Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1922)

Miss Dumbbell The first of a series of remarkable stories based on real life characters in motion pictures By ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS Author of the prize-winning story— '"Tht Dog in the Manger." THERE is one tearoom in Hollywood, high above the boulevard, where it is always quiet and cool and strangely alien to the gay and glittering atmosphere of the street below. On a spring morning, Hollywood Boulevard possesses the intriguing and unexplainable personality that cities and places sometimes take unto themselves, a thing difficult to define but positive as the charm of a pretty woman. Like Paris, New Orleans, San Francisco, the tiny sister of the Latin Quarter, of Greenwich Village, frolics among her hills like a milkmaid gowned in the rue de la Paix, or a Follies' girl garbed in gingham. There is nothing about the wide paved street, with its rows of beautiful, little one-story shops, to account for it — nothing often in the people who wander up and down. But there it is, and it tingles through your veins like the first sip of an absinthe frappe served in a teacup. But in this tearoom, the sunshine and the rumble of the big red cars and the swift tire-scream and engine-purr of expensive motors are filtered through the apricot silk curtains that veil the long French windows, windows opening on tiny iron balconies in true Spanish style. The wicker tables are very white and clean and be-flowered. The air is peaceful and soothing, almost tender. An oasis. IT is the only place in Hollywood where you can go at noon if you care to talk over your food without being interrupted every moment by the cheers of your friends, or the sight of a new male-and-female combination, or the entrance of a famous personage. Or to discuss anything that you do not care to have published broadcast before you get back to the studio. It lacks, perhaps, that characteristic note of the popular places, but at least the tables are far enough apart so that you can gossip without fear of being sued for slander. It was unusually quiet. In one corner an art director, with a very pretty girl in the makeup of a 16th century seamstress, had forgotten the world and desired only to be by the world forgot. In the other, an harassed press agent endeavored to convince a grinning newspaper man that his beautiful star had actually been lost in the Hollywood mountains for four days and had turned up without a scratch on her riding boots or a sunburn on her delicate nose. It was a yarn that needed liquid refreshment both in the telling and the listening, and the press agent was sore beset. At a table midway between, beside an open window. Candace Carr, nibbling the edge of her orange roll unhappily, turned big, wistful eyes upon the back of the pretty girl's head, although the pretty girl was not nearly so pretty as Candace. "I m not what you think me. Jack. You think I m wonderful and fine. I m not, I m just a dumbbell" The diamond on her finger winked like a tear as she stirred her tea round and round and round. "Why should I go?" she demanded bitterly. "What's the use? It makes me sick. I never have a good time at parties. I never get anything that way. You know perfectly well, Helene, that I'm just a total loss at a party — and most everywhere else, for that matter. / don't know what's the matter with me. Men are all nice to me, but not one of them ever gets crazy about me. Sometimes I think I'd even like to be insulted, just to be sure I wasn't the undertaker's bride. Even the women generally call me Miss Carr." THE girl opposite ran one nervous hand through the mop of short, dark hair, streaked here and there with gray, that stood up in seven different directions from her high forehead. "The trouble with you. Candy," she said, and her voice rushed so breathlessly that the words seemed fairly to trip over each other, "is that you haven't got a line." Candace Carr opened her big blue eyes very wide. "What d you mean, a line?" she asked crossly. "Don't be clever, Helene. I'm too tired." 31