Screenland (Dec 1933-Apr 1934)

74 SCREENLAND They'll Bet on Love! Continued from page 51 was a surprise. For years he had been a target for women. A man with exceptional looks, character, and wealth is rare any place — including Hollywood. But George politely refused to be caught by experts' wiles, and it appeared ^ that here was the one fellow who couldn't be had! A famous siren once stormed into the publicity offices of a studio where he was working. She threw her hat and purse on the floor and proceeded to refer to the absent George with words a lady never uses. When asked what he'd done she replied, "Nothing — blankety-blank him!"^ Closer questioning revealed that she'd been posing for publicity stills in the portrait gallery all afternoon with him. They were love scenes. She yenned for him and pulled every trick in her extensive reper: toire to excite him into "comin' up sumtime" for a rendezvous. She ended her cussing in a flood of tears at her lack of luck. Though a gracious escort to various women, the only girl George ever really cared about before he met Marguerite was Olive Borden. When she was a Fox star half a dozen years ago, Hollywood concluded mutual attraction would lead to marriage. That was not in the cards. Why and how did he fall for Marguerite Churchill ? A glance at her new photographs will give you one reason. "We were introduced in a director's office at Fox two and a half years ago," he recollects. "Marguerite had been on the lot for nearly two years and we'd never met. She was cast with me in a Western." They went on location and every-day association gave George the idea that maybe this was the girl he'd dreamed about. She noted that he was a man among men, as well as a very personable actor. Cautiously they 'checked each other's qualities as, on the surface, they became friends. George has been the backbone of the Fox organization with his Westerns, but that doesn't mean he hasn't all the perfect Romeo traits off-screen. You know how he looks. But did you know that his clothes are made by Hollywood's most expensive tailor? That his manners are impeccable? That he is a sympathetic and fascinating conversationalist? And that he is as proficient on a dance floor as he is on a horse or at tennis, swimming, boxing, wrestling, football, baseball, soccer — and, oh, any other sport you can think of? Marguerite, you must understand, did not run after him. She saw that he had been totally unspoiled by Hollywood, that he was not conceited or' blase, that he personified the sound-mind-in-a-sound-body ideal. But she had had other beaux. She was neither gaga nor awed by movie fame. So when she and Fox parted shortly after she met George, she went back to New York and the stage. "I didn't forget him, though," she acknowledged to me. Nor could he banish her from his thoughts. She returned to pictures for the summer of '32, and then reverted to Broadway again, scoring there last season in "Dinner at Eight." The damage to both hearts had been done by then. "We wanted to be married last spring in Paris," Marguerite informed me, "but George's father, who was touring Egypt with him, had heart trouble and was ordered to California immediately for the more favorable climate. I'd already booked passage abroad, so I went on to England as I'd been signed for the picture Sally Eilers eventually did there. "I waited for six weeks in London for it to start. Then I was advised it would be delayed another six weeks. I was homesick, and lonely for George, so I cancelled my contract and headed for Hollywood." By flying across the continent she made the trip in ten days. While she was in London she was consoled by the gorgeous engagement ring George bought in Cairo for her. It is a big sapphire set in diamonds. Her wedding ring is a plain platinum band. Because George and his father were the closest of chums, Hollywood often said that it would be difficult for a girl to intrigue him. in a tea room across the street. But one noon I decided to fix lunch for my husband. When George returned from a swim I had my food arrayed like a buffet supper. The chief dish was canned corn beef. George took one look at it and said, 'Marguerite, how could you? Don't you know that anyone who's been in the navy can't stand canned corn beef ?' " Since then she has left the cooking to Marie, the faithful cook George has had for years. Marguerite isn't a bit domestic and George, who is wise enough to realize that a girl can be a fine wife without adoring to bake and dust, doesn't care. "Folks have asked me if I don't want Marguerite to retire now that we're married. Whatever she wishes suits me," he Dolores Del Rio, looking her loveliest, was interviewed by Jimmy Fidler, SCREENLAND' S Hollywood reporter, for a recent program in his "Hollywood-on-the-Air" series. A pleasant job for Jimmy. "On the contrary," says George, "my parents saw me coming home from my trips around the world, and wondered why I never brought back a wife !" They approved most highly of Marguerite. "I think I made my first headway," he laughs, "when Marguerite asked me what I planned about something. I confessed I never plan far ahead and am likely to change my mind any moment. 'Shake !' she exclaimed. 'At last I've come across a man after my own heart !' " The George O'Briens have now weathered six months of matrimony and they are blissfully happy. They are renting a furnished house atop Lookout Mountain, in Hollywood. Joan Blondell is their nearest neighbor. They began their honeymoon without plans and that's the way they continue to live. "After the wedding my father asked where we were going," George remembers. "We had no notion. We headed for Canada. One afternoon as we were driving along Marguerite remarked, T doubt if we will get any tan up this way — it's getting so cold.' We turned around in the middle of the highway and headed for Mexico !" They tarried longest in La Jolla, an ocean-side resort near San Diego. "We were spotted at the hotel, so we took a cottage on the beach," Marguerite recounts. "I can't cook at all, so we ate declares. And she wishes to hold on to her career, having been born the daughter of a theatrical producer, and having studied dramatics all her life. Born in Kansas City, she went to the Professional Children's School in New York and lived in Buenos Aires when her father produced shows there. He died when she was twelve. Two years later she enrolled in the Theatre Guild's dramatic academy in New York. In her first year she was awarded the Winthrop Ames scholarship, and the next year she won the Otto H. Kahn scholarship. At sixteen she was debuting opposite Gene Raymond in the Broadway production, "Why Not?" Six more play leads and she was imported to Hollywood by Fox. "That was a dismal experience," she says. "They cast me in ginghams and I was sunk in insipid roles." You aren't acquainted with the real Marguerite if you haven't seen her in "Girl Without a Room," the first film on her new longterm contract with the Paramount-Charles R. Rogers' unit. She has bobbed her hair, adopted a dashing coiffure, and is being allowed to display her capacity for wearing stunning clothes. "I want to play absorbing characters on the screen from now on," she announces. "And I look forward to doing one play