The Picture Show Annual (1928)

140 Picture Show Annual the latest films, accompanied by some expert pianist, in the big cool basement she has turned into her music-room and private cinema theatre. Huge dinner-and-dance parties are given by Marion Davies, and many other stars every Sunday night, when film players can relax a little more than on weekdays. Buffet suppers are a popular form of night life in Hollywood, and the best-known are given by Rod La Rocque, at whose attractive house you will find interesting people like Elinor Glyn, Russian princesses, film stars, scientists, artists, musicians, all fraternising in the most friendly fashion, and watching Rod do some of his amusing and amazing " tricks." Night clubs in Hollywood are not many in number, but those that exist are well patronised, mainly, 1 think, by people who go along hoping to far more interesting than the performance. As a To go to the Sixty Club you must be taken or introduced by a member, and there, as at the Cocoanut Grove, may be seen the stars who are keen dancers. For instance, Constance Talmadge and her latest escort ; Claire Windsor and her husband Bert Lytell; Joan Crawford and Bessie Love, both Charles- ton champions; Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg ; Blanche Sweet, who introduced Hollywood to the " Black Bottom " ; the Charles Rays, the Clarence Browns, George K. Arthur and his pretty English wife; Anna Q. Nilsson, John Roche; sometimes Charlie Chaplin, and occasionally Colleen Moore and her husband John McCormick. Much the same crowd, plus a lot of ordinary resi- dents, may be found at the celebrated Montmarte Restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard, which is always crowded for dinner and supper, and where film stars scramble madly for the coloured balloons that drop from the roof to the tiny square dancing floor at least twice during the evening. The Montmarte is always gay ; and when it closes you can go downstairs to the cafe below, which stays open quite late, and has a good band and good food, and where you sit at queer tables, each boxed in with high wooden sides. The Beach clubs at Santa Monica—which is really Hollywood—attract the same dancing crowd. At Casa del Mar, Edgewater, Deauville, and the original Gables Club you can see all the stars dining, swimming, and dancing. Cars stand in rows out- side these clubs, and when people are tired of dancing they dash out to the amusement parks that fringe the Pacific Ocean, and career about wildly on switchbacks, roller coasters, flying boats, and other attractions that are outlined in brilliant electric lights. Hollywood and its near neighbour possess many fine cinema theatres which form an important part of the night life of Filmland. There is Grauman's Egyptian, and" his new Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, each seating 3,000 people ; there is the Forum, the Carthay Circle, the Pantages, and the Bilt- more, in Los Angeles, all big theatres, and all packed night after night. It might be imagined that film players would avoid movie theatres in their spare time, but they don't, for they form quite a large and very appreciative section of the audiences. The Hollywood Legion Fights take place every Friday night, and have their regular devotees among male and female stars, for whom the same ringside seats are reserved right through the year. It is a wonderful gathering, in which I found the spectators see their favourites in the flesh. There is the " Cocoanut Grove," which opens every Tuesday evening at the Ambassador Hotel. Anyone can go in ; an excellent dinner is served, just as at a London night club ; there is a good band, plenty of carnival toys, and lots of fun. The "Sixty Club " is a very exclusive club that opens twice a week, at the Ambassador Hotel, Hollywood. change from these amusements Hollywood residents can motor to some of the " Barbecue " restaurants on the road to the sea, and consume chicken and squab cooked in Southern style, if it happens to appeal to them. There is no lack of night life in the Celluloid City, but it is of a simple, moderate description, and most of it ceases long before the clock strikes twelve.