Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1931)

Photoplay Magazine for November nobody cared much for picture 1 W 1 II7 But then people. The younger crowd came to those dances and it was at one of them that a good looking boy first saw a tall, disjointed girl with slim dangling hands — and loved her. A few months later Tom Gallery and ZaSu Pitts were married. One evening my mother and I went to the Hollywood Community Theater to see a pantomime in which a friend of mine, Starke Patteson, was playing. It was called "The Spanish Fandango." The theater, a sweet little vine-covered building on Ivor Street (on the site of which one of the swankiest and ritziest of Hollywood apartments now stands) seemed expectant that night. Only a scant hundred people could be seated there, but that night something was in the atmosphere. The curtain rose. The leading man, dressed in a gay Spanish costume, appeared. The small audience gasped. He was, without doubt, the most beautiful male thing we had any of us ever seen. He had grace, charm, beauty, talent and — you could rather feel it from over those improvised footlights — courage. The curtain went down upon a hushed group. I've never seen anything as lovely as his performance. MY mother and I hurried out onto the little porch to find Starke Patteson and to say, "Who is that beautiful boy?" We were not the only ones who had asked the question. Directly behind us a young man was saying, "Who is that boy?" And he was answered, "He's made one picture for Ferdinand Pinney Earle, 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.' And he's teaching music now." "I want to see him," said the young man. It was, of course, Rex Ingram who had asked, and the beautiful princeling of "The Spanish Fandango" was Ramon Novarro. Although Rex Ingram re-discovered him, it was Ferdinand Pinney Earle (you know him as "Affinity Earle" through the front pages of the newspapers and, incidentally, he is as mild a man as you'd meet anywhere and not at all the gay Don Juan he's been pictured) who first brought Ramon to the screen. The film was released five years after it was made as "The Lover's Oath." Beautiful Kathleen Key, in those days cleareyed and Madonna-like, who was recently embroiled in an ugly scandal with Buster Keaton, played the lead. It was one of the most idyllic films ever made. Too lovely for the box-office, at least in those days. After that night at the theater Ramon worked for Rex Ingram. I remember that the Community Theater wanted to repeat "The Spanish Fandango," but Ramon couldn't because he had grown a Van Dyke beard for his role of Rupert of Hcnlzaic in "The Prisoner of Zenda." I COULD weep for the old Hollywood. We loved each other more in those days, we were better friends. There was so little politics and throat-cutting. There was no bustle, no hubbub. Each person did his job and that was that. It was all lazy and, somehow, very sweet. Don't think me as sentimental as I really am. Oh, I'm thrilled by the mad parade that is Hollywood today and I realize that its crass exhibitionism and bold ballyhoo is an interesting American cacophony, but I cannot help but feel sad when I think of the passing of that old and very lovely town. Next month I'll take you with me into the strange underworld of Hollywood and show you some of the pitfalls ready for a girl trying to break into pictures in those days. I'm approached by a blackmailer and find out about the fly-by-night quickie companies. I decide to give up acting permanently and begin my socalled literary career which gives me contact with more and more stars. 20th Prize WHY®CHANGED-TO-MARLBORO CONTEST Hazel M. 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