Screenland (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

74 Your personal history is yours to make exciting and dramatic if you only wish it. One way to do so is to wear Evening in Paris Perfume, known throughout the world as the fragrance of romance. It's composed of a little mystery ... a great deal of worldly wisdom, glamour and gaiety. The new Evening in Paris Compact Rouge and Lipstick give your lips and cheeks color that is the perfect semblance of natural beauty. A shade to match every complexion type. BOURJOIS have no sense of humor about how to keep one,' he said. But the other day a writer came in and started telling him about her sixteen-year-old boy who was crazy about books. Well, he got so excited recommending books for the boy, recalling the books he'd loved at that age, asking if he'd read this, that or the other, that he talked all afternoon. And I'm sure she learned more about him that way than a dozen set interviews could have told her. '"You'd be surprised at how little I know about him, though I've worked with him for five years. And the little I do know he hasn't told me. There was a funny instance of that one time when I was just taking care of his fan mail, before I came to work for him at the studio. He moved, and neglected to tell me about it. The phone number was unlisted, the company wouldn't give it to me, and I couldn't reach him at the studio because he wasn't working. It took me two weeks to find my boss. No, 1 didn't tell him. As long as I'd found him, why bother about it?" said the perfect secretary. "He doesn't chat about himself, but sometimes I notice things. Like proudly signing all the telegrams Robert, Sr., when little Bob was born. And whenhis thoroughbred horse, Det Lewis, was killed, I know he was heartbroken. He never spoke of it, but he hung all Det's ribbons around on the picture frames and kept them here for a week or ten days, almost as if he were in mourning. Then he took them home. "He never fusses, and he laughs at me sometimes when I get indignant over things he says don't matter. Someone came in the other day and said : 'You may not know it, Bob, but your health is poor and that's why you don't make more pictures. So said a radio commentator last night, and he ought to know.' I was furious, because of course there's not a word of truth in it. But Mr. Montgomery just went into a dance and started singing : 'Pu-ny boy, pu-ny boy, won't you be my ptt-ny boy?' How can you help liking a man like that!" Florence Thomas is the eldest of these girls in point of service. For eight years she has been W. S. Van Dyke's secretary and script girl, and she knows her movie stars. Florence can take them apart, and considers some of them not worth the Dampier. She has to hurry back to Hollywood immediately it is finished to fulfill a contract there, but then she will come across again in the fall to act in another picture with Claude. Then one day I ate my midday meal in a sawdust ring with lions and tigers snarling angrily a few yards away from the table, "(Behind iron bars, of course!) Blonde little June Clyde was celebrating her birthday with a party on the set at the Sound City Studios where she is making a circus film called "Make Up" with Nils Asther. Six tiny white ponies drew in the cake with a miniature circus in rose candy performing on the top. Husband Thornton Freeland sent June a sapphire and diamond ring. He was far away in Central Africa himself, directing exterior scenes for Capitol's coming screen saga of primitive negro life which stars the inimitable Paul Robeson. I can't remember the menu at the oldfashioned inn where I lunched_ with Neil Hamilton because he had surprised me by announcing that he is now Garbo's landlord. Jeanette MacDonald rented his Hollywood house while he has been filming in London and it seems she has now left and S'C RE ENLAND trouble of putting together again. But about Clark Gable she says: "I'd just as soon he were in all our pictures. "And not because he's the great Gable either, or any bunk like that. It's for purely selfish reasons. Because he's no trouble. Because he's efficient. Because he knows this is his business and treats it like a business, and not like a circus hoop for showing off. He's ready to work at nine and quit at six, he knows his wardrobe, he knows the sequence he's in, he keeps his mind on his work. He's the script clerk's delight. You never have to worry about any book or pencil that Clark carries. If he uses the right hand in one scene, you know he'll use it in the follow-up scene without your watching him. If there's a slip-up, he doesn't jump to blame it on you, like some of them. 'We're paid thousands,' I heard him say once, 'and they're paid pennies. Why should we shunt our work onto them? They've got plenty to do without playing nursemaid to us.' "I've never seen him put on an act. In 'Love on the Run' Mr. Van Dyke thought it would be cute to have him and Crawford and Tone sing There's a Long Long Trail in one scene. Franchot and Joan have trained voices, and a lot of guys would have whined: 'I don' wanna play.' Not Clark. 'Sure,' he said, 'let's try it' And he sang. "He doesn't know what it means to make a noise like a star. He's natural to the bone. He treats me the same as he treats his leading lady. And he's always giving himself the razz. He doesn't think he's handsome. And he knows his ears are big. The fellows were kidding him one day. 'What's your fatal secret, Clark? How do you get the girls going?' T rake 'em in with my ears,' he said. "Sometimes my girl friends'll wisecrack. 'Say, do they pay you for working with Gable? Gal, what a break you're getting!' They're right. I am getting a break. Only not for the reason they think. When a script clerk thinks a fellow's swell after one picture and then, after four, thinks the same only more so, there's just one answer. The answer is. he's a human guy to work with. And take it from me, that's the best we could ask for." "Ears" Gable, take a bow! Blonde June Clyde of Hollywood is seen cutting the birthday cake at a party for her in a London studio. London Continued from page 51