The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

Hollywood's Best Gir (Continued from page 101 ) The music would find its way across the street and I would cry — cry because I was so lonesome and didn't know anybody. One night I saw Bert Lytell get out of his car. If I could only know one person like that well enough so he would say 'hello' to me! "We walked from one studio to another. Down to Fox, back to the United Artists — where Lasky's is now — back to the old Lasky's studio on Vine street and then over to Charlie Chaplin's on La Brea. Every day. Each day like the other. "Mother used to say, 'Never mind, dear, this is one way of seeing Hollywood. It is lovely, Mary, lovely.' "And it was lovely compared to the sands of Texas. The big trees — there were more then — the sunshine. The famous people. But I'd answer, 'What's the use of it's being so lovely when we haven't anyone to enjoy it with!' "I don't know "what would have happened if 'Peter Pan' hadn't come just when it did ! We were almost to that last proverbial penny and I don't believe I could have stood the loneliness much longer. "I thought when I was finally chosen (I won't repeat that story; it has been written so often) that the loneliness would be over. I felt there would be a difference when you went from outside the gate to inside it. But there wasn't much in the beginning. Except I had work. And work is always a help in forgetting that you don't know anybody. "Naturally, I met people on the picture. Betty Bronson and Ernest Torrence. But they were busy, too. They had their own friends. Oh, I did meet Esther Ralston. She became my best friend. If I met any boys, I don't remember. They didn't do anything ab. it it. "They sent me to New York right after that picture. Perhaps, if I had stayed here my acquaintanceship would have widened sooner. "Betty Bronson went to New York first. She made some personal appearances. Naturally, they couldn't push two of us from one picture. I didn't know anyone in New York anymore than I did in Hollywood. "It was my first visit. I worked in a new picture. It was 'The Little French Girl' with Esther Ralston starred and Herbert Brenon directing. He had directed 'Peter Pan.' So I wasn't professionally lonesome. But I guess the men thought I was too young to take to night clubs or theatres. Our room in the hotel might as well have been the one across from the Athletic Club in Hollywood. This time I would look out at the big signs and wonder and wonder if I would ever have anyone who would take me to see the things they were advertising. "My mother never had objected to my going out. She would have been glad to have me see places. But there just wasn't anyone to see them with. I used to think of all the other girls who were so popular and wonder if I would ever be one of them — one whom the men liked to take places. "When we came back to Hollywood, it was better. Betty Bronson, Lois Moran and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., a few others and myself fell into the 110 habit of going places together. We didn't have any set beaus or anything like that. We weren't invited to the big Hollywood parties. Somebody would just send a car and pick up one after the other and we'd all go up to Doug Jr.'s house or to a motion picture theatre. We weren't taken seriously by anybody. We were just the kids of the movies. It was wonderful for me. For the first time I stopped being lonesome. But I was very far from being called popular or having regular dates like the other girls in pictures. "Paramount loaned me to the Fox studio to make a picture with Buddy Rogers. This was before he made 'Wings' or was the least bit famous. He lived with a fraternity brother and we started going around together. We'd have picnics with other fraternity brothers and things like that. That was something different and I met a few young men. But before we could really get acquainted, I was sent back to New York for another picture. Buddy was there, too ! This was still before 'Wings.' "We saw New York together. That is, we saw it from the outside. We didn't go to a night club or anything like that. We would walk up and down the streets, reading the big signs, wondering if our names would ever be twinkling in electric lights. Two kids looking the big town over. "But everywhere Buddy goes, he finds just loads of fraternity brothers. Even now that is true. Then we'd all go out together. One night five of us hired a car and went way to the edge of New York to see the picture Buddy and I had made just before leaving. Buddy was more or less giving me my co-ed training! It was wonderful for me. "I was so thrilled! I'd listen to every word they said and remember what they liked to talk about. And then when I met others I'd talk on the same subjects. I never talked about pictures but about football and proms and dancing. I didn't do this intentionally, exactly. I was something like a sponge. I absorbed everything they said because it was all so new and so different and so terribly interesting. "I started going to all of their dances. I was a college girl without a college background! "Just as I really was getting acquainted with all the New York college boys and having dates right and left, they brought me back to Hollywood. "Somehow, our kid's group had grown up a bit by this time. And I had learned a lot in New York City. We extended our social circle out here. There were Buddy and Dick Alien and Allan Simpson. We began to have parties at the Ambasador instead of just at each other's houses. We wore more grown-up evening gowns and the boys put on Tuxedos. Then they — you know how Hollywood is — they said Buddy and I were engaged. My first rumored engagement! It really did make me feel important! "And again, just as we were swinging along into our own social group and the newspapers were beginning to talk about us, I was sent back to New York. "But this time it was different. The first time I had stayed in my room and peeped wistfully out of my windows. The second time Buddy and I had been wistful together — and then gone collegiate. But this time! Tea dances, {Continued on page 121 ) Reminiscences (Continued from page 80) so. Mr. Smith, who had all the woes of the studio upon his shoulders, snapped, "My dear Miss Love, I think if you will look at your contract you will find that you have no choice — " "I don't care about my contract. I haven't looked at it since I signed it. But I am interested in making you good pictures. If I do not like this man, it is up to me to say so." But I did that too seldom. I felt they knew what they were doing, they were making the productions. Worse Bessie Love pictures. Contrary to the popular conception I have never been really off the screen. I have been, however, in small productions, independents, and free-lancing. T REALIZED that the time for fight1 ing had arrived. We saw the ranch going; we saw the home going. I did not even have a car which I could drive myself. It was a town car and demanded a chauffeur. Never again. My present car — I have only one — can be driven by anybody! We let the house go to save the ranch. We moved into a tiny apart ment. I had never driven a car but twice in my life and then with the chauffeur sitting beside me. I sold the town car, bought a modest one — and got in and drove it. Was I the one who had been indifferent to the movies? Was I the one who had thought they were insignificant in comparison to a completed education? I realized, all of a sudden, that I had been in no position to appreciate them. I had never been away from them. I gritted my teeth and sat down to analyze, to determine just how I could get back to the old position but get back on a firmer foundation. How could I build so I would have real protection? The talkies were just around the corner but Miss Love did not know it. She built for other ends but built hi such a way that she was prepared for whatever might happen. Just how did she do it? She was engaged for two days to one man; secretly engaged to another. Why didn't she marry? She will tell you all this in the last chapter next month.