Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1938)

C^OSSARD'S 3-way uplift bra, has detachable shoulder straps, which allows it to be worn three ways . . . for three different decollete fashions. Wear one strap, only, as a halter . . . both straps crossed, suspender fashion ... or both straps straight, under your camisole gowns. Model 8040 is of bow-knot rayon satin and lace. Vk GOSSARD Auefl&uft The H. W.GOSSARD CO., Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Toronto. Melbourne, Sydney, Buenos Aites MEET MR. GABLE By BERNARR MACFADDEN WOMEX like Gable— children like Gable — animals like Gable and perhaps most complimentary of all, men like Gable. What is the secret of his charm? Is it his good looks, his keen mind, his quick smile or what? Bernarr Macfadden, founder of Physical Culture and probably one of the best character readers in the world, has long admired Clark Gable but until recently he had had no opportunity to know him intimately. Then, a few weeks ago, while in Hollywood on one of his numerous trips, the great publisher and the great star learned really to know each other. During the course of their visit together they discussed many things. And when the visit was over Mr. Macfadden's liking and admiration for Gable had increased materially — truly a man and a sportsman after his own heart. In Physical Culture for November, Bernarr Macfadden tells you all about his visit with Clark Gable and reveals the true reason for the Gable popularity. His article "Meet Mr. Gable" lives fully up to its title. When you have finished reading it you will feel almost as though you know Gable personally. Not only tremendously interesting but a deep and revealing character study, Bernarr Macfadden's analysis of the world's most popular male star will hold _ your absorbed attention from opening to closing line. ALSO READ American Girls are Different (International Marriage Problems) • Lovely to Look At (Beauty Culture) • It Takes Backbone to be Healthy (Women's Exercises by Helen Macfadden) • Little Old Lady (healthy, active and happy at 107) • Do Reducing Fads Cause Sterility? • 100,000 Pneumonia Victims Every Year • Perfect Teeth for Your Child • Diabetic — or Just Overweight? • I Refused to Go on Relief, and a score of other helpful articles, features, and departments in the November issue of the great personal problem magazine. Get your copy today and each month thereafter. An excellent habit to acquire. PHYSICAL CULTURE Big 40th Anniversary Number though they panned the show. It closed miserably in two and a half months but it left Maggie a new possession: reputation. She swaggered up to Silver Beach for the summer. Hank was there and after the first week of renewed love — after the first seven days of remembering— they drove madly to town and got a marriage license. The next day they quarreled bitterly over a minor matter, fumed at each other for a while, made it up, quarreled again — and thus the summer passed and the days cooled into September of 1931 and, alone as always, the Sullavan again stormed into New York, this time to star in "If Love Were All," which, if possible, was a worse play than any of the others. She was unhappy, not because of the fact that she seemed destined to work in one flop after another — after all, she was a critical standout in each and the money was pouring in — but because of an indefinable sense of loss and loneliness which was centered in the lanky boy she had left at Falmouth. He wrote her, finally, that the group would have its first winter season this year, and the news coincided, as if by direction of the fates, with the final curtain of the tired "If Love Were All." This time Maggie packed for Baltimore with her mind made up. OHE married Hank Fonda, finally, on Christmas day, while snow blew along the streets of Baltimore. She left him, sadly and with the utmost confusion of emotion, less than one year later — after a winter of bi'eathless happiness, alive with color and beauty and laughter; after a summer of separation, while he was in summer stock and she stayed in New York for a number of plays; after a short autumn during which they discovered that the essential differences in temperament that had delayed their marriage so long now made it impossible for them to live together. On that last afternoon she stood, hatted and furred, at the door, looking at him. He sat staring silently at the rug. "Damn it," she said, her voice huskier than usual, "you can't say real things except in banalities. We've got to be friends, darling, like in the song." He looked up at her, and quickly down again. "Always, Peggy." She went out, slamming the door in a kind of impotent rage at events and at herself. New York towered around and above her, suffocating, merciless, brutal. She couldn't think and more than ever before in her life she wanted thought, clear, concise; to adjust in her mind this first colossal failure. There was a little time before her next play and she had plenty of money saved. Through the turmoil of anger and disappointment one persistent idea nagged at her; to go as far away as possible, to escape from the scene of the life she had built — and seen destroyed. It was the one sanity. Obeying it blindly, she bought a ticket for South America and sailed on the first boat. The first night out she escaped from the cabin stuffy with flowers and climbed to the highest point she could find on the forward deck. Before her stretched a rolling endlessness, glittering under the light sky; and the monotony of the seascape left her mind clear for personal consideration. The dim reproachful figures of her conventional Southern ancesters approached and had their say: "What silliness is this? What vulgar modern way to treat your sacred marriage vows? Shame! Shame. . . ." Fiercely her own mind made answer. It couldn't work, we'd be miserable— Maybe it was right to stay in Norfolk and roar and scream with boredom, but I wouldn't, and if it was right to stay with Hank and ruin both our lives then I will be wrong and like it. Only it can't be wrong. . . . Night after alternate night — the others she spent dancing furiously for hours with the gay young men she had met aboard — she went to the same place high by the forward giant stack and argued with herself, desperately trying to adjust to her new circumstances, rationalizing the fact that she had let so great a thing as her marriage fall to ruin. Once, long after midnight, a blasting thunderous sound deafened her for a moment and after her heart had stopped bounding about she realized the ship was saluting another liner, passing the other way. She could see its lights and the sleek white outline of the hull across the dark water. For a moment, then, she thought she knew the answer. If she could be like that ship: detached, imperturable, with a destination and a schedule, organized and efficient and — untouchable, she need never feel like this again. Maggie went down to sleep that night with a new quiet in her heart. The long vacation did her good. When she came back to Manhattan at last, to take a role in "Dinner at Eight," Hank and her broken marriage had lost some of their power to hurt her. s HE came into the wings, after the second scene of the last act, still smiling, in character. A little scattering of applause sounded in front, for her exit. The smile became a grin. Her maid beckoned from the dressing-room door. "Telephone," the girl said with her lips. Maggie picked up the receiver with one hand and fumbled with an involved clasp with the other. "Hello," she said. "Los Angeles calling. . . ." "Put 'em on," said Maggie. But it was Hollywood calling. They had a picture called "Only Yesterday." They had seen her work on the stage, had liked her. If she were interested — "No!" she said, tearing at the clasp. The voice was suddenly very brisk. "Twelve hundred and fifty — a week. And a contract. Two pictures a year, New York and the stage in between. Have you thought it over?" Her hand was motionless on the clasp. Her long silence cost Hollywood a little over six dollars. Then she said, "I — couldn't very well refuse that much money, could I?" And it was the spring of 1933, and Hank was gone and love was gone and there was nothing — nothing whatever — to keep Maggie Sullavan in New York. "All right," she said, "I'll come." Hollywood called her "difficult" when she refused to play its game. But this stormy, impetuous daughter of the South is one star it hasn't changed. Concluding— The Story of Margaret Sullavan's Rebellious Life — December Photoplay. * tf should you get December PHOTOPLAY? For one thing — She has * a temper like a buzz saw; he has recreations she can't share, but Frances and Joel McCrea are Hollywood's happiest couple — Why? WHAT MAKES LOVE TICK? by Upton A. Wilkinson 82 PHOTOPLAY