Photoplay (May 1921)

22 Photoplay Magazine A t)it of real interior atmospKere graph, the Chinese house coat, colony extra girls . the rough toard walls, the phonoare absolutely typical of the mountain How d you like to live here? the Latin Qiiartier and Greenwich Village, it is the most pi'i fect type of Bohemia I have ever encountered. The "extra girl" type is one impossible to ignore. You see her everywhere in Hollywood — possibly the most noticeable and effecti\ e of the new classes. Strange, attractive, bizarre creatures, as distinctive as her sister in Greenwich Village. Generally they are pretty — in unusual photographic ways. They all wear their hair bobbed and curled, and e\ en in the rain they are usually bare-headed. They smoke incessantly, on the street, in automobiles, in cafes. Half the time they are wearing motion picture make-uji, and when not ready for the camera, they w'ear "street makeup." The only difference is the substitution in the latter case of rouge for grease paint. They are a bit "fresh" and imbued with the con^^iction that Hollywood Boulevard is the equator and C. B. deMille ini'mitely greater than the Prime Minister of England or the president. One of the oddest features is how they all become ' exactly alike. No matter what they are to begin with, they gradually are chemicalized into a similarity unbelie\'able but real. — Mostly they live alone, I think — where liieir ? families are or where they come from, I don't _ ^ know. In Laurel Canyon, through the heart of which runs the most beautiful road in Hollywood — a long, slender, wocxled valley that runs into the \ ery heart of the hills liack of the studios, many of them have bought, or built or rented little cabins '" or shacks against the hill / sides. It has become a regular settlement. And these houses are fascinating within — lull of color, cxijressing a raw indi\iduality. The girls all have plionograi)hs, most of them guitars, an occasional [)iano. They can usually cook well, sew a bit, paint some — and they are excellent "home brewers." Their homes are always "open house" to their friends. They are odd, frank, sex-ful creatures. .Worldly wise, cynical, well able to look after themselves, but su])rcme good fellows. They have no i)articular philosophy of life except to succeed in the mo\ ies at any ])rice — and have a good lime. They li\e a sort of hand-tomouth existence — employed by the \arious studios when there is need, as models are employed by a group of artists. Their li\es are more or less lawless, unpremeditated. If >ou look up Hollywood Boule\ard any afternoon you will see one — or fifty of them — sauntering along, exceedingly unconcerned, corsetless, sandaled, smoking carelessly. At John's — the famous all night restaurant where at any hour of any night you can find a gang of mo\ ies making night sec|uences — you will see them any. time, with the rest of the mo\ ies. Then there is a masculine type, which while it in no way corresponds to the extra girl, is a bit of local color that would cause a riot on Michigan a\enue. I have never been able to decide just why all the men who work in motion pictures wear golf or riding breeches and puttees, riding boots or leggings. But they do. On the Boulevard it is safe to bet that every third man you pass will be thus attired and ]:)robably bare headed. Inside the studios, the percent is about ninety. It is, of course, a matter of comfort and convenience. But it has set a universal style that has revolutionized men's method of dressing in Hollywood. The bungalow court is another innovation, both picturesque and local, that is directly traceable to the pictures. Picture people do not like apartments. This has undoubtedly changed the architecture of Hollywood. There are surprisingly few^ apartment houses. They have gi\en way to the bufigalow courts which have sprung up like mushrooms all over the place — consisting of eight or ten houses on one lot, facing each other with a sort of court in the center. Different courts ha\e different customs and atmosphere and you can get almost anything you want. So much has been written about i)icture-taking in the street of Hollywood that it is no longer a novelty even to read about it. It is a commonjilace. But so, of course, is bomb throwing in Russia. Nevertheless it adds a touch of local color, doesn't it? On sunny days the streets of Hollywood — such pretty, orderly, well-cared-for streets WMth their rows of trees along each side — are filled with a motley throng, like New Orleans during the Mardi Gras. Of course you know that array of knights in armour filing past on motorcycles are only working in a picture drama — that the gent with a gun {Continued Ofi page 112) The Hollow . . . with its quaint, varicolored adobe houses tippmgdown into brooks. Only a part of the Hollywood that is a city in Bohemia, featuring real movie thrills, morals and manners. !