Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1951)

that’s HOLLYWOOD BY SIDNEY SKOLSKY Sidney Skolskv I’m told that men don’t whistle as much as they used to and, because Marie Wilson told me, I am inclined to believe it . . . Dietrich did for Grandmas what Pinza did for Grandpas ... You can enroll me as a member of the Ann Blyth fan club. There’s no heroine around who sings a song as sweetly and as unaffectedly as Ann does . . . Although I know that Jane Powell is a married woman, when I see her in a aovie, I think she’s playing “grown-up” . . . Keenan Wynn is funny off the screen Dietrich as wen as on when he effected a reconciliation with wife Betty, he did it by singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” . . . Ocean Park, where the movie stars go for fun, is the poor man’s Coney Island . . . The majority in movietown didn't feel sorry about the spanking Ofivia de Havilland and her Juliet took from the drama critics. It’s unfair, though, when Hollywood takes the rap if a screen star returns to Broadway and flops. Hollywood is never given credit when a movie star comes back to make a hit on the stage, as witness Gloria Swanson, Claude Rains and Barbara Bel Geddes. Patricia Neal is the tallest heroine in pictures. I’d rather have her on my side than the hero . . . I’d like to see an actor in a movie light his cigarette with a match instead of a lighter . . . Betty Grable posed with a book for a magazine layout but not without protest. “A book!” Betty shouted when the photographer suggested a pose. “That’s for Jennifer Jones. I’m Betty Grable. Remember?” . . . Alfred Hitchcock says that Walt Disney has the right kind of actors. Disney draws them and if he doesn't like them, he tears them up. '“e’est0 Holm has more bounce to the ounce than any soft drink ... I can remember when Rita Hayworth was painfully shy. At a party she wouldn’t even ask for a cigarette, but would lean far across the table to get it herself . . . George Sanders should sing in a picture. I insist! . . . Don’t know whether you know it or not, but Cecil B. De Mille is the landlord of the Brown Derby on Vine Street. Yet in all the years I have been going there, I have only seen C. B. in the place once ... Shelley Winters remains my favorite character. When told that a certain news story had been suppressed, Shelley shouted, “I thought we had a free press. At least the press is always free enough with me!” . . . Whenever I see George Montgomery, I think of Dinah Shore singing “It's So Nice to Have a Man Around the House” . . . Hot dogs taste better at a ball game and Paul Douglas and Jan Sterling agree with me . . . I’m faithful. I don’t like the changes they made in “Show Boat,” despite the fact that it is a tremendous hit. I still prefer the Ziegfeld version. Jerry Lewis is supposed to have written a letter which started, “I know you can’t read fast, so I wrote this letter slowly” . . . Audrey Totter was asked by an old friend if she ever felt conceited because she had become a movie star. “Not at all,” answered pretty Audrey. “I just remember that among the great stars there’s one named Lassie” ... I have yet to see Stewart Granger and Farley Granger together. Ginger Rogers looks as good dancing at Mocambo as she did dancing in films with Astaire . . . There’s no actress working so hard at her career as Gloria De Haven . . . Greg Peck doesn’t act like an actor on a set . . . I can recall Ava Gardner telling me that she believed M-G-M signed her only because she was Mrs. Mickey Rooney and would never give her a chance to make good . . . Actors in pictures don’t wear vests like they used to . . .His intimate friends call Robert Newton “The Fig.” There’s been no male singer in pictures to crowd Bing Crosby . . . Mike Curtiz, during a discussion with Jack Warner, commented, “That’s the most unheard of thing I ever heard of!” . . . Barbara Bates is an actress who not only doesn’t have to wear “falsies,” but actually, for a scene in a picture, had to wear a “chest depressor.” Barbara looked overdeveloped for the youngster she was to portray . . . Faith Domergue is apt to surprise you and prove to be an actress ... I find that the trouble with most whodunits is that after I find out, I don’t care ... A local movie theater, to lure customers, gives away television sets. Therefore a movie patron who hasn’t a TV set can win one and then not go to the movies. That’s Ilollvwood for you! 14 Montgomery INSIDE role in “The Blue Veil” . . . When Mitzi Gaynor broke her little toe during a dance routine, Lana Turner, who broke her toe when she slipped on the Topping boat, sent a wire saying, “Greetings from one peg leg to another.” Cheerio and Pip-Pip: Word drifts back from London (where she’s making “Another Man’s Poison”) that Bette Davis is annoyed (and who can blame her) at reporters who referred to Gary Merrill as “the fourth Mr. Davis” . . . June Haver, who was over there last year, sent her little black address book to Ann Blyth, who is making “The House on the Square” with Tyrone Power . . . Speaking of Ty (who was away from London on a vacation), even Scotland Yard’s news of their jewel robbery couldn’t dim the Powers’ happiness over the expected arrival of the stork this fall. Censor Stuff: If only Cal could tell you this story without censoring it! It seems that Lucille Ball, who is expecting her baby in July, was strictly instructed by her obstetrician: “Regardless of the hour, be sure and call me if anything unusual happens.” Well, due to her delicate condition, something unusual did happen and Lucy called at once. The doctor was out on an emergency case. Two hours later the maid announced to the now frantic Lucille that the doctor was on the phone. Lucille rushed over, picked up the instrument and poured out (and how!) all the intimate details of her problem. Following a dead silence, the voice on the other end quietly said: “That’s a very interesting story, Mrs. Arnaz, but this isn’t your baby doctor. This is the vet calling to see how your dog is!” Happy Talk: In case they aren’t aware of it, Cal can tell Warners that Ruth Roman may not be “available” in the near future. “I love children,” she confided across the luncheon table at Scandia. “The house we bought is rented. As soon as the lease is up and we can move in, Morty and I want a family. We’d like to have two boys and two girls.” Tanned to a turn, Ruth, who had Cramped quarters: Ricardo Montalban tries tub for size for “bathtub” scene in his next, “Mark of the Renegade”