. If you don't want to tell the public about your blood pressure, your butcher's bill and your bank account, if you are not willing to invite them to look into your ice chest or to read your love letters, you were quite obviously not intended to become a movie star. That is the price you pay. For the claim that you have upon the affections of a multitude of people unknown to you, you must pay with a concession of some claim on their part upon the privacies of your life. You can't be yourself, your lone self only and still be a personage in the public eye. 88