Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1930)

The Girl on the Cover EVERY lime Joan Crawford steps into a grocery store to buy a dozen eggs, or into a department store to haggle over the high cost of gingham, or to the studio to earn her nickels and dimes, somebody says to her, as if it were a big piece of news: "You're a lucky girl to be married to a boy as fine as Doug Fairbanks." Only once, to our knowledge, has Joan rebelled. She was feeling in a pensive mood and, with chin cupped in hand, she murmured, "'I wish just once somebody would say that Doug is a lucky boy to be married to a girl like me." It has always been our aim to please, particularly to please delightful young ladies. Therefore, we'll say it, right out in print. Doug is the luckiest boy in Hollywood to be married to a girl like Joan. The development of Joan Crawford's character is an even greater gesture than the development of her career. Nobody has fought more gallantly than the turbulent, talented Joan. She had the makings, even in those early days. She was troubled with a vague, intangible unrest which set her to writing poetry. It's the panacea of all youthful melancholia. This was harmless enough, but it was not the only one of her adolescent crimes. She insisted upon winning dancing cups, for which nobody could quite forgive her and, what is more, she believed that she was madly in love every time a flashingeyed youngster told her she was the Only Girl in the World for him. What with collecting cups and young men and penning sonnets, Joan was a pretty impossible person. OH, you liked her and you found her amusing enough, but after two hours of it you had to do something sturdy and sensible. She was all emotion, all froth, all unformed youthful idealism. She didn't know what she wanted, nor where to find it. And then, suddenly, she met Doug Fairbanks. The boulevardiers pulled at their long white beards and bet that it wouldn't last a month; that Joan was intrigued only by the ancestral name and a new romance. Well, Joan has fooled them and, what is more, has turned out to be one of the most attractive and sensible girls in town. And it hasn't been all Doug's doings. Joan had to have the stuff or she wouldn't have become the girl she is. They were terribly silly at first — Joan and her Dodo. They shut themselves off completely from the rest of the world and talked in an unintelligible language all their own. 10 JOAN CRAWFORD Last Minute News and Reviews That nasty old dame rumor is gossiping about a split between Colleen Moore and John McCormick. Well we'd hate to see it, that's all. Corinne Griffith and First National have failed to get together for a renewal of her contract. Alma Rubens, restored to health and lovelier than ever, has signed a contract to appear in vaudeville. "A Ship from Shanghai"— M-GM. — Sacred and profane love on a derelict yacht adrift near the Equator. Dramatic, hut revolting at times. Kay Johnson, Louis Wolheim and Conrad Nagel are featured. Chaplin will spend the summer in Europe after finishing "City Lights" in May. No voice in the picture, but synchronized music and sound. Chaplin has written three musical numbers for it, including the theme, "Those Wonderful, Beautiful Eyes." Harrison Ford returns! He will play in "I Love You," Radio Picture starring Richard Dix. Paramount will make a talkie of "The Spoilers," with George Bancroft in the he-man part made silent by William Farnum and Milton Sills. Raoul Walsh, director of "The Cock Eyed World," will be made general manager of production at Fox. You can't blame people for thinking it wouldn't last. And when they married, everybody shook their heads. But it's lasted, and for a very good reason. Joan and Doug are in love. The silliness has worn off and in its place is a grand understanding and companionship. The_: like to do and talk about the same things, and most vital of all they know how to laugh together. This domesticity of Joan's is not just the pendulum swinging high, wide and handsome in the opposite direction; it is a complete change in her life. Each day that she is married to Doug they find that they like each other better and that there are more dashing and intriguing things to do — exciting things like buying new drapes for the house, and discovering the most divine new sauce to be put over a. filet mignon, and reading new books together. FOR Joan has been hungry for life. Hungry for all the things that her marriage has brought her. Hungry for a home (she never had a real one before), and love (what did her sleek-haired playboys know of love?), and companionship. Doug has brought her the good things of life. But Joan has been able to appreciate them. And that makes Doug just as lucky as she is. She's taken hard knocks. She's been broke and miserable, as many worthwhile people have been, but she's had a more bitter battle than that to fight. The most discouraging sort of gossip has sounded in her ears ever since she came to Hollywood. And it doesn't let up. "Just because Joan has married a Fairbanks, she thinks she is somebody," they've said. Well, Joan is somebody. And if she prefers a well-appointed table with snowy linen and slim, silver candlesticks to the counter of a cheap, quick-lunch stand, we say more power to her. And if she prefers making a real home for Doug instead of dancing whatever is the new form of the Charleston in stuffy night clubs — well, then, three rousing cheers for her. She's been pretty much misunderstood, and the primary difference between that bewildered little girl who first came to Hollywood and the poised mistress of "El Jodo" is that she used to tell you she was misunderstood, and now she doesn't. Yes, Joan is a lucky girl. But Doug's the luckiest young husband in Hollywood, because he has so steadfast and delightful a wife.