Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

116 Photoplay Magazine throbbing heart, you will find the camera folk. But though Los Angeles is the Carnival City, within her lies another and truer land of Masque where the pageant people live their two-dimension lives. Its buildings are of canvas and plaster and wood, roofless and without backs. Its rooms want ceilings, and the rented furniture has a strange, unhomelike look. Its citizens rarely go to bed, and then only that they may awaken at once and emote. Their meals, which always seem at the black coffee stage, are dyspeptic flashes, and their favorite tipple appears to be ink. Added to which, they are forever experiencing things at a tremendous rate. Being young or old, as necessity dictates, they have set Time at nought ; they die and are resurrected a dozen times a month contrary to all the laws of Nature, and, if wedding ceremonies be counted, some are outrageously polygamous. The streets of this metropolis are trod by the peoples of all history, yet all speak with one tongue. Its flag is a dollar sign rampant on a field or, and its government is autocratic. The ruler has the title of Director, and his reign must be prosperous or he is overthrown. Dynasties change often and without appeal. Publicity is the Order of Merit in this land, and this honor is bestowed by a functionarv called the Press Agent. Altogether it is a happy land, and when for any cause its motley life spills from its flimsv walls into the great and solid and real city, it enlivens the soberer streets with a fantastic touch that is always welcome. /"\NE afternoon toward the end of May. ^^ the maskers laid aside their masks for charity. In response to a nation-wide appeal they united in a huge lawn fete, to be held on the grounds of a mansion in Hollywood famous as a "location" and owned by one of the wealthy men of the pictures. This villa was situated in the section north and west from Highland Avenue at Hollywood Bbulevard, and crowned an eminence from which its acres flowed down on everv side. The house itself was a broad, three-story structure of saffroncolored brick, which, despite its solidity. had an effect of airiness by reason of the many long French windows on the first floor and the usual screened sleepingporches above. Thirty-five steps which turned in the ascent led from the driveway to the veranda, and were bordered on each side by lavender cascades of low, star-flowered lippia, which in solid stripes marked also the faces of the terraced lawn. Buginvillsea, blooming again after a brief respite during March, showed its hot, grapey purple on porch pergola trellisses, and against the chimneys. And everywhere, in beds, in borders, in entire hedges, were roses — red, and pink, and white — rising to a climax in a great triumphal arch of blush-tinged yellow Cold of Ophirs down the perspective of the garden. A dry stream bed meandered through the grounds which surrounded this chromatic acropolis. It was shaded by tall eucalyptus trees with their hanging tatters of bark, and formed an axis for the scheme of landscape work and also for the bazaar. Byentering one gateway and following the paths, one encountered every booth and presently emerged at the opposite entrance. It was only a little after one o'clock when Marcia Trent disposed herself carefully in her roadster in the drivewav of her bungalow, and, repeating to her maid where to meet her at the bazaar, and what indispensable articles to bring, drove slowly away. Once in Hollywood Boulevard, she took a course west and south to a humbler part of town, where she had promised to pick up Queenie Gilmore, her adorer. Marcia to-day would have contributed a festive note to any occasion. She wore a pale green taffeta dress with pink panniers and a tiny pink jacket, relieved by black velvet bows at the wrists. Her skirt was very short, and revealed white silk stockings terminated by dazzling gold slippers with very high heels. Her bright hair was confined by a dainty poke bonnet with pink roses, which, nevertheless, could not restrain a certain number of disturbing little curls. An emerald pendant dangled at her throat, rings sparkled on her fingers. and she carried a little gold mesh bag. She was a real illumination, like the Tower of Jewels. QUEENIE was waiting for her and advanced down the walk with what was a faint mimic of Marcia's characteristic gait. Her hair was dressed in the style Marcia had made popular, but her simple dark blue dress necessarily stopped short