Screenland (Jun-Oct 1935)

for August 1935 63 Evolution of a Platinum Blonde Continued from page 14 become a fan writer, and if you take my advice, selling china in Macy's basement is far more restful and conducive to longevity, you will learn to your amazement that inevitably a star's breakdown and a deadline assignment will coincide every time. So what was I to do? Especially as I had boasted to Delight Evans many a time that Jean and I were just like that. So I sent an S.O.S. out, via Western Union, which said, "Could you carry on for dear old alma mater ?" and it seems that Jean, grand sport that she is, could and did. On Friday afternoon, the first day she had had off in eight weeks, she dragged her aching bones, her croupy croup, her beautiful body, and her make-up poisoning down to the cute little red bar in her Holmsby Hills home, drained a glass of tomato juice, and said, "Liz, make me a sentence with Seattle in it." I couldn't, so Jean said, "Let's go to the theatre and see Ethel Barrymore." Now that's the reason I am nuts, completely pecans, about Jean Harlow. Well, an evolution's got to start somewhere, and I suppose the first interview Jean and I had in New York five years ago is as good a starting place as any, especially as it was only a few weeks before that an enterprising press agent had dubbed Jean the Platinum Blonde. Still grouching about wasting my time, though heaven knows I had plenty of it to waste, I followed Tess to a suite at the Ambassador Hotel and fairly fell in Jean's arms trying to avoid an avalanche of roses and orchids from New York's chipper mayor. Jean was pleased with . the flowers, she was pleased that I had noticed the mayor's card, she was pleased that she could say, "Waiter, bring tea" six stories above fashionable Park Avenue in one of New York's swankiest hotels — in fact Jean was getting a big kick out of everything and so pleased with life in general thai soon her exuberant pleasure became contagious and the next thing I knew I had forgotten my sneers and was telling Jean about New York's skyline — which was ruthlessly breaking the interviewing code, as "How do you like New York's skyline?" was considered a hot icebreaker with visiting celebrities in those days. As a novitiate in the Hollywood star racket Jem made two horrible errors that afternoon : she served tea, and she allowed her mother to sit in on the interview. But after Mrs. Bello's swell contribution about Jean's rebellion against long drawers I forgave her for being a mother ; and after Jean suddenly, and to her great surprise, found an old bottle of brandy under the bed in the next room and somewhat shyly suggested that some people liked brandy in their tea and;, perhaps I was one of them, I forgave Jean for serving tea. I don't know whether it was Jean's fine old southern hospitality or the brandy's fine old bouquet but I must have waxed very enthusiastic over New York's might life; for they insisted that I must shjow them a little that very night — they wh,o could have had a mayor, or a chamber' of commerce, or A. C. Blumenthal. Jean had to make a personal appearance at the Criterion, which she did with a poise and a beauty and graciousness that utterly endeared her to the audience ; and after that we found ourselves, not at the gilded Ritz, but at Coney Island cavorting around like a bunch of kids at a picnic. The Platinum Blonde went foi a hot dog smothered in onions, and on a. clare did away with a second and third. She was the first to hop on the roller coastei and the last to leave the shooting gallery, vhich accounted for the fact that we had two pooches, a Dutch clock, a set of china, a bird cage, two rag dolls and an Armour ham to take back to the Ambassador in the cab that night. Whoops, my dear, if you could have seen the door-man's face ! Well, I don't know what you call it, but as an interview I called it a wow, and as I washed the mustard from behind my ears and combed the popcorn out of my hair I decided that a swell gal like Harlow was bound to go a long way in pictures, and that in my modest little manner I would help her all I could. In fact I became such a rabid Harlow fan that if I even suspected that anyone was about to belittle my pet I simply tore them in shreds and threw them to the lions. But what was Jean like in those days, before the evolution of the Platinum Blonde set in? (Ohmygosh, I mustn't forget the title of this story.) She was nineteen then with the loveliest complexion, the clearest eyes, and the most exotic hair I have ever seen, and she had a penchant for green sports dresses and glove-fitting white evening gowns that made men go mad. She was the most accommodating budding movie star star ever to hit New York, and nothing was too unimportant for her to do. She