Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

31 Hollywood's Latest Adventures in Matrimony A review of some of the most important marriages that took place in the film colony in the last year. By Myrtle Gebhart O the loud applause of the world, Hollywood woos, weds, and wails. Falling in — and out of — love has become a For Filmtown breeds romance with each new T habit, day. Romances sharp and staccato, the back fire of many little amours. Romances slow and measured, that drag on indefinitely. Romances of power and passion that, like the tides greedily snatching at the shore, roll back unsatisfied. Romances, occasionally, so sweet and calm and gentle that you hold yoar breath for fear some tension will shatter their delicate threads. Fervent romances that would tear the rafters off of more conventional towns. And, oh, how many of them go the same way: something snaps, and the duotone bursts into discord, and another nickering love goes out in a puff ! Why does Hollywood experiment so with love ? It would take a Solomon to solve that problem, and I am only a girl trying to do my share of chronicling, fairly and honestly, Filmtown's glitter and show, her heartthrobs, her sorrows and her work, and as much of her character and her thoughts as I can discern beneath the cosmetics of illusion with which she decorates herself. All I can do is plunge in and give the theories that five years of living just behind the lines of Hollywood's front trenches have formed in my mind. Wasn't it Will Carleton who said that we should not fall in love, but should rise to it ? I wish Hol Ruth Clifford's marriage to James A. Cornelius is one that promises to be enduring. lywood more often felt that beautiful exaltation of spirit which inspires the sweetest love. How welcome it is when one does find it ! Love seems to be a necessity to many whose business is acting. They flower, develop, live upon it. It nourishes them artistically, it awakens and it answers personal vanity, it animates, it provides a thrill to carry on the make-believe which familiarity soon strips from their work. In some of its aspects it is a restful and calming influence to jangled nerves. Romance in Hollywood is like frosting on a cake, made more ornamental still by wide publicity. Occasionally, its rococo tinsel is washed away, and there is left only a skeleton of pitiful little human weaknesses, not a bit pretty. Usurlly, though, it manages to remain dressed up even for its funeral march. Her precocity having been publicized, and herself polished up for display, should Hollywood crawl into a corner and bloom unseen? Ah, no ; she revels in the spotlight and takes unto herself its prerogatives. Partly she is to blame, and partly public curiosity. There is a brash beauty, boldly sketched, about many of her love affairs. They flare so suddenly, seem such a fine mating of high spirit and glowing talent. Too often, they end in a clash of bitter words which give a sordid commonness to what had seemed profound emotion. There is usually a dash of novelty — no plowing of her romances in furrows oft trodden before, no hand-me-down, shop-worn plots. Each day spools new chapters of her marital — or martial ? — history. "Lefty" Flynn and Viola Dana waited a long time before they suddenly decided to get married. Helen Ferguson and William Russell should remain happily married if they keep up the harmonious relation in which their marriage began.