Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

story. For with her next contract, undisguised by Oriental eyes or a siren's treacherous smile, she began to play such roles as in "Animal Kingdom," in "Love Me Tonight" in "When Ladies Meet." Oddly enough, however, this was not with United Artists and Mr. Hornblow, but back again at M-G-M, the lot where, at fourteen, she had peered curiously through the gates, hoping for glimpses of great personalities; where, at the casting window, she had written, for the first time, the name "Myrna Loy"; where she had earned her first actual pay check as one of those thousand spectators cheering Ben Hur's thundering chariots. And where finally, with "The Great Ziegfeld" and "The Thin Man," she stepped into stardom. I HE last five years have found Myrna Loy a decidedly busy young lady. Although, one day a couple of years ago, she did take time enough away from the studio to elope. In Ensenada, sixty miles from the Mexican border, she and Mr. Arthur Hornblow were married, spent a two-day honeymoon on blue Ensenada Bay, and came back to Hollywood to work, he producing one picture, she starring in another. Within the room, the window curtains are glazed chintz in tones of green and yellow, on the wide window sill a careless lot of small gay china things, a tiny house, a laughing polka-dot pig, a gold-trimmed goat. Against this window sill, the length of the window, is built a davenport of handwoven, creamcolored linen and wool, with matching pillows. And it was here . . . here in this room . . . that Myrna Loy told me the story I have told to you, the day rainy and gray, the fire crackling cozily. She still wears her little girl crop of freckles, reminds you of an impish boy, the dignity, the savoir faire of the lady you see on the screen, confined, it would seem, to the world of the camera. We had been out in the garden. Over sandy red hair brushed straight back from her forehead, she wore a peasant handkerchief, tied under her chin. A cream-colored sweater, specked with tiny embroidered flowers, hung from her shoulders, tied around her neck. She wore no make-up, was lovelier than I had ever seen her, and I could only think it a pity that so young, so completely without artifice, she should be so clever an actress that in roles of fashion and sophistication we suffer a loss of the enchanting Peter Pan Miss Loy actually is. "ALWAYS LEAVE THEM LAUGHING" BY ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS Another heart-warming forbidden great love story of Hollywood. Don't miss it — coming next month in PHOTOPLAY David Williams must be proud of this daughter of his. She has kept faith with him, and how nobly; has made life successful and happy for those he loved and left to her care. Mrs. Williams lives in an attractive home of her own in Beverly Hills, busy and happy with clubs and musical interests. David, gray-eyed and broad-shouldered, is a successful commercial artist, sculptor and architect. Myrna herself, now at the very peak of fame, is a quiet unostentatious person, not greatly interested in clothes, night life or social affairs. Her happiest times are when just she and her husband can be together in the lazy white house which they have recently completed. It is tucked away in "Hidden Valley" in the Santa Monica Mountains, the road by which you reach it climbing the inside curve of a mountain horseshoe, only blue mountain peaks beyond, no note whatever of a propinquent bustling little world, none of that world intruding but the white macadamized road. As we climb, we see below, to the left, on the other side of the horseshoe, the house, nestling in its own green valley, stone fireplace chimneys, brilliant flowers, bright garden furniture, the pool, tennis courts and stables. Pretentious and "glamorous" it would seem, but, once you have crossed the threshold, you find its keynote only a charming simplicity. In the living room the walls are ivory stucco and wormy chestnut beams, the rug an immense oval of extraordinarily pleasant green, a green which seems somehow to be shaded with sunshine. Along one complete side of the room rambles a whitewashed brick fireplace with old-fashioned ivory settles, a bright copper pot and crane. The lazy armchairs facing it are of handwoven material, one in yellow, one in green. A four-foot coffee table is near by. Flowers are everywhere, great bowls of them. Opposite the fireplace is a landscape window framing the flowering terrace and the distant mountain peaks with their changing colors. I asked what day, in these changing years, she recalls as the happiest one. "The day this house was finished," she smiled. "The day we came here to stay. The first twilight when we stood out on the terrace looking at this place we had planned and waited for." "And what do you plan and wait for now?" I wondered. Coming to join us for tea, Mr. Hornblow appeared in the doorway, stood packing down his pipe with an expert thumb. Mrs. Hornblow reached for a case of matches, crossed the room to hold a light against his pipe bowl. "One dream we have," she said, "is to buy the Crow Creek Valley ranch where I was born. Another is to travel a year and more in Europe. We especially want to visit Persia and the East, the old places and things. But we've discovered something better," she smiled, "than to plan and wait for things. We've discovered that the secret of being happy is learning honestly to make the most of every minute just as you have it." * * * And so we had finished the story, the story of the granddaughter of pretty Ann Williams who ploughed Montana's virgin wheat fields, the granddaughter of stolid Johnny Johnson who, in a one-room cabinet shop, supplied, for a brave frontier town, everything from cradles to coffins. We had finished the story of the girl who, in 1937, in the most extensive poll of the kind ever taken in America, was elected the favorite among reigning actresses of the screen. To each of you whose opinion, admiration and affection swelled that vote to twenty million, this, the story of your favorite, is dedicated. But to one gentleman alone, to a gentleman of Forty Second Street, New York City, may we address the closing sentence: Mr. Eddie Stevens, you were right about the little redhead; Broadway was waiting for her. But she gave you one better. 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