played benefits no end, she appeared on anybody's radio program, she gave interviews to people who hadn't written a line since they copied "Honesty is the best policy" twenty times on the third grade blackboard ; why, she even sold apples in Times Square to aid the unemployed. I don't know how her vitality kept going, but go it did, and never once did I hear Jean mutter or complain that she was being imposed upon. Some of us tried to tip her off that she was being taken advantage of. "Jean," we said, "they're making a sucker of you. Most of those people don't count. They're just getting something for nothing." "Oh, no," said Jean, "they could have Beatrice Lillie, or Gloria Swanson, or Ethel Barrymore, but they want me. And I'm awfully pleased to be wanted. And besides, it's such a little thing to do for anybody." So Jean kept on doing "little things" for people like talking at benefits, laying a cornerstone in the Bronx, opening a millinery shop in Brooklyn, smashing a bottle of champagne on an old scow, and appearing at any theatre or broadcasting station in town whose manager would take the trouble to call her number. That was Jean's Karen Morley and Mickey Rooney, two of the screen's best bets, in a scene from "The Healer." chief fault then, she couldn't say "no." ( Speaking of calling her number, my pet joke on Jean has always been the morning I called the Ambassador and asked to speak to Miss Harlow, and was connected with the boiler room. After that I definitely knew that Jean was hot stuff.) Life to the Harlow in those dear distant days of 1930 was quite a simple matter. She knew she had become sensational quite by accident, she didn't think her success would last longer than the third run of "Hell's Angels," and everything was a lark and everybody was her friend. As one writer aptly expressed it, "Jean Harlow is like a month-old puppy. She is impulsive and playful and eager to make friends with everyone." If Jean had been more discriminating with her choice of friends she would have saved herself a lot of anguish later. But it just wasn't in her nature to be cautious. Jean, alas, is one of those rare idiots who sees only the good in people. Jean's idea of a grand vacation is a fishing trip, and every chance she gets she rents a boat and takes her mother and a few friends deep-sea fishing off the coast of Mexico. She is a fad addict of the first water : one week she will go simply mad over crocheting, and the very next week she will become ecstatic over basket-weaving. She can never talk seriously to friends ; the better she knews you the more insane her conversation becomes — it is the interviewer who is meeting her for the first time who gets the best story. She adores pajamas, and hates dress-up clothes, and refuses to go shopping, so her mother has to buy everything for her. She never "tells people off" when they make her mad or hurt her feelings ; she simply closes up like a clam and starts peeling off finger-nail polish — her one display of nerves. She loves Angora cats, has several of them, and likes to drive a car and write letters. She's usually among the last to leave a party because she always has a grand time, and if you want to make her utterly happy just let her slump down in a chair, prop her feet on another chair, and tell stories — it may not be glamorous, but its comfortable. She considers one of her best friends to be a chef at a hotel in Kansas City where her mother used to take her to luncheon every Saturday when she was a school kid— he'd always bow quite low to her, making her feel terribly important, and inquire, "And what will Moddom have today ?" When I received the assignment to do "The Evolution of a Platinum Blonde'' it had been some time since I had interviewed Jean, though of course I had seen her casually at parties from time to time. I expected to find her greatly changed from the exuberant Harlow of the "Hell's Angels" days. There had been tragedy in her life, unkind publicity, sorrow, bitter disappointment, despair, and malicious lies from people she had befriended ; and I was sure that by now the carefree girl I had once known must have developed into rather a hard, cynical woman. But to my surprise I discovered that Life is still a simple matter and quite a lark to Jean, that she still thinks that she is a movie star by the sheerest accident, and that she will be completely forgotten at the end of her next picture so why get all worked up about things. Hardly had Jean slumped down in her chair, propped her feet, and exhibited with pride the handkerchief she is hemstitching for Bill Powell, (the fad's hemstitching this week), than I realized that her attitude hasn't changed one bit. There's that same infectious gaity, that same impulsiveness, that same trust in peo \