Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

It's the spirit of Hollywood carrying on; the transition from cowpath to mother-of-pearl lane; a complete history of Hollywood and many of the people in it BY SARA HAMILTON F W*^ 'ROM blacksmith's shop to frog's legs dinners. At four dollars a wiggle. From cowpaths to star sapphire lane. In a few short years. From nutty hamburgers to the Trocadero. At twentyfive bucks a Troc. The Strip! That fantastic fever blister of Hollywood. Shopping lane of the stars. That bit of swank that begins with a mortuary and ends with a bridle path and bruised rear ends. A strip of land, polka-dotted with chinchilla wraps from Paris and headache tablets from the local drugstore. A jewel box roadway that connects Hollywood with Beverly Hills, while millions of lights in the city below wink and blink and nod. In numb bewilderment. The spirit of Hollywood carrying on! That gay, irrepressible, unaccountable spirit that exists nowhere else in the world and cannot be downed. That may one year break out in a place called Malibu, then slow down to normalcy only to ignite in some other part of the city. And this year it's "The Strip" — the only place in the world where the word means a shopping lane and not an undress act. Where shoppers strip to shop and shops change hands every other Tuesday. Where ladies in abbreviated shorts stand before jewel-box windows of uncut emeralds, bandanas over their heads and an itch in their palms. The Strip! Where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt because thieves break through and steal everything anyway. tt ? IT began with a cow. Only heaven knows what will end it. Flossy, a rich brown and white (luggage tan and eggshell to Hollywood) was wont to wander down a path, between an orange grove on the north and a lemon grove on the south, to nibble the rich green grass on what (as heaven is my judge) turned out to be a Colonial mansion, now home of hot dogs, on the Hollywood end and Gloria Swanson's twenty-room manse A.B. (After Beery) on the Beverly end. In her journeys to and fro in search of contentment for her faucets, Flossy wore quite a path for herself, little VOU CAN FIND "THE STRIP" ON THE HOLLYWOOD MAP ON PAGE 20 dreaming that a mere handful of years later a long, low, agonizing contraption bearing a gentleman called Clark Gable would go whizzing down the old cowpath, macadamized within an inch of its life, fanning the breeze with his ears as he whizzed. Flossy is but a memory in Hollywood today, but a lively memory. For instance, there's the inebriated star who recently lurched from the Trocadero door to behold an overplump, overdressed actress in a brown caracul wrap and a fantastic headdress. The star took one look and, clutching his forehead, cried, "My God, Flossy's back." I HE transition from cowpath to mother-of-pearl lane is a complete history of Hollywood and many of the people in it. It's all there in the story of this bit of land. A hard cider beginning and a champagne ending, all written in the history of The Strip and the stars who strip it. For instance, there's the same small-town, wrongside-of-the-track beginning in many a star's life that characterizes The Strip. Once a part of Sherman, a village sandwiched between Hollywood and Beverly Hills, it was called — oh, shades of stars who were once called Mulligan, Cassin and Bloomestein — just "The Neck." Plain old "The Neck," where most people claim pain. The Adam's apple of "The Neck" was a blacksmith's shop on a prominent corner where certain male citizens of Sherman gathered in the evening for a chat and a bit of gossip concerning the "gol durn movin' pitcher stars" that went ridin' by. Belonging to the county, "The Neck" was the shortest distance between two joints and hence its narrow, dusty roadway received most of the travelers from Hollywood to Beverly Hills. Directly behind the small frame shops, unpretentious stores, hamburger stands, bottling works and the potteries (a little local industry seemed not out of place) that lined the roadway stood the modest homes — some plain houses, some nice houses, and a few shacks with goats in the back yards. And then one night a momentous thing happened. A frame house (that clung to the back of "The Neck" like a carbuncle and had eventually become a speak-easy called, of all things, La Boheme) was raided. Like a flock of frightened sheep, the customers, among them one Billy Wilkerson, took to the cellars till the local constable moved on. And in that cellar that night was born the idea that thundered around the world, bringing on jewelers from (Continued on page 84) PHOTOGRAPHS BY HYMAN FINK