The New Movie Magazine (Jul-Dec 1932)

Edgar Wallace's Hollywood Diary (Continued from -page 83) HAVE YOU Sleepy Lips? Whenever you want to look your best, wake up your lips. Rosy lipstick helps. But can't smooth out hard, unbecoming lines around your mouth.Only MOTHER NATURE'S beauty treatment which is CHEWING can lend a thrill and vitality to your lips which make them truly kissable. Try it. Chew double Mint just before your big date BUY a fresh package of DOUBLE MINT today. M-52 IVE • SATISFYING Everybody's delighted to hear you are coming and there have been paragraphs in the newspaper about it! Where the information came from I am at a loss to know, but apparently they knew as soon as I did, even though they had the date wrong and fixed the 15th. Tuesday, 26th January, 1932. [ DINED with Walter Huston and * Nan last night. There were just us three. We talked about various things, and had a little business talk about a radio engagement he has been offered. It was very pleasant, and I left about a quarter past eleven. Walter improves every time you meet him, and Nan is very sweet. Walter is very gentle, and so is Nan, for the matter of that, but she's got a shrewder conception of actualities. When I went down to the studio yesterday and told Cooper I was getting on with my crime story, I incidentally mentioned another story I had in my mind. I think I told you about this yesterday; if I did, Bob will cut it out. He went up to the ceiling at the idea, said it was the swellest opening for a picture he'd ever heard, and I am working on it now. I will send you the complete scenario when I am through. My Constance Bennett scenario wasn't passed by the Constance Bennett section of R.K.O. They had about twenty stories to choose from and they chose another. As a matter of fact, I am learning a tremendous lot of what is required in motion pictures, not only the angles but the interests that the public wants, and when I get back I'll be able to give British Lion a real ripsnorter. Tell Sam that if you meet him. Wednesday, 27th January, 1932. I HAD a sleep in the late afternoon and at half past seven went up to Evelyn Brent's. Joan, who is a very close friend of Evelyn's, was there, and Lowell Sherman came in. I like Evelyn Brent tremendously. She thinks Chalklands (the Wallace country home) one of the loveliest houses that she's ever been in. She is a very real person, terribly sane and without any hokum at all. We talked about various people in the film business. She was very anxious that if I directed a film I should give a chance to a gill who is under contract to M-G-M, who, she thinks, is a grand actress. Loweli Sherman agreed. He has played with her. Her name is Karen Morley. She's got a small part in "Mata Hari," if you see it. Sherman was very interesting about old-time actors. He knows London very well. We had quite a long talk about Ethel Levey and Georgette. They bought Pauline Frederick's house up on Sunset, tore down the old rose bowers, built a tiled swimming pool, refitted the house with trick bathrooms, and now it is a white elephant on their hands and they want to sell it or let it. They want $2,000 a month for it. One way and another the house cost them $140,000 and they will be lucky to sell it for that; although it occupies a very posh position, it is too near Sunset and its traffic. Evelyn, as I say, looks as lovely as ever. Her nickname, by the way, is Betty, and her husband calls her Brent. That is one of the curious thinirs about. Hollywood, that people are referred to by their surnames. You never speak of Greta Garbo except as Garbo, or Norma Shearer except as Shearer. Thursday, 28th January, 1932. T^HE dinner last night at Bayard -*• Veiller's was quite an experience, though I didn't get the names of three or four people who were there. Bay Veiller's wife is very charming. She says she has met you. Norma Shearer was there and Irving Thalberg; and do you remember Billie Burke? She is just as lovely as ever, though she has a grown-up daughter. When I was introduced, she said: "I don't believe it!" She said she had heard so much about me but never dreamt we should meet. I used to think what a swell actress she was in the old days, when one went to little cinemas in Oxford Street. She was very delightful to meet, and I shall, I hope, go to see her again. Her husband is Flo Ziegfeld, of Ziegfeld Follies' fame. Norma was terribly nice, and we spoke about Pat Hastings. By the way, I wrote to him last night. I like Thaiberg. He is extraordinarily young, but one of the most competent men here. I am going to do an article about him. My scenario is proceeding slowly but surely: it is the best I have done so far. Friday, 29th January, 1932. [ WENT down to the studio and at *■ lunch met the high hats. It was funny to see bankers and people taking a fifty-cent lunch. Actually I lunched with Cooper, but afterwards Lehman, the big New York banker, joined us, and then David Selznick came in. In the evening I dined with Guy and had three large lamb chops, this being my fifth lamb chop in a day. I have got quite a passion for lamb just now. Afterwards we drove to the opening of "Mata Hari." It is an amazing show. Outside the streets are crowded, and about two hundred policemen are on duty controlling traffic and the people, who were lined six deep along the sidewalk for quite a long way to see the platinums pass. If you are a celebrity you pause and make a little speech into the microphone which is -broadcast to the crowd. But carefully hiding away my cigarette holder, I dodged through and avoided this experience. The only person who got a hand from the audience was Mary Pickford. Douglas Fairbanks was with her. The place was packed with film celebrities, but I seemed to be reading the programme when most of them arrived and missed them. There was an entertainment, which was supposed (Please turn to page 85) 84 The New Movie Magazine, September, 1932