Screenland (May–Oct 1925)

Arriving we found a sign on the front door of that old Southern mansion ■ — it is a Southern mansion on the outside, you see ■ — to call at the side door. "What a nice idea!" exclaimed Patsy admiringly. "It makes you feel at once that you are an intimate — really a wanted guest — not at all formal and frozen. Still there is a little reception room between the cozy library and the door, so that if Pola didn't really want a person to stay he couldn't." Pola kept us waiting a few minutes in that interesting library of her, and it was then that Patsy picked up a copy of Shaw's "Antony and Cleopatra." "I know now just who ought to play Cleopatra!" she exclaimed when Pola entered, "It's yourself!" Pola smiled in a gratified sort of way, and answered, "Yes, I mean to some day. And I shall play her like a spoiled child!" Pola's hair is cut in a new straight bob, which gives her the look of a naughty, lovable child. "Mother is coming out soon, and I'm going to make her bob her hair too! ' laughed Pola. "You see naturally I want my mother to look as young as possible, so that they all will say, Tola so young!' " She showed us her house, which is mostly Italian, with her bedroom done in the frothy rococo period with dainty enamels and many soft yellow and cream tints and trailing draperies. There is a sunken bath which leads off Pola's bedroom. "Now doesn't that bath just suit Pola?" whispered Patsy. "Wouldn't the idea of Pola hopping over the side of the bath-tub just ruin one's ideal? But can't you see that pantherish creature stepping gracefully down into that ingrowing tub?" William Haines came in to lunch from a game of tennis. He was gay and full of the joy of living, and he and Pola do seem to be just awfully good friends if nothing more, as Patsy remarked afterward. You expect Pola to like exotic men, instead of which she likes wholesome, boyish ones. We talked everything from international politics to the latest scandal during luncheon. Pola is marvelously well informed. She is a fierce little Polish patriot, and told us how, when the Germans took Warsaw, she went into the streets and aided in rescuing the children from death and starvation. "You learn from things like this how casual is life," she said. "Why, do you know, I met lots of Russians on my recent trip to Paris, and though they are running cafes and working at anything they have to do, I don't think they are the least bit less happy than they were in Russia." A dip in the swimming pool was in order after luncheon, and when Nita Naldi and Phyllis Haver dropped in, Pola transformed herself into an outdoor girl quite suddenly. Pola is learning to swim. "A million dollar bathing girl parade!" cried Patsy. -arold Lloyd and Mildred Davis delight in kid parties like Hallowe'en festivities. At one of these parties, I remember, everybody trooped over to the home of Lloyd's night watchman, played tick-tack on the old fellow's window and scared him into calling the police which Harold didn't know until he looked up into a burly 30 (\ The winners of the dance scholarships which were offered by Albertina Rasch will be announced in the November Screenland. cop's face! But both the night watchman and the co were flabber-gasted when they saw who their victim wa; and apologetically let Harold go. But of course it wa. Harold who turned most apologetic, and I believe h raised that old fellow's wages next day. Harold is really rather a bashful young man. Th other night when Mildred gave a party for the girls c her club, Harold and some of his staff came and oeepec in at the window, but wild horses couldn't have dragge: him in among those girls. The comedian, by the way, is very fond of magi, tricks, and entertained me all one evening With feats o! legerdemain. No trick is ever too hard for him to study out. He does a puzzle every morning— that is providing he can find one!— just as Doug Fairbanks works out a crossword puzzle to get his mind working in the mornina T ARRY Semon and his beautiful young wife, Dorothy iL^ Dwan, have a beautiful home up on Vine Street in Hollywood, and there Patsy and ] have spent many a delightful evening, Robert Leonard was up there one night, and in the dim light of the drawing room, sitting down on a couch he sat plunk on a pile of phonograph records which Dorotru had left carelessly lying there. Bobby is no light weight, and most of the records were smashed. Red as a beeBobby hopped up to apologize. Wip ing his forehead, he sat down again, in another spot on the couch — and , demolished another bunch of records Larry s Cocoanut Grove parties at the Ambassador are notable He and Dorothy gave a delightful one there on Gloria Swanson Night. Gloria of course wa, accompanied by her French Count husband Oh, by the way," Patsy asked me, "have you heard the beginning of that romance?" I told her I hadn't. "Well, it seems that Famous Players-Lasky delegated the Count to look after Gloria and see that her interests were protected against fortune hunters. The Count saw to it quite thoroughly — by marrying her himself" Cocoanut Grove on Tuesday night is brilliant with film fans. It is always Somebody's night, and on the tables always are placed wax dolls representing the person whose night it is. Guests are of course permitted to take the dolls home with them, and often people buy extra ones Pf^guaiSirlgh aS ffty or sixty doIIars for a wax replica of Mabel Normand or Betty Compson or Jackie Cooaan No set of people in the world, of course, lend "the sparkle to such an occasion that the picture stars do. The Biltmore on Saturday nights and the Montmartre Cafe m Hollywood on Wednesday ni^ht, and the latt(J place on Wednesday and Saturday noons, are the mol famous partying places on the Coast. Especially is the Biltmore on Saturday night, when the Sixty Club is giving its monthly ball in the ?reat ball-room, a popular and brilliant place. John Roche took Patsy and me to the dance the other night. Just everybody was there. Norma and Constanci Talmadge, Buster Collier, Eugene O'Brien, Mrs. Clarence Brown, and several others were at one table John Barrymore, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, May Allison, Claire Windsor, Bert Lytell, Kathleen Key, Carmel Myers Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis, Nita Naldi, Paul Bern,' Patsy Ruth Miller, and scores (Continued on page 70)