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THE EXCLUSIVE STORY OF THE
BETTY GRABLE-HARRY JAMES MARRIAGE
BY 0 0 R 0 T H
SCOOP! But really! We literally held the presses for this on-thespot, exclusive coverage of the Grable-James marriage. Here it is, direct from Las Vegas to Movieland.
☆ ☆ ☆
LET it be said to their credit that Betty Grable and Harry James tried to keep their wedding
I ceremony dignified, private
only to themselves and their necessary witnesses.
The union was solemnized at four o’clock in the morning of July fifth in Betty’s suite at the Last Frontier Hotel at Las Vegas, Nevada.
The reason for the unorthodox time and the honky tonk setting for that blissful scene . . . well, shoot¬ ing schedules beset movie stars even in their most romantic mo¬ ments.
Two days previously, Mrs. Louise James had secured a Mexican di¬ vorce. On the morning of the sixth of July Betty was due back on the sound stage at Twentieth CenturyFox and on that same Tuesday Harry had to rehearse for his radio show, “Broadway,” for three davs
Y MANNERS
and then report to MGM on Friday.
So only by meeting mid-way, Harry rushing via streamliner from New York and Betty rattling up on a milk train from Los Angeles, could they meet in Las Vegas, be married, and have a one-day honeymoon together.
Harry and Betty even had the naive idea that they might be able to slip into Las Vegas, be married, and not have any one the wiser for a week or two.
They were wrong. For two days preceding the wedding, Twentieth Century-Fox had Betty’s own press agent on the job up at Vegas, trying
to protect their box-office queen from the crowds they knew would most certainly otherwise rush her. Strict orders were given out that no photographers were to be present, and absolutely no reporters.
A small church, called The Little Church of the West, was hired for the service. The county clerk stood by, waiting. The Reverend Dr. C. H. Sloan waited to read the vows. The sun boiled in the sky and the temperature hung at 118 in the shadowless roads . . . and all the while more people kept on ar¬ riving. Photographers came. Re¬ porters came. The press agents and the hotel management tried to shoo them off. They wouldn’t shoo.
Down in the hotel kitchens, Doc,
Harry gives out with a kiss — and what a kissl — and Betty cuts the cake after their wedding ceremony.