Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1938)

Ginger's "Having Wonderful Time // (Continued from page 19) bounty of it. But until then — a stopsign to Cupid. Love would be a nuisance, upsetting her careful plans, troubling her sleep, making her nervous and discontented. To the procession of hopeful, freshly groomed swains who came bearing gifts and invitations, Ginger made honest answer. I think you are nice, I like the way your hair curls, it is fun to dance with you, I can't imagine anything nicer than wearing your orchids or eating the food you buy. But if it's love you want, I'm sorry. Forget romance, and I will go with you, and we will have a wonderful time together. In the last year, five men have liked her enough, if not to keep from falling in love with her, at least to respect her ban on sentiment. Jimmy Stewart, gay and young and ineffably a smart bachelor-about-town, squired her for a time. You saw them everywhere: dashing through the rain from theater exits in slacks; in white tie and decolletage at the Troc — usually laughing, sometimes in solemn conversation about who invented buttons or technique on a roller coaster. When she was busy he ran about with Virginia Bruce. Neither girl was a rival of the other. When Jimmy became ill and went away for a long rest, a young socialite named Alfred Vanderbilt came to town, and during a short period he and Ginger had fun together. They gave a rollerskating party that almost every important star in Hollywood went to — so that next day most of the people in every studio came to work limping. And the papers said, in effect, "Oh you Vanderbilt and Rogers . . ." But before very long he'd gone back to New York and Cary Grant had rung Ginger's doorbell, bringing candy and flowers. They made a marvelous team: he's robust and indefatigable on the dance floor or in sports and his sense of the usual Hollywood neurosis just isn't, that's all; and he likes to laugh better than almost anything else in the world. I SPENT a Sunday at that beach house Cary and Randy Scott share together, and Ginger, due to show up at eleven, wandered vaguely in at two in the afternoon. She'd been to church, she said. Cary called her "Goldy," with justification: the new Ginger somehow glitters with that vibrant sheen. They clattered off in her car a little later, to look at real estate — Cary'd heard of a hilltop for sale at some outrageous bargain. The watching columnists had wonderful time with this, too. "Ca-ry luhvs Gin-ger!" they said through their typewriters— albeit through their hats. Because, in a few weeks, it was Robert Riskin, the scenarist, who sat next to Ginger at previews and brought her to * parties. Just now they say Lee Bowman has supplanted Riskin. "Supplanted" is the wrong word; because, since all these men were only her friends in the beginning, they remain her friends. But, then, the publicity department has to have something to wire to the press syndicates, hasn't it? There was the business of love, then; and there was her career. Ginger fixed that by going in and having a little chat with her bosses at RKO. She's a shrewd showwoman — she knows that one of the most important reasons why she is in the big box-office Ten is her entente with the graceful Astaire; they are listed as a team. Still, if she makes nothing but dancing pictures as his co 72 star, she loses her respective identity with the public. She's half a star, sharing her glory with another personality just as vital. In her own right, Ginger is a good comedienne. The answer, then, was to make pictures like "Stage Door," in which she stood or danced alone. Two pictures with Fred a year would balance neatly with the other schedule. There was learning what to do about vacations. She's had four in the last three years and they've all been hectic, nerve-racking, much more tiring than her regular work at the studio. The first of these she needed fearfully. She'd been slaving for two and a half years without a rest. They offered her a week in New York ("A whole week," they said) and she went happily. New York tore her to pieces. For seven days and four of the nights it mobbed her, it came for interviews, it asked her to pose for stills, it besieged her to autograph little books. Finally, in desperation, she put on the dark wig she had used for her last picture and took a cab up to Harlem. In the noisiest club there no one recognized her; she was with Florence Lake and several celebrants asked for Florence's signature, but they ignored Ginger. She stayed until four o'clock in the morning. run like crazy back to the cottage, to spend the dreary day playing backgammon before a fire. Two afternoons were clear. On the first, Ginger caught one small fish, which that evening tasted rather like broiled carpet but which she ate determinedly. On the second she saw an Indian in full regalia and with an Oxford accent. He was so pretty she decided to make a charcoal sketch of him and he posed willingly for an hour, until it started to rain again. Then he withdrew into his blanket. Ginger wasn't finished. "Tomorrow, at the same time," she told him. But the next day there was a storm, and for six days thereafter. And the seventh day was the Sabbath, and Ginger came home to Hollywood. From now on she'll spend her vacations in bed, where at least you can't get rained on. And Ginger will make her whole life one long vacation, anyhow, since she has learned to enjoy her work at the studio. T A LITTLE later, Texas asked her to come to their Centennial celebration so they could make her the admiral of their navy and she went; but it wasn't much fun. After all, she was still a movie star on