Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

16 EVER since Tom Mix took that famous excursion to New York and across the Atlantic accompanied everywhere — well, almost everywhere — by his trick horse Tony, "Texas" Guinan has had a greeting for picture stars arriving at her night club in New York. "Hey, Monte" — or Rudy, or Richard, or Johnny, as the case may be — "where's your horse?" Thus is he informally introduced to the crowd — for there always is a crowd — and it is then quite de rigeur to pelt the famous picture star with cotton snowballs. Each table is supplied with them, and they are supposed to be saved until a chorus number about winter sports — outdoor ones — is sung, but who could be expected to plav according to rules at an unruly place like Texas' night club ? It really was quite necessary to devise some reason for supplying soft things to throw around up there. For, formerly, the guests had a cruel habit of throwing the wooden clappers that were meant only to facilitate applause. And one night a pretty young film ingenue, who had just had her nose made over, had to retreat under her table to escape being hit by them, and the impression somehow got round that she hadn't confined her drinking to ginger ale. Almost every picture star who visits New York heads for Texas Guinan's club on his first night in town. It is the quickest way of rounding up all his friends and paying a social call on them. Whether his friends are in the theatrical business, politics, or the sports world, they are all likely to be there. For Texas has a charm all her own — a gusty, friendly, hospitable wa}' of making you feel important even in a gathering of mayors, diplomats, theatrical celebrities, and industrial magnates. She never forgets a face, and just as you slide into a far corner table thinking you are unnoticed and hoping you are not, she calls out, "Hey, you ! Thought you'd sneak in here with a new hair cut and fool me, didn't you ?" And film people who are usually rather conscious of their dignity and maintain an aloof manner elsewhere, feel no such restraint at Texas' place. There, there is no likelihood of the president of the Better Films Committee of Kenosha coming up to them to say, "You've been such a good influence on the boy scouts in our town. They've made you their honorary scout master, and they haven't minded the nine-o'clock curfew at all since they knew you always had to retire at nine in order to keep up your strenuous work in pictures." No, at Texas' place they are among friends who understand them. Texas has had a mighty good influence on some of our young picture people. She may encourage them to stay up late, but they have to behave themselves. Just let her see a girl smoking too much, or drinking, or even eating rich food, and she will come over to the table and deliver a lecture that cannot be forgotten or ignored. Texas speaks, not as a jealous reformer, but as one who has known all .the ups and downs of life. It is always crowded at her club soon after the theater From Greenwich Village up through the roaring Forties and Fifties, and thence northward to Harlem's black belt, are scattered the night clubs where the movie players forgather after the the= ater, when in New York. This article takes you on a vivid sightseeing tour through these places of amusement, many of which are exclusive and almost impossible to enter, unless one is known along the Great White Way.