Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

104 SCREENLAND Hoodlum Parties and House Warmings — Continued from page 60 mock anger at spoiling his effect, and presently the two were dancing in the living room. There were so many noted guests present that Polly Moran remarked comically : "It's a big-time bill they've got here tonight !" Abe Lyman had sent one of his orchestras, and so those who wished danced down in the whoopee room. Among those we noted up-stairs and down were Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey and their wives, Lew Cody, Harry Carey and his wife, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, Vivian Oakland and John T. Murray, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Caesar, EI Brendel and his wife, Robert Vignola, Charles Judels and a score of others. A small boy was on hand, giving out delivery tags to guests, in case you forgot your way home : "My name is ," the cards said. "I have been to Olsen and Johnson's party. Please deliver me to " A newsreel outfit arrived, and everybody went out to do a stunt. Most of them were very funny, and probably you've seen them on the screen ere this. The Mosconi Brothers were doing a funny stunt inside meanwhile. They were wearing beards like the Smith Brothers, and went about dispensing cough drops. "I've never seen so much liveliness," whispered Patsy, as we came upon Messrs. Olsen and Johnson in a crowd in a corner of the room, singing She's the Floivcr of My Heart. Every place that the party seemed to be dying for a minute found the comedians bursting in with that song. Edgar Allan Woolf did one of his famous imitations, this time burlesquing Greta Garbo playing "Anna Christie." Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby sang some duets of old-fashioned sentimental songs in a way that simply brought the house down, and Polly Moran of course made a speech. "I think," remarked Patsy on the way home, "that I like hoodlum parties !" A HOUSE warming and a garden party both ! You stay in and look out, or stay out and look in !" exclaimed Patsy, referring to an engraved card that had just arrived by mail. It was from that most charming lady, Mrs. H. B. Warner, who used to be Rita Stanwood on the New York stage, and who will probably be Rita Stanwood again now that the talkers are in, since she is having tests made. She has three growing youngsters, but looks exactly as young as she did before they came. We were to meet at H. B. Warner's first, a crowd of us, and proceed thence to the home of Mrs. Katherine Humphreys, a dear friend of Mrs. Warner's, and herself a most interesting lady, being the daughter of a former governor general of Canada, an artist, and a much traveled person Mrs. Warner was to be cohostess. So we gathered, a number of us, including Mrs. P. G. Wodehouse, Dorothy Mackaill, Walter Pidgeon, Polly Moran, Billy Haines, Theda Bara and her husband, Charles Brabin, and others, in the Warner drawing room ; but Mr. Warner simply would have us out to look at his flowers by electric light, as he is an ardent gardener and knows all the flowers by their hish-brow as well as their pet names. "Don't you suppose we're keeping the flowers up?" inquired Dorothy Mackaill, as the light fell on some gorgeous roses that were climbing over the children's playhouse in gay profusion. "Oh, they're quite used to Hollywood hours," Airs. Warner laughed. "Harry is always showing them off." At Mrs. Humphreys' house we found the place a bower of flowers — the most beautiful private display I have ever seen. Roses, jasmine, all sorts of flowers, were banked on window seats, mantels, stair landings, pianos, tables. And there was a great marquee in the back garden, with floods of soft light everywhere. Rita and Mrs. Humphreys both looked lovely, Rita in pale green and Mrs. Humphreys in white. Dorothy Mackaill was dressed in a black evening gown, and it was highly effective. H. B. Warner told us how willing Miss Mackaill had been to take instruction from the stage actors on the set, even though she was star of a recent picture in which they played together. "And she is so intelligent that she made better use of our advice than we could have made ourselves," he remarked. Rita was to have done the honors by introducing the society folk present and the picture people to each other, in cases where they were strangers, but when she saw all her picture friends there, she rushed away to talk to them, leaving Harry Warner to do the honors. But, clad in fullest evening dress, tails and all, he was quite capable of filling the post, and everybody seemed to have a wonderful time. Robert Ames was there with Jean Spain, and there were David Newell, Edgar Allen Woolf, Eddie Kane, Edmund Lowe and Lilyan