parade. She got three shopping days in New York again and that was just plain work. When the studio allowed her another three days before she started "Stage HE final — and I rather think the most important — thing necessary to her having wonderful time, all the time, was the house which she built last year. Since its completion she has made it the center of her life; it's the reason why you never see her at any of the night spots in Hollywood. "Why," she asked of me, "should I go out and spend some man's good money for something I've got at home? If I liked to drink it would be different, but as it is I just sit and get bored in a cabaret while everyone else gets tight. My own food is better than what you find in night clubs. And I don't give a hoot about the publicity." "Having Wonderful Time" may be the name of the film but Ginger and Peggy Conklin don't seem any too happy in this scene Door," Ginger tried a new approach. She got in her car and drove, alone, to a place near Santa Barbara. She won't tell where it is, because she might want to use it again. There she sat all day in the sun, reading; she went to bed early, got up late. This was getting somewhere, at last. After "Stage Door," providence took a hand and saw that she was offered a four weeks' vacation. The girl was almost hysterical. She packed golf bags, tennis rackets, play shorts, swimming suits and a cousin and went off to Banff, near Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada, for a month of sports. So it rained every day she was there. Each morning, at sunup, she and her cousin Phyllis Fraser would charge hopefully out of their cottage, laden with paraphernalia; usually, just as they reached the lake, the rain would start — and they would The house is on top of a mountain, where it belongs; the main building has two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a solarium, and a gigantic playroom with everything a playroom should have and a soda fountain instead of a bar. You can have a drink if you like, but usually you're too busy concocting messes out of five kinds of ice cream and bananas and cherries and nuts to ask for a Scotch and soda. Behind the house proper there's a pool and tennis courts, and above these, on the summit, is a little studio with living quarters where Ginger does her charcoal work and looks at Catalina, sixty miles off, on clear days. She's good with those little charcoal sticks. I saw some self-portraits she'd finished, and a head of Katharine Cornell, and she'd managed more than a resemblance in all of them. Ginger and her mother moved to the place before it was finished, h only a bed for furniture. Last \V Year's Eve, just after she had tin possession, Mervyn LeRoy and Jear ;e MacDonald and a lot of her friends n up a progressive dinner, and invited r. But, of course, she was the one who A to furnish the entree. The whole p y ate it, in Ginger's bedroom, lightec y candles and flashlights, off borrc d cardtables, because the bedroom was e only room in the house that had 1 n plastered. Caterers shuffled biy around in the sawdust, stumbling i»r bits and levels and saws and other . pedimenta left by the carpenters. W n that Rogers girl has an enthusiasm e admits of no half measures. The friends who crowd her h(e are friends she has known for ye;. Ordinarily, a star plays politics as e rises in box-office, making intimate f those who can help her. Well, Girr makes new friends occasionally— t only because she likes their looks. i\ the old ones stay on. Ben Alexander, Florence Lake (Gger's closest confidante), cousin Phjs Fraser, Courtney Ryley Cooper, Luc: Ball, Margaret Sullavan, Andy Dev . Betty Furness and Johnny Green— ,t there's no space to list all of them. Th come to Chez Rogers to play games ; I I have a wonderful time. No one e i gets tight; they get sick, sometin, from eating too many glutinous cone tions at the fountain, but not tigh there's no time. Everybody's always busy trying to beat someone else a game. VJINGER, for that matter, is the m game -conscious hostess in Holly wo Her favorite is a thing she calls "Qi tations"; you divide up into two teai and separate; then each person write: quotation or a trite phrase like "It ne\ rains but it pours" on a slip of pap The teams get together in the playroo then, and exchange slips. With a tw minute time limit, you have to get and act out the quotation given you that your own team can guess what it — and it's all pantomime. For instann for the "rain" phrase you indicate s words on your fingers, shake your he for "never," stand huddled under : imaginary umbrella, tilt a pitcher f "pours." Later in the evening, you c; get around to famous events in histoi like Cleopatra and Anthony on the Ni j When a Rogers party plays Murdcj with all the lights out, you can he. them in Westwood Village, fifteen mil away. I often have. They like to do another dignifo thing, too, which is a take-off on hidt and-seek. One person hides and the* everybody starts searching. Those wr find him must just stay quietly wit him, wherever he is, until at last or poor goat is left wandering around th house, all alone. The last time they did this Andy Dei vine was last, but not exactly the goa you see Ginger, who was It, had chose to hide in a small closet full of mop and things. And there were fourtee persons playing the game. It took al most ten minutes to extricate then when Andy finally opened the dooi: and another hour to replace all the dis locations. "So it's fun," said Ginger to me, put( ting her feet up on a table. "I've gc| things settled for myself at last— I n free, I'm not in love— I've got everythin; that I want— I'm having a wonderfu time!"