Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

85 the Day they pep up the ballyhoo turtle races, and dedications, the incredible demands made them. Wooldridge dam near Phoenix, Arizona. A splendid engineering project was to be formally opened to the world. The enterprising president of the Arizona Industrial Congress wanted all citizens of the commonwealth to turn out and give the dam its due. A spectacular pageant was planned, with bands, music, oratory, and all those things which go to make big civic whoopee. To insure success, Gloria Swanson was invited to be present, and at the proper moment to "crown" the huge retaining wall with a bottle of un.fermented Arizona grapefruit juice, then leave it to its fate. "I shall be delighted," Gloria replied. So the arrangements were made, and the event was widely publicized. But something happened, and Miss Swanson suddenly found that she must hurry to New York. The christening was postponed. The dam was allowed to stand idly by in the glare of the sun, while Gloria attended to business on Broadway. After about seven weeks, her name was dropped from the program. And some one probably drank the grapefruit juice. Gloria is ever willing, though, to lend her services when the cause is worthy, and when there is something which it appears she can do better than any one else. She knows her limitations, however, as well as her talents. When the Pacific Southwest Exposition opened at Long Beach, California, last July, and some one was needed who could turn on a switch to illuminate the grounds, and turn it on right, Gloria agreed to assume the responsibility. She knew just the twist to give the switch, and just how far to turn it. So when the crowd gathered, and the cameras were set in place, she strode gracefully forward and socked the light transfuser right where it should be socked, then bowed and drove away. But curses ! The lighting effect was faulty, and the cameras did not get printable pictures. Or maybe Gloria turned her wrist too far, or something. There seem always to be events in, or near Los Angeles, which require the attendance of the movie queens. The recent opening of the first transcontinental motor-stage line, which provided Miss Torres again proved her public spirit by smashing a bottle over the radiator of a new motor stage. A railroad company was unhappy until attention was drawn to a new engine by Raquel Torres. sleeping berths for passengers, was the occasion for prompt and determined action on the part of obliging actresses. Just before the stage started from Los Angeles, Clara Bow, standing on the front bumper of the car, smacked the top of the radiator with a bottle of ginger ale, and when the bus reached San Francisco, preparatory to heading East, Raquel Torres, who had been sent in advance, smacked it again in the same place. The stage started over the high Sierras smelling more or less like a bottling works. But the actresses had "seen their duty and done it," while the cameras clicked and public attention had been drawn to a new thing in the bus business, so all was harmony. The advent of a new automobile, the dedication of a city hall, the production of nonskidding upper teeth, the manufacture of never-rip overalls, or special services for Dancer, last of Los Angeles' grand, old fire horses, necessitates the appearance of some beautiful star, or featured player, to attract the proletariat. The Santa Fe Railroad purchased a series of monster locomotives to pull its trains across the desert and through the mountain passes in Arizona and New Mexico. Huge moguls they were, capable of doing one hundred miles an hour. But shucks ! No one paid much attention to them when they rolled into the terminals. The newspapers did not even publish pictures of them. Something had to be done about it. "Get one of the movie actresses," some one suggested. "She'll put those old moguls on the map." [Cont'd on page 1061