Tashman, Elsie Janis, who came as usual with Jack King, ZaSu Pitts, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Varconi, Lew Cody, and others. Supper was served at tete-a-tete tables, both in the house and garden, and as it was warm, most of the guests seemed to prefer the garden. Polly Moran did, and as usual Polly was bubblingly funny. She was talking to a group, and finding herself speaking rather loud, said, "Why, I might as well make it a speech," and forthwith stood up to talk. "I don't want to wave the red flannels at such a wonderful party, so I'll be careful. Especially as there may be a pro: ducer or two around. You never can tell. But I've got four thousand dollars in the bank, so I don't have to be as careful what I say as I used to be !" And more like that. After supper many of the guests gathered in the beautiful ball room to dance to the music of the orchestra that had been earnestly, but quite fruitlessly at first, scraping and blowing away in there for dear life. It was a very nice orchestra, and presently nearly everybody was dancing. Cecelia Loftus came in rather late, and was soon surrounded, but excused herself to dance with Jack King; and among those who were on the floor were Robert Ames and Miss Spain, Rita Warner and David Newell, Billy Haines and Dorothy Mackaill. While Patsy danced, I talked to David Newell, and he told us amusingly about learning to play golf. Just then Rita Warner came up and told on him. "David," she said, "refused yesterday to count on his score anything above eighteen, because he said it discouraged him !" Polly Moran came in just then, and going to the orchestra leader began to kid him, whereupon he turned the direction of the orchestra over to her for the next dance. There were about a hundred guests present, and as we were leaving Mr. Warner exclaimed : "Such a big party, and the only speck of damage done was a tiny cigarette burn on a table. Two fish-ponds — and not a single body dragged out of them!" NO matter how much the wild waves are waving to us," remarked Patsy, "when we get an invitation that is waved at us by Mrs. Neil Hamilton, we just can't ignore it, can we?" I ardently agreed with her. And so, although we were enjoying ourselves hugely at the beach when Mrs. Hamilton's invitation to a party arrived, the occasion being the celebration of Neil's birthday and also the welcoming of a house guest, we couldn't resist. The house guest was Melville Rosenow, so arrestingly handsome a man that Patsy fell under his spell immediately. He was formerly an actor, afterward an agent, and now is a traveler. He hadn't meant, he explained, to be a professional traveler, but so many people had besought him for routes, following his many trips abroad, that he was being a guide, philosopher and friend to such as wanted to gallivant the earth. Neil generously told us how, when Mr. Rosenow was an agent for theatrical people, he had often handed from his own pocket sums to actors out of jobs, including Neil himself. Some of the guests were down in the party room, some were in the drawing room, while others found fascination in the beautiful patio of the Hamilton house, which is built in the Spanish style. Richard Cromwell, who recently distinguished himself as "Tol'ble David." was one of the first guests we said hello to. He had recently returned from one of those personal appearance tours, and had some funny happenings to tell. "These personal appearance trips are supposed to be all sweetness and light ■ — full of hero worship," said Richard, "but I didn't find it that way at all. In one town they made me pass the hat for the unemployed," he went on with a humorous grin, "and it was awfully embarrassing, especially when a small boy called out to me, 'So you're the handsome hero!' and razzed me! "In another town they made me sell red apples, just as a gesture of democracy, I suppose. "In still another city the theatre managers wrote a speech for me. They wanted me to begin it, 'I feel just like Alice in Wonderland !' Well naturally no full grown, normal young man in possession of his faculties is going to say that. I tried to get around it, and to speak as well as I could, but the more they tried to make me feel at home, the more I got the jitters." Richard is only twenty-one years old, but is already an artist. He painted the panels in Colleen Moore's palatial house. He admitted that he'd far rather paint than act. "I just want to make a lot of money acting so that I can go abroad and study painting," he said. "You can paint when you are ninety, you know." We said hello to Air. and Airs. Sam Hardy, and to Flora Sheffield and her husband. Reginald Sheffield, both of the New York stage ; Virginia Hammond and Josephine Whytel, other New York play