Photoplay (Jan-Sep 1937)

i*4&* FACE ROBERT TAYLOR! WHEN people speak of the "dangers" of Hollywood they are talking, as a rule, of such spectacular pitfalls as wine (vintage champagne) ; women (very wild) ; parties (orgies); and a sort of general insanity which has been publicized, preached against, and linked with the name Hollywood the world over. Considered calmly, like pitfalls yawn before the feet of young people and old in every big city and most small ones in the world. The chief difference is that Hollywood is the proverbial goldfish bowl. Everyone who gets into the swim can be seen, gaped at and pointed out as an "example" — bad or good. There is just as much drinking, as many sensational women and wouldbe Casanovas, just as many wild parties and extravagance, and as many scandals and divorces in any community— only Hollywood happens to be of more public interest than Podunk Corners ... so when there's a shooting at the Corners or when Hiram the Hired Man runs away with the farmer's wife, or the Judge's son gets drunk and drives his car into an elm tree, the very little of it. But let a Hollywood star hangnail and before morning it's a hangover! newspapers make acquire a simple works very hard. The greater majority of the people in it, when working, go to bed early and get up early. If a young man values his health and his appear ance, if a girl thinks about her eyes and her skin, neither of them goes in for magnums of bubbly. Also, they recall the morality clause in their contracts. When I was in Hollywood I went to dinner at the home of a great editor, now deceased. I was so entranced with my own presence in the home of the famous that I stayed until after midnight, and realized afterwards that except for myself everyone had yawned behind their hands, looked longingly at the clock and wished themselves safely in bed! No, the dangers to be encountered in Hollywood are not the obvious things against which our mothers warned us when we were practically in the cradle. There are dangers from within, dangers like termites, working with stealth, and leaving eventually the hollow shell of what was once an integrated human being. Let us consider the case of Robert Taylor and the things he has to fight. It took him just two years to become one of the most attractive and talked-of young male stars in the world. AS a matter of fact, Hollywood people are oddly enough just \A/ELL, they've done everything to him. They've enlarged his ^^ people. Some drink and some gamble; some stay out nights neckline, changed his hairline and given him roles which and some make love to other people's husbands or wives; some beat their own wives and others take to narcotics; some give Roman parties and others just roam. But all make headlines . . . unless the studios are very adroit. Yet from where I sit, I can quote a New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Francisco scandal for every Hollywoodian goings on. If I were giving advice to the boy or girl who is starting out in Hollywood I certainly should not dwell on these ordinary menaces, for he or she would encounter them anywhere else. A young clerk, or a stenographer, a girl behind the department store counter or a boy selling insurance can find plenty of danger in the big or small town if he or she wants to look for it. To be sure, in moneyed circles, it is bigger and better, so to speak, and maybe there's wine instead of gin, roulette instead of craps, a ruby necklace instead of a wrist watch, an ermine wrap instead of lapin — but the principle is just the same. And Hollywood 36 Stop! Look! and Listen! says this famous writer to Hollywood's you ng i mpressiona hies many older and more experienced actors would hesitate to tackle. They have rushed him from one picture to another; they have publicized him until even in Borneo the maidens grow breathless at the mere mention of his name — which isn't his own name, of course. They put his nice mother on the radio — she gave us a very good recipe for baked beans — and interviewed her merci-' lessly about her son's life. They broke up wrhat looked like a promising love affair, and when another was delicately trumpeted around the world they began to make a picture, with the object of Mr. Taylor's affections playing opposite him — a neat touch ... in fact, a touch, a desire to cash in. Mr. Taylor has leaped like the nimble chamois from a salary of thirtvfive dollars a week to around two thousand. He can't appear anywhere without women hurling themselves upon his enlarged neck and tearing the clothes off his back for souvenirs. What this will do, has perhaps done to (please turn to page 105]