Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

The Practically every girl who goes to the club to live sooner or later arrives at the top of the ladder. "We have music from eight in the morning until late at night," said Miss Hunter. "Some of the girls play the violin, one has a failing for the Hawaiian guitar, and most of them sing — though Nell Newman is our official songstress." ZaSu lay on the couch and put one long leg over the back, because she averred it pleased her to do so. No one asked her to take it down. Doing as one pleases seems to be the rule of the house. "Gosh, it's a wonderful bunch of girls we have here," she told me confidentially. "You'll find fewer scraps among these twenty than in the average family where there are only two or three. Of course, you can't have twenty actresses under the same roof without some dramatic situations arising, as you might say, but gee whiz, that's to be expected. One of the girls was having a fit the other day about something or other, and the kindly soul who tried to comfort her had almost persuaded her that the agony was all in her imagination, when she burst out with — 'Don't try to comfort me — I want to suiter — I've got to suffer ! It's the only way I can learn to express emotion !' "And so," concluded ZaSu in her dry, whimsical voice, "we usually let each other alone when we're 'suffering.' It all comes out in the wash." Some one came from a studio to give a lesson in designing clothes and in making over old duds. The class was free to all who wished to enter it, and a dozen girls adjourned with her to the upper story. A class in continuity writing was another weeklv feature, Miss Hunter told me. The conversation about this time became retrospective in character. The girls talked of the time when Marjorie Daw lived at the Studio Club, how Mary Pickford used to drop in for tea with Lillian Gish, and how Louise Huff lived there when she was still doing "bits" in pictures. The club was a high-powered mascot, they all assured me. Practically every girl who goes there to live, sooner or later arrives at the top of the ladder, and in consequence there is always a long and anxious waiting list of would-be twinklers who want to share the luck that seems to permeate the Studio Club's atmosphere. The evening thought it was going to come to a peaceful and uneventful conclusion, but it reckoned without Ann May. She rushed in, slamming the door, to announce that she had been clashing about Llollywood in her car trying to find a theater where De Mille's "Old Wives for New" was playing. Lew Cody had passed her, and she had asked him if he knew where she could find "Old Wives." He 'had referred her to the old ladies' home ! "So," she said, snapping her fingers in accompaniment to her story, "since I can't witness one of the productions of my — ahem — director, Mr. De Mille, 1 guess I'll sell some hats. Anybody want to buv snme hats?" House of Twenty Stars 33 Selling hats is Ann May's favorite indoor sport. She buys from three to six in a week, wears each one passionately for a day or two, then auctions them all off in an evening. Of course, the girls were eager for the millinery orgy. Every girl at the club has at least one of Ann's hats, bought at a ridiculously low figure, considering the original price. She brought down an armload of them, hats of everv shape and size, ranging in color from heavenly blues to impudent reds. She tried on each one, explaining when and where it was purchased, the original price, and just how the "personality" of each was worn. "How much for the blue one?" languidly inquired Letha Sue Moore. "Ten dollars," said Ann May. Then, as Letha started for the mirror to trv it on — "fifteen if vou like it !" Then some one imprudently told ZaSu Pitts that the hat she had bought of Ann the day before for five dollars, had cost that enterprising young lady the sum of two dollars and fifty cents. And ZaSu, who had been a more or less passive spectator on account of her wounded eye, sat up with an outraged howl. This dialogue took place: "Ann May!!!" Ann dashed in from the dining room where she had been forwarding the sale of a white milan before the buffet mirror. ZaSu: Look here, you low-brow, did you or did you not pay two-fifty for that hat you sold me yesterday? Ann : Yes, I did, ZaSu, but ZaSu: Can you beat that — she buys it for two-fifty and sells it to me for five!!! Ann: Listen, ZaSu, it was this way: you offered me five dollars for it, and I wanted to give you the jet pin that went with it, and I paid three dollars for the pin ZaSu: I don't care how it was. Ann May, you listen to me ; you know that blue hat of mine that you want to buy? Continued ci page 8?