Screenland (Nov 1935-Apr 1936)

for December 1935 81 understands every angle of publicity and she is willing to co-operate to the fullest. Other writers have done splendid stories on her. But the Colbert under my touch becomes a dusky, heady beauty without eyebrows ; a small-town cosmopolite ; a siren and a sorority sister in the same paragraph; which just doesn't make sense. And last, but by no means least, there is Ronald Colman. If Mr. Colman has kept an expense account on me, it must be running into an appreciable sum by now. At considerable private expense, (his, not mine), I have interviewed Ronnie at least a half dozen times without one shabby phrase to show for it. He has lunched me in popular cafes and in studio commissaries. He has taken me to smart tea places. We have enjoyed cocktails in his dressingroom. And in view of the fact that he is my favorite actor both on and off the screen, you'd think something would come of it all by now ! I remember our first appointment was in a little tea-room across the street from a Culver City studio. It was one of those foggy days that you aren't supposed to mention, (Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce please ignore). The pink and blue and white table lamps glowed _ defiantly against the gloom and with Ronnie himself there looking and acting and talking exactly as he does on the screen, it was just like a scene lifted out of one of the Bulldog Drummond series. Nor was Mr. Colman difficult to interview. Contrary to expectations and previously published reports, he talked freely and humorously about himself, even going so far as to deny that he was a woman-hater as advertised. But when it came to putting the spirit of the interview on paper it read so much like one of the scenes from his picture I decided I'd better have another interview with Ronnie and get him into a less fictional background. Result : a noontime appointment in a publicity department with Colman sitting on the edge of a desk talking about his career. Now a publicity department for a setting and a career for a subject are the least glamorous angles imaginable. So when I tried to write that story it read like Robert Benchley's "Treasurer's Report" and I had to ask a by-now highly nervous publicist if we could meet somewhere else. A year later we met over a luncheon table, but something got in the way, (maybe it was the food), and that story was never written either. The last and most recent time was in his dressing-room at the studio, all of six months ago, and I can only sadly add that the editor who assigned me the story is still waiting for it. The other day someone helpfully suggested that maybe the reason why I couldn't say anything about Mr. Colman is because Mr. Colman never says anything, and that you can't describe his charm for two thousand words. But I know better. It isn't Ronnie — it's I. Maybe I'm just overtrained in an attempt to write the best Ronald Colman story that ever came out of Hollywood. So I guess the only thing to do is to write my sixteenth Jean Harlow yarn, my tenth William Powell, my fifth Norma Shearer, my sixth Carole Lombard, my 'steenth Any Other Star, and yes, even my fourth interviewless Garbo. I'm just not the progressive type! \A/ATCH for the second in ™ T our series of movie bachelors at home in the next issue. We will give you an intimate close-up of Randy Scott and Cary Grant in their new home. U cup E^e Brand Milk and sh ^d bCuttered baking /2 f P _„Pd Con L_. cnO0nfu\s on but ^ « ,.,1 Condensed by spoonful on v m modera j cUp, oven ( 50 * i,ator.ce.Mat«W° Sweetened Oow cuP tagi* ~S-etened Condensed 2 cups shredded coconut FREE 9 New Cook Book of Wonders! New! New! NEW! Just off the press! "Magic Recipes" is a thrilling new successor to "Amazing Short-cuts." 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