Screenland (May-Oct 1934)

88 No more blind dates m NEVER AGAIN. From now on I'm through with blind dates. I don't say a girl must be pretty. But she must be some other things. Why on earth doesn't this girl know she ought to do something about it?" Who can blame a man for resenting the odor of underarm perspiration upon a girl? It's altogether inexcusable when it can be avoided so easily with Mum, the dainty, fragrant cream deodorant. Just a little half minute when you dress to smooth on a bit of Mum, and you can forget your underarms for all day. You need not hesitate to use Mum. It's harmless to clothing. And it's soothing to the skin — so soothing you can even use it right after shaving the underarms. Use Mum regularly every day. Then you'll offend no one with this unpleasantness which always robs a girl of popularity and admiration. Bristol-Myers, Inc., 75 West St., New York. TAKES THE ODOR OUT OF PE R S PI RATION DEPEND UPON MUM TO DO THIS. J Use Mum as a deodorant on sanitary napkins and enjoy absolute security. a scene where I was supposed to be talking to him, he'd listen — and the audience will be able to tell that what I say is registering with him. Many actors who are camerawise would either he looking over my head or else be gazing fondly in the direction of the camera. "You know," she went on, "I wasn't supposed to come back to Hollywood until September. I had two more pictures to do on my contract. When this part came along I thought, 'Well, it's a good part. If I don't go back until September my contract won't end until November or December. The fall season in New York will be ruined for me. If I go back now and do this picture, it'll be a good film. I can do the other one right away, too, and I'll be free by August. Free!" she exulted. "Say," I interjected, "that's another thing I wanted to ask you about. You're supposed to be the pampered darling of the screen — the best stories, best directors, best casts, best everything — and yet, apparently, you prefer the stage. How come ?" "I don't prefer the stage," she cried. "It's just — just different, that's all. I prefer New York to live in because I like to feel I'm in the midst of things — feel I'm where things are happening. I love to bump into friends and possibly have one of them say, 'Have you heard Lotte Lehmann sing Isolde? She's simply divine' and be able to say — as really happened — 'Oh, yes, I heard her last Thursday and she fainted at the end of the first act.' "And I love walking along, say 57th Street, and glancing up to find there's an exhibition of Matisse's work and think, 'Oh, I must drop in here.' And all that sort of thing. I suppose there is culture of a sort out here but it can only be dug up at very great effort. The distances are so tremendous. The things you care about seeing or hearing or doing are strung out all the way from Santa Barbara to Pasadena. Even if a concert or an art exhibit is no further away than Los Angeles, that's a good hour's drive each way. "In New York most of the activity is centered between 30th Street and the 70's. If I'd never come out here I suppose I'd have gone on rushing hectically from this to that and from that to the other thing. Out here, when you're not working, there's nothing to do but relax." "But do you?" I asked. "I've always understood your nervous energy keeps you skipping all over the place." "No !" she answered promptly. "People who say that don't know me. I swim or lie for hours in the sun — when there is any," she added glancing out the window at the "unusual weather." It was raining — in June! "I think," she went on, "after you've once become used to this place, you almost have to come back here for a while every year to recuperate from New York and avoid a nervous breakdown. Would you like a highball?" she asked suddenly, "or would you rather have tea? I'm going to have tea." "Tea for two," I murmured weakly. While she was gone I glanced around the room. A long, low divan, deep easy chairs, a beamed ceiling. At the far end of the room a patch-stone recess in which was an enormous fireplace with a heavy beam over it for a mantel. Old pewter plates and pitchers rested on it. "I love this room," I vouchsafed when she returned. Miriam glanced carelessly about. "It is nice, isn't it? Lubitsch copied it in the new home he's building. It's a reproduction of the living-room in an old Mexican farm-house." My roving eyes took in the books on the table, the other homely little touches. "Is it vour house?" I asked. SCREENLAND "Oh, no. Just rented. You see, I've just bought a house in New York. I don't think you can have homes in two places — unless you're fabulously wealthy — which I'm not. You want your books all together and all your other things. If you split them up you don't get any real pleasure from either place." "Ah!" I cried triumphantly, "if you don't prefer the stage why did you buy a home in New York when pictures are made on the coast?" "1 explained," she said patiently, "that I prefer living in New York. I want to live there when I grow old and it's where I want to die." "That's a cheerful thought to be carrying around," I laughed. "What period are you furnishing it in?" Out here in Hollywood, if your home isn't furnished in some particular period — well, you just don't belong. "No period," she replied promptly. "I loathe these places where they take you through and proudly say, 'There isn't a single piece that isn't in the period' and 'This is my French room' and 'This is my Georgian room,' etc. I have a few good pieces — our family silver, a couple of nice oil paintings of my grandparents, and things like that. For the rest, I want to furnish it gradually — just picking up odd pieces at galleries, auctions, sales and wherever I happen to find something I like. "There is a man named Hans Brmton in Westchester, just, outside Philadelphia, w7ho knows more about antiques than anyone I've ever met. Hergesheimer got all his material for 'Java Head' from him. I want to go down and consult him." "Brinton !" I exclaimed. "He and his wife are great friends of my mother's. She's often visited there." So we chatted a while of the Brintons and then Miriam returned to the subject of pictures. "I don't intend giving up my picture work entirely. My contract, as I told you, will be up in August. I don't want to sign another one. Paramount is all right but I just don't want to 'belong.' Mr. Cohn of Columbia wanted me for two Capra pictures — 'It Happened One Night' and 'Twentieth Century' — both of them hits. Paramount wouldn't lend me. So now Mr. Cohn and I have made an agreement that I'm to do a picture with Capra in 1935. "It will be ideal to spend the summers out here making pictures and the fall and winter in New York. I'll be free ! I can go to England or China or Afghanistan if I feel like it. I may not go — but knowing that I can go if I want to will be — well, great ! "If a suitable play turns up I'll love doing it, but nowadays you're lucky if you get a run of from two to six months. The rest of the time I'll be able to do whatever I want." We were interrupted by the entrance of Michael, Miriam's two and a half year old adopted son. "C'acker!" demanded Mike. _ Miriam gave him a piece of oatmeal cake some friends had sent her from Scotland. Mike promptly dropped it on the floor. "Oh, darling," she laughed, "look what you've done. Well, eat it anyhow. It won't hurt you. A little dirt will probably do you good." The 'phone rang. Drat telephones ! When Miriam returned she faced me regretfully— or did she? "I'm sorry, but it was the studio. I've got to go over there for a retake. I'm afraid I haven't given you very much. I'll tell you," she exclaimed as a bright thought struck her, "you just write a story about me!" And so I have. But no story could ever do justice to the girl who strikes terror into the hearts of directors and actors before they meet her and whose charm makes slaves of them afterwards.