Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1935)

I was resting comfortably in a first-class hotel; very ritz, if you want to know the truth." I looked at him. Evidently the London tailors had been busy since that yacht went down in the Mediterranean. "I got back to London for rehearsals on 'Theater Royal.' Immediately I developed colitis, and had to stop work every few hours and rest up. It was really a lovely rest cure — completely restful!" That twinkle in his eye again. The play 'Theater Royal' was the London version of the American production, "The Royal Family," which appeared on the screen as "The Royal Family of Broadway." Noel Coward began to chat with me about the theater and plays. He may never produce his war drama, "Post Mortem," because he thinks the time has passed for it to be a success. He is producing his own plays today, and he admits that he is glad to be doing it. With John C. Wilson as his business manager, and Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the American stage stars, as acting partners, he is running his own show, writing, producing, directing and acting. He is reticent about his private life. It will all come out, he says, in his autobiography. He started work on that some time ago, and is still putting a few words to it whenever he gets the chance. Characteristically he said: "It's quite a job. I mean, when you write a play you know what the ending will be. But you can't know the end to an autobiography, can you?" Noel Coward is an amazing personality. He is the most versatile man in the theater, and his energy is little less than astounding. In his "thirties" he has already a long list of successes ^behind him — some of them loved and some of them hated, but nearly all of them admittedly brilliant. Today he will finish off a play which, like or not, will be a hit in New York and London. Tomorrow he will sit down and write one or two songs, both words and music. They may go into a musical show he has in mind, or they may not. But in a short time the public will hear him sing them on gramophone records. He has made broadcasts from London stations. He produces his own productions and directs them, and nine times out of ten he will play a part in them. He is a capable actor, a composer of better-than-average tunes, finished showman and a brilliant dramatist. Noel Coward will never be "typed" in his plays. He can be the last word in modernism, as he was writing " Private Lives", and " Design for Living." He can switch back and write a lovely musical romance like "Bitter Sweet." He can handle drama like he did in "Th Vortex" and be passionately sincere as he wa in "Post Mortem," and he can turn around am write a spectacle that had England and th world drying tear-filled eyes, like his never-to be-forgotten "Cavalcade." He has stated that he had no time for patri otic fervor when he wrote that drama c England and her people. Yet looking at him as I did there in the lounge of the Empress c Britain, one has the feeling that Noel Coward for all his modernism and sharp wit, wa moved by something very deep when he wrot "Cavalcade," and that, probably, there wa something there of the spirit, although in different vein, that prompted him to write th unproduced, "Post Mortem." "I'm going off somewhere after the openim of my new play," he told me. " I think it wil be probably China, or Java. I may come bad with something new. I don't know." We had talked a long time; longer than I ha< realized. The ship was nosing up to the docl at Quebec before we knew it. He reached out gave me a hearty handshake, said, "Cheerio!1 and was off to see his valet about his luggage He moves quickly and decisively. He talk that way, too. Very modern, very English am very Noel Cowardish. He wouldn't disappoin you. Hollywood, My Hollywood CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27 THE MAIN STEM The world is here. Parading along this busydizzy alley of wonders in mid-afternoon you'll find a main stem as full of freaks as any circus Barnum ever owned. Visiting firemen gape in astonishment. Dames young and old prowling around in bathing suits and beach pajamas, and the nearest beach is eleven miles away. Two mugs on the corner opening an argument, and six more mugs on a truck moving in with twelve "arcs" to advertise the opening. Maybe the dignified guy in the hi-silk topper, the cutaway and the gold-headed cane is not the banker Maybe he is a five-buck extra gent on his way to the Colossal studio. Maybe if he is on his way to Colossal he is not a fivebuck extra gent. And finally, maybe he is not even working. Blondes of the weirdest flavors. Platinum, lemon, cocoanut, ash, strawberry, pistaschio, mixed, minced and rinsed. That ol' covered wagon with the sixteen Borax burros is not toting Death Valley Scotty in from the desert mines. It's advertising the opening of a new movie palace, a drive-in food market, a political rally, a night club, or, maybe Aimee Semple McPherson's Temple. Here comes a bare-footed old dude with a white beard and mane. This stand-in for Kris Kringle is Peter the Hermit. He's a pretty wise old guy at that. He lives in the hills and he is smart enough to pick for his neighbors the birds and the bees, the bugs and the trees. Peter is sartorially perfect. He carries a eucalyptus staff. (Maybe it's hickory or oak. but somehow it seems like it ought to be eucalyptus.) He wears white duck slacks a bit soiled, and an open-neck shirt a bit more soiled, a garb which has been carefully copied by hundreds of Hollywood's best undressed Autograph-seekers, mostly professionals, swarming around movie stars as they duck in and out of such favorite eat-and-be-seen-eries as the Brown Derby. Sardi's or Al Levy's Tavern. Suspicious mugs like Jack Oakie peeking into the books to make sure they aren't signing phony checks or what have you? Most of the autograph hounds don't know, nor care, who the movie star is, and most of them can't read anyway. It's Dollar Day. You see people on the boulevard whom you haven't seen since last Dollar Day. They swarm in from the hills and dales clutching their dollars in trembling fists. They buy articles that go back to the regular price of six-bits the next morning. But, they're satisfied. So are we. We love suckers. Curfew doesn't ring at nine o'clock any more. Too many, one, two, three, four and five o'clock chumps and cuties call Hollywood home now. At night, the main stem is a dazzling riot of colored Neon lights, loud noises and louder merry-makers clad in anything from sweat shirts to tuxedos, pajamas to evening gowns. What a main stem! FRIDAY'S FIGHTS Every fight fan in the country has heard of the Hollywood American Legion stadium where the picture stars go every Friday night. The galleries are packed to the rafters with gore-loving Mexicans, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Chinese and Japanese. The reserved seats are jammed to the ringside with gore-loving movie actors and actresses, producers, directors, writers, cameramen, agents and occasionally a legalized voter. Lupe Velez and Johnny Weissmuller lead one cheering section and Mae West another. On a bum night, Lupe and Johnny can stage a better scrap than the pork-and-beaners. The joint has a swell matchmaker, om Charlie McDonald, but the boxing commissioi successfully gums up the night's fun by ap pointing mind-readers and soothsayers a:, referees. Invariably these "wizards" forget t< bring their crystals. The only way they cat make a decision is to think of a numbc between "3" and raise the loser's hand. T»ht assemblage in the melting pot roar like hell and then fill it up again the following Frida) night. But, the night of nights was a recent affair when 01' Doc Kearns, assisted by none othei than Dick Barthelmess (we still don't know why), led the Italian Adonis, Enzo Fiermonte to an unexpected slaughter. The day of the "fight of the century" al the barbers and manicurists on the boulevan were laying eight and ten to one that Errz' would stop his opponent, an old shock-absorbed named Les Kennedy. It appears that thu smart-alecks thought the old "fix" was oi and that the wop warrior was a sure thing d knock your old Les bow-legged. Unfortunate ly, someone forgot to take Les into thei:, confidence He rapped Mrs. Astor's pel Adonis right on the button and took all the "fear" out of Fiermonte. The Hollywood boys and girls are stil trying to comb this one out of their wigs. THE BOWL To go from the ridiculous to the sublime, ait were, Hollywood offers one of the sever . wonders of the world in the Bowl. If 01 Dame Nature had her way, Hollywood wouk still be the same beautiful little model 01, simplicity it was twenty years ago when w< first watched it emerging from its cocoon oi orange groves. Here and there quaint little rlatroofed, om and two story frame and stucco building 100