Screenland (Nov 1935-Apr 1936)

for February 1936 73 What's New About Loy? Continued from page 20 Friend for quite some time. Cheer up — you'll he cured by Valentine's Day, because glamorous Loy is on her way with a whole batch of new pictures. As everybody knows who reads the newspapers, last spring Myrna and her studio had a little contract trouble, Myrna wanted more money, (you can't blame her for that!), and Metro held a contract that called for a certain salary, and there was a deadlock; and so Myrna just upped and went to New York and Europe on that vacation she had been promising herself ever since she left Helena, Montana, to become a movie star. She took the plane out of Hollywood that followed the plane that crashed in Missouri, and if that isn't nerve I'll eat my hat — though when I said as much to Myrna she simply shrugged her shoulders and said, "That wasn't nerve. Remember lightning never strikes twice in the same place ! Anyway, I was so glad to get away from' Hollywood and pictures just then that I would probably have taken a sky rocket if anyone had suggested that that would be the speediest way to New York." (It was Leland Hey ward, Katherine Hepburn's agent, an experienced pilot, who warned Myrna not to take the plane that crashed on account of bad weather conditions.) "However," Myrna continued, "when we were caught in a thunder and lightning storm above Kansas and the plane began to rock I wasn't so sure but what Nature was going to make a lie out of that old bromide." Myrna had a perfectly elegant time in Europe riding on all the trains and planes that she is supposed to have ridden on in pictures, even the Orient Express, the train that played such an important part in "Stamboul Quest." And she visited all the towns and cities in which she has played spies, and mystics, and lady Borgias back home in the Hollywood studios. And it was all a lot of fun, and New York was marvelous except that it was hot, but just the same little Myrna was pretty darned glad to have her contract difficulties all ironed out and return to work and Mr. William Powell. After "Whipsaw" and "The Great Ziegfeld" and "Wife Versus Secretary" Myrna is scheduled to do the long-awaited sequel to "The Thin Man," and judging by the enthusiasm with which she spoke of it I'm sure that Myrna is rarin' to go for another "Thin Man." And I'm positive I'm ready for a sequel, aren't you? "The Thin Man" is still my favorite picture. "In the sequel," Myrna told me, "Bill and I will return to San Francisco where my family lives. My family is very rich and society and hoity toity and they don't care much for my husband and his sense of humor. But Bill doesn't let it get him down. There's another murder mystery which he solves in his own charming manner. As far as possible the studio will use the same cast, those New York gangsters will arrive in California, and my family will probably be the only newcomers. Van Dyke, of course, will direct again." Me, now — I can hardly wait. "I have been married to Bill Powell in four pictures," Myrna added. "The sequel to 'The Thin Man' will be the fifth. When I came back from New York and found Bill waiting for me on 'The Great Ziegfeld' set it was just like going home. He's so casual and charming about everything, and always so gay and amusing I really couldn't ask for a better screen husband. Do you know I still get hundreds of letters asking me why I don't marry Bill Powell?" "Well," I said, "why don't you? I think it's a good idea." At times like that movie stars generally manage to change the subject, and Myrna was no exception. "The height of something or other was reached the other day on the Whipsaw' set," she said apropos of nothing, certainly not of marriage. "They had to provide a rooster with a stand-in. It seems that this little cock was a professional crower, but he wouldn't crow if he had to stand in the lights too long. So they gave him a stand-in. And I can remember that I was a great big girl before the studio considered me important enough to have a stand-in!" Basil Rathbone puts the hypnotic eye on Aline MacMahon in this dramatic scene for "Kind Lady." Myrna and Bill Powell are charter members of the best Mutual Admiration Society in Hollywood. You can't talk to Bill more than fifteen minutes before he simply goes into ecstacies over Myrna Loy, and vice versa. But, kiddies, I'm afraid that's all. Myrna is paired off with Arthur Hornblow, Jr., a