Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1930)

44 I Knew Them When Hollywood's most famous unorganized club meets to pan the stars By THE "I Knew Them When" Club holds regular meetings every day, rain or shine, at the corners of Vine and Hollywood Boulevard, Cahuenga and Hollywood Boulevard, Highland and Hollywood Boulevard, and every other available corner. Mass meetings are conducted in the lobbies of the less expensive hotels. Drives for new members are made at the railway stations. Secret and sinister meetings take place behind locked doors in small one-room, bath and kitchenette apartments. You are eligible for membership if you have a ready tongue, a good imagination, a knowledge of the star's nicknames and a grievance. In order to hold office in the organisation, you must have been snubbed by at least ten stars that you, personally, pushed up the ladder to fame. The chief high potentate has been passed up by every really famous player in the business. Every man, woman and child in Hollywood has known at least one star when. And every man, woman and child has been instrumental in getting that star where he is, only to have a cold, disdainful shoulder turned upon him. For a long time now I've been bored by these stories. I've had to listen to them over and over again and murmur a sympathetic "tcht, tcht, now isn't that just too terrible!" I'm tired of tcht-tchting. I never was very good at it, anyhow. "Why, I remember Alice White when she didn't have a change of underwear. And what did I do? Well, I loaned her fifty cents to eat on. And what thanks do 1 get now? She doesn't even remember me." "When Jack Gilbert first came out here, he thought I was a swell person because I could get him into a studio and introduce him to my pal, Maurice Tourneur. Why, I started him on his road to success. Does he give me a tumble now? No, sir, he doesn't even speak." " O URE, I knew Clara Bow. She was just an extra then. And Oa good kid. I got her many a job for which she was thankful. But now — well. I'm just the dust under her feet." It's the hue and cry of Hollywood. Set to a dull chant, it becomes the theme song of half the gatemen, assistant directors, publicity men, newspaper reporters, prop boys and magazine writers. "I helped her. I helped him. But I don't get any thanks for it." All together now for the big chorus! The other evening at a party a young man drew me aside and began confidentially, "You know Dick Arlen, don't you? Si Katherine Albert Well, don't ever do anything for him if you expect to get thanks for it. When he was just a crazy kid out here on his own and wasn't getting but a couple of days extra work a week, I used to stake him to meals and introduce him to my big director friends. The other day I saw him over on the Paramount lot. He passed me up cold. Didn't even speak." I mumbled something to the effect that it was just too bad and a couple of days later I said to Dick, "I met a friend of yours the other night. Bov named so and so." "Who?" asked Dick. I repeated the name. Dick knit his brows. "Oh, yes," he said at last. "I do seem to remember that name. Didn't he work extra when I did? But to save your life I coaldn't tell you what he looks like." "He used to stake you to meals," I persisted. "Don't be silly," said Dick. "How could he? I never spoke more than a dozen words to him on the sets." IT'S the old Hollywood racket. A year or so ago, a big sob story about Fay Wray's entry into pictures broke all over the country. It was a great story. The only flaw in it was that it wasn't true. A certain local photographer had been, according to the yarn, passing through Salt Lake City when he caught a glimpse of a beautiful young girl riding on a hay wagon. Her dress was torn, her face drawn and pinched by poverty, her little hands calloused by hard work. But the photographer saw beauty even in this forlorn setting and he begged her to come to Hollywood. After she arrived he photographed her and used his influence until he landed her a job in pictures. Fay's mother was furious — so furious, in fact, that she sent to Salt Lake City to have a picture taken of their ten-room home, and demanded a statement from the president of their bank to the effect that no less than several hundreds of dollars had been deposited every month. Certainly the family was not wealthy, but they had never lived in poverty as the photographer implied. And Fay had come to California with her brother and had attended Hollywood High School. Her mother, knowing that Fay was the beauty of the family, had hoped for a picture career for her, but it was not even contemplated until she was thr.iugh school. Anotherphotographer claims the [ please turn to page 133 ]