Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1926 - Feb 1927)

Childhood Adventures in Hollywood 23 porch, the offering' of love and the food bribe clutched in the hands of my beau. We stood in formation behind him. The butler came in answer to our ring. "We want to see Miss Farrar," said my boy friend. "Miss Farrar is at lunch," replied old ironsides, a man whom I have never liked to this day. "What do vou want with her?" "We brought her some flowers," four of us replied at once. The butler reached out his hand. "I'll give them to her." "No," says my b. f. "We'll give them to her ourselves." "I'll see if she can see you," said the butler, vanishing. A moment later, there was a laugh from the house — a gay vibrant laugh that came from a sense of humor, not from the top of the mouth. It was the laugh of that marvelously magnetic woman, Geraldine Farrar. And then, Miss Farrar herself. She stood in the doorway, waiting, but even when she is motionless, there is a quality of suppressed storm about her. I thought then, and I think now, she is a most beautiful woman. Her smile is brilliant, and she was smiling then. "Miss Farrar," began our spokesman, brought you some flowers." "How delightful, how charming, how sweet!" exclaimed Jerry, taking them and burying her face in them. "What is your name?" He told her. "And yours?" She indicated me. I told her. She went round the circle, shaking hands cordially with each of us. "And now," she said, "I must rush. I must be back at the studio in a few minutes. Thank you — thank you !" And that lovely woman was gone. Lunchless ! Who says the tragedies of childhood are not great? Of course, it would have been utterly impossible for her to invite eight hungry urchins to lunch. She probably didn't have that much food in the house. But you have to get away from those things to get a perspective on them. And all we had then was empty stomachs. We lunched on oranges that we filched from her grove, feeling that she owed them to us anyway. "Many a time, I have stood outside her window listening to Geraldine Farrar sing 'Mighty Lak a Rose.'" 'we have I dropped over to Rozika Dolly's that afternoon and told her about it, and she filled me up on lemonade and cake. I wished in my soul we had taken the flowers to Rosy. Saturday afternoons, my girl friend Florence and myself used to be given money to eat at "Graham's," a confectionery store on the corner of Highland and the Boulevard, the local Montmartre of its day. An imposing banking edifice stands there now. My, how times change, as we are always saying in Los Angeles. Not only was Graham's the most preferable place to eat, it was about the o n 1 v place. Harold Lockwood and May Allison, whom I remember as a lovely girl who hats, used to occupy a regularly, and Tommy many a time waited in line for me to finish a sundae. Harold Lockwood was a great favorite of Florence's. Once he winked at her, much to his and May's amusement and her embarrassment. Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance used to be there almost daily. At that time, Charlie was not the cultured man he is to-day. He was a rather bad-tempered little customer, inclined to make temperamental scenes. I remember he nearly scared one of the girl waitresses to death one day by yelling, as he pounded his hand on the table, "I want service ! My time is money! Give me service or I'll get out? I can't wait around here all day !" Several people who are now very noted players exchanged significant looks, and one man muttered, "Little upstart j" An odd thing, that very man is now one of Charlie's greatest boosters. But then, Charlie is a very different person, now. wore leghorn booth there Meighan has When not engaged in visiting the stars, Dorothy was busy on a novel — as yet unpublisheddealing with the einls of divorce. Norma and Constance Talmadge were just a couple of exuberant girls. It was a little while before Norma's marriage to Joseph Schenck, and she and Connie were even more inseparable then than the}7 are now. When thev weren't working down at the old Fine Arts studio, the}" were strolling down the Boulevard, shopping for Victrola records and other little things. I was sent down to the town's one department store Continued on page 112