Paramount producer, who is a nice guy even if he isn't a Bill Powell. The gossip columnists all say there will be a wedding ere the birdies nest again. And despite all rumors to the contrary, Mr. Powell still seems to be head man in Jean Harlow's life. Haven't I told you that you can't believe everything you see in the movies— it's all done with mirrors ! As she started on a second slice of corn beef, swathed in mustard, Miss Loy also started on Spencer Tracy. (Tracy costars with her in "Whipsaw.") Spence, it seems, brought out a new side to the Loy. Myrna has never been one to play pranks while making a picture, and she has never gone in for gags a la Carole Lombard and Bing Crosby and Jean Harlow and a lot of other movie stars who'll do anything for a laugh just to liven up the day. When Myrna finishes a scene before the cameras she usually goes to her stage dressing-room to rest or study her script, or else she reads until she is called back to the set. (Of course when Mr. Powell is in the scene this is different.) Myrna is a very shy person, and this makes her seem rather formal and stand-offish when she really doesn't mean to be. If she doesn't happen to know you very well she isn't going to give an inch. Anybody afflicted with shyness knows exactly how that is. Well, Spencer Tracy was so excited over having Myrna Loy in a picture with him that he could hardly eat his spinach for weeks. "Gee, I'm crazy about that girl," Spence would say to everybody at the studio, and I'm pretty sure he counted the days and even the minutes. At last came the first day of production. Miss Loy and Mr. Tracy said "How do you do?" and Miss Loy retired to her dressing-room. This went on for several days, a week, ten days, and Spence was just about to go nuts. He's a very sensitive man, given to moods, and he couldn't figure out why Myrna didn't come over and swap repartee with him. It began to prey on his mind. Myrna didn't want him in the picture ! Yes, that was it, Myrna didn't want him in the picture! Oh, how awful, what should he do? So he went into a mood. In the meantime, Myrna had gotten over her first shyness and began to take notice of the dismal Mr. Tracy stretched out in his chair and looking as if he had lost his last friend. "What in the world is the matter with that crazy Irishman" she said to herself. "Doesn't he like me, doesn't he want me in the picture?" Well, this went on for several days — you know just how much two sensitive people can suffer imagining all kinds of things. Then one day Spence could stand it no longer. He walked over to Miss Loy's chair and blubbered like a deeply hurt little boy, "What's the matter with me? Don't you like me? What's wrong?" Myrna took one look at that grand Irish pan and burst out laughing, "Of course I like you!" she giggled. "I think you are one of the best actors in Hollywood. I'm just shy, that's all. Why didn't you come over and talk to me?" Well, with the ice broken "Whipsaw" suddenly turned into the gayest set in Hollywood. Spence thought up new pranks every day, and Myrna was right there to join in the fun. One day Spencer complained long and loudly about missing the wonderful electric victrola belonging to Jean Harlow that played beautiful numbers continually between scenes of "Riffraff" (which picture he had just finished.) "Oh, well," said Spence with pseudo hauteur, "I suppose you get the best music only when you play with the most important stars." A few hours later Myrna's chauffeur arrived on the set carrying the oldest victrola in Hollywood. Quite casually Myrna cranked the thing up and it began to play a cracked record of "The Old Grey Mare, She Ain't What She Used to Be" with a blunt needle. If she has many more pictures to make with Spencer Tracy our Myrna will probably go around ringing door-bells. And she's always been such a dignified girl. Myrna has gone quite social, too, since her return from New York. I don't mean you'll find her dancing at La Maze or the Trocadero every night, mercy no, not when she's making three pictures at once ; but she has attended quite a few parties, and even given one or two small ones. And this is being quite gay for Myrna, for up until a year ago she was just about as much a woman of mystery in Hollywood as Greta Garbo. Dear me, what with Garbo stepping out at the Troc and Myrna going in for pranks and parties, the recluse racket isn't what it used to be. And I'm glad — aren't you?