The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

February , 192 1 Peggy Rompers Writes 47 Hollywood, California. DEAR MA: If they don't quit casting me in pictures with some of those handsome leading men, your little girl's heart will be as full of scars and dents as your little girl's pincushion. This time it's Bill Russell. I have just a teeny, weeny bit with him and Mary Thurman in a few scenes of "Brute McGuire." Mary has cropped her hair, too, but it is sort of boxed a la Egypt rather than bobbed. There's a little romance going on right around me now. Not exactly in the picture, but the leading man is in it so there's not much difference. Mr. Russell is going to marry Helen Ferguson, the little dark haired girl you like so much with Mitchell Lewis in "Burning Daylight." I understand the date has been set for about the first of the year. There's a new baby born here every month, Ma. I guess there's a lot more, too, but what I meant was one star baby. This time, it's Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Nagel. Two weeks ago today I got a job with Mack Sennett. No, I wasn't a bathing girl, though I bet I could be, if I thought you'd let me. I played in a few of the big scenes of "A Small Town Idol." Ben Turpin, Marie Prevost and Phyllis Haver had the best parts. After we finished for the day, they took me down with them to see the rushes. That's what they call the film that is run daily for the director. In the projection room I saw Louise Fazenda, Mai St. Clair, one of the Sennett directors and an attractive chap, tall and slender, whom I didn't know. I soon learned, however, that he was John Harron, a younger brother of poor, dear Bobbie. Mai St. Clair had made a test of him, and it was included in the rushes I saw. The resemblance he bears to his talented brother is truly remarkable, and he has the same little whimsical way that so endeared his brother to everyone. In fact he is just Bobbie returned. He should be a big star in pictures some day. And the reason is a secret, Ma. Just before he left home for his test, Mrs. Harron, who has just returned from New York, slipped into his hand a few coins that had been taken from Bobbie's clothes after the terrible accident that cost him his life. "Keep them always, John," she told him. "They were Bobbie's, and will bring you good luck." I think I started to tell you about Louise Fazenda. I met her some time ago at Emma-Lindsay Squier's studio party. Emma-Lindsay is not an actress — she earns the honey for her bread and butter by interviewing stars and starlets for the various fan magazines. It was some party ! All the parties out here are really great stuff. Inez Wagner, a much heralded medium from Los Angeles, was there, and a trumpet seance resulted. Inez introduced our bunch to her spirit Wanda Haivley and Peggy Look for this in Buster Keaton's next comedy control, a genial soul, with a voice that could be heard somewhere between three and eighteen blocks away. Louise Fazenda wasn't the only one I met there, Ma. Carmel Meyers, Ted Dickson and Roy Brooks, the fat boy in Harold Lloyd pictures, are a few of the others. I know almost everybody out here now, and I've met most of them around at parties. Los Angeles and Hollywood — they're really a part of each other — is just crowded with parties, and sometimes, like next Thursday, I don't know which of two to go to. After I finished with Mack Sennett's picture, I went over to Realart for a few days. I worked there in "In the Bishop's Carriage" with Bebe Daniels. They pronounce it "Babe" out here. And she's some babe, I'll say. They probably won't release the picture under that name because Mary Pickford played in it some time ago. Bebe took me to lunch one day while I was with her at the studio in her little bungalowdressing-room . . . just behind Wanda Hawley's. Hattie, Bebe's maid, who is also an excellent cook, prepared our luncheon for us — Bebe, Emory Johnson, our leading man, a dandy boy and a peach of an actor, and me. We played the victrola and danced between installments of the latest and spiciest Hollywood gossip. Mr. Johnson, you know, is Ella Hall's husband and the father of two of the cutest little boys on the coast. Ella Hall isn't playing now, but she was a big favorite when she and Bob Leonard played together for Universal. Francis MacDonald is another of the handsome leading men I've played with recently. He played in "The Confession," a peach of a story by Wally Reid's dad. Now he's with Metro, where I met him, playing opposite Viola Dana, who is even sweeter off the screen than she is on . . . and that's saying something. Everybody who works in Hollywood goes to Frank's Cafe for lunch, and I'm no exception. It's the best French pastry shop in the whole world, though Eddie Southerland and Walter Hiers do reduce the stock considerably at times. Every noon the place is more than filled — if that is possible — with stars, near (Continued on page 50)