Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

FATH ILLUSTRATED BY GALBR I AM worried. I think my father has an office wife. He has been acting strangely lately. He sits buried behind his paper and I wonder where his thoughts are wandering. He was late for dinner twice last week, saying he had to stay at the office and work. I never met Miss Thayer, his secretary, but I've spoken to her on the phone and she has a Betty Boop voice, so I wouldn't be surprised if she were a bit icky. Of course, a man is putty in the hands of an unscrupulous woman. Yesterday for no reason at all he brought mother a dozen roses. "Ha," sez I to myself, "conscience." I don't know if poor mother suspects anything, but sometimes I detect a far-away look in her eyes. I keep telling her to buy new clothes and to have her hair upswept which takes off at least two years. A woman mustn't neglect her appearance even at thirty-six. Barbara and I have had several conferences. She being girl friend No. 1. I tell her my innermost thoughts and she tells me hers, though she seldom has any. We decided not to tell anybody yet. The first thing to do is to make secret investigations, and the next is to take steps. Edward G. Robinson is in town and while I can't say that I admire his type so that I would want him as a lover, nevertheless a signature is a signature, so Barb and I are going to cut Eng. Hist, tomorrow morning and stalk him. Besides I've been too busy to do my homework and if I'm going to get a zero anyway I might as well get something for it. Yesterday went with Barb to her meeting of the Joan Crawford Club. I go to every meeting but am not an official member because I feel it would be disloyal to Bette. We had a swell time looking over each other's scrapbooks and comparing pictures. We cast "Gone with the Wind." We do every week. Then we had a discussion as to whether Joan is better off with Franchot than she was with Doug. Jr. They made out a list of I.T.R.'s (impossible to reach) and agreed to boycott their pictures. The nerve of stars who think they can get along without fans! Hepburn used to think she was Garbo herself, but now she knows better and we are supporting her. Next meeting they are going to have a debate. Subject: Resolved: That a star's life is his (or her) own business and not his (or her) public's. Barb is taking the negative. I'll have to write it for her. Must take leave of my Muse. Dinner is calling and I'm famished not having had a morsel since four o'clock. UN the stroke of nine this morning Barb and I parked ourselves before the Picardy to wait for E. G. R. Only two other fans were there and they soon gave up. We had provided ourselves with enough chocolate almond bars to sustain life for several hours. About ten-thirty he came out in a light polo coat without a big black cigar and got into a taxi before we could pounce. So we hopped into another and I said to the chauffeur "Follow that yellow cab for all your life is worth" which he did. We kept watching the meter because we had only $1.86 between us. The cab went up to 57th Street, we trailing it, and he got out and of all places, went into an art gallery, we following and thank heaven there was no admission charge. It was very quiet with only a few people tiptoeing around. I didn't want to make him feel more conspicuous, so I whispered to Barb that we should pretend we were looking at the paintings, too, which we did and they were lousy. I couldn't help thinking, here's man who can do anything he wants to; he doesn't have to go to school, he could have breakfast in bed, or could get passes to any show or could drive a highpowered car, and what does he do but come to a place as dead as a morgue and stand gaping for ten minutes at the portrait of an egg. I'm nto exaggerating, it was an egg. There was also one of a lot of junk that should have been thrown out, including an old broken mandolin. Then there was a picture of some rotten vegetables which was called "Nature Morte" and certainly ought to be buried. Eddie seemed to go into raptures over this one and we thought he would never get through looking at it, so we decided that the moment had come. I was to attack the left flank and Barb was to close in the rear. Everything was going alright, when he started backing away from the picture for which I couldn't blame him. He backed right into Barb and stepped on her toe. She wearing toeless shoes it must have hurt. "I'm sorry, did I hurt you?" he said with a voice like his voice on the screen. "Not at all," said she, "it was a pleasure and would you mind signing my autograph album?" He made his gangster face and growled, "My lord, isn't any place sacred from you hounds?" Tears sprang to Barb's eyes only because her toe hurt (the true fan never being daunted by rebuffs), and he felt sorry and signed her book and motioned me to bring mine. "It's a beautiful day," I remarked in order to say something. "Yes," he replied, "and you kids ought to be out in the open air." "We were," I said, "while waiting for you." "Why aren't you at school?" he asked. Barb didn't answer. Whenever we are embarrassed I speak for both of us as I have more poise. "Mr. Robinson," I said in a voice like dialogue, "there are certain things in life that are more important than other things." "Quite true," he said. "Sometimes we are called upon to choose the lesser of two evils. So when we saw in Winchell's column yesterday that you were leaving town, and who knows whether you will ever return alive, we decided that it was more important to contact you than the Wars of the Roses, which will keep." "Don't be so sure," he said. "Nothing keeps. Here you are chasing me while the poor little princes are being murdered in the Tower and the Duke of Clarence is being drowned in a butt of malmsey." He must have studied history besides being a gangster type. "What is a butt of malmsey?" asked Barb who hates hist, her forte being math. I said it was a sweet Spanish wine and he said he was glad to know as he had been want ing to look it up for years. He said he had been to the Tower of London and had palled with the beef eaters. He looked to me as if he ought to cut down on proteins, though I didn't say so. He said we should go back to school and pay attention to our history so that when we traveled we would know what it was all about. I said history was alright in its place which was the past, but after all it was life one had to live, wasn't it? He said there was something in that, though he had never thought of it that way. Then he said he would have to be running along to an Auction (I'm sure I heard right) and we'd better be getting to school. 24