Screenland (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

By Thyra Samter Winslow Eleanor ended the thing by turning over and pretending sleep. It didn't fool Marsha, but it was the easiest way out. Marsha glanced at her wrist watch and flew down stairs to the garage where she kept her car. Keeping a car in an attached garage seems luxury stuff. It could easily be, any place but in Hollywood, where part of the holiday atmosphere of (the place — which meant so much it. Marsha — extended to outward living conditions, no matter what the externals might be. You had to have a car in Hollywood. Surface cars and busses never went where you wanted tbem to. Taxis were too expensive for every-day use. And, if you were a girl, and a popular one, you couldn't depend on young men for daily transportation. Marsha's chariot consisted not in a "little old last year's car" but one that had had five years of pretty constant use before she even thought of taking it over. She had had it a year, now, which marked the length of her stay in Hollywood — minus one month — she hadn't had a car at all, then. It was fully paid for, now. She didn't even think of getting another. A brand new car was far beyond her dreams. All she asked was that this one kept on running, that she was able to supply it with gas and oil — and that enough boys would supply invitations so that she wouldn't have to do a great deal of night driving. She nodded to the garage man — she gave him a tip every month and he gave a semblance of polish to her car ; got into the car, a small black coupe ; had the usual trouble in starting it — and was off to the studio. She liked this drive. Hollywood, first. Through the rather friendly traffic that was Hollywood. It was only at night that Hollywood driving became frightening — when folks seem to forget what they were doing, and what the other fellow was trying to do — and zoomed around corners and down roads and boulevards at terrific speed. Day times were sane in Hollywood. Curving streets with interesting homes — even the smaller ones attractive — English and Spanish and Monterey built next to one another without plan. Gardens, seemingly always green, save when a house was empty — and then a brown plot gave the appearance of a tooth having been pulled. The business arteries, Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset, were miniature city streets, with branch stores and department stores and very special specialty shops — each one adding to the holiday aspect of Hollywood. Marsha saw all this, now — with half an eye. She wished, as she always wished, that she could visit the better places more frequently : the Brown Derbies — three of them ; the "Troc," LaMaze, Casanova — the places you read about in the newspaper columns. The boys she knew couldn't afford them. They found very nice little restaurants when they took you to dine before the inevitable movie — there was no place else to go in Hollywood, if there wasn't much money to spend. She wished, too, she could shop in some of the smart places, the way she had seen girls shop. A smart negligee, a sports dress, a bit of Venetian glass. The shops were small and the stock was small and seemed so carefully selected. Oh, well, on thirty-seven fifty a week you tried not to think about such things. You tried not to think about a lot of things — if you were Marsha and wanted to be happy — and keep up the holiday spirit in your heart. A year in Hollywood — and years before that, too, had schooled her against useless emotions. It wasn't easy. Even now. She had come, originally, from Dayton, Illinois. That was a long time ago. It seemed long, now, anyhow. Her mother had died. Her father had married again. And there were younger half brothers. And she wasn't needed. It wasn't that she wasn't wanted. She got along all right with her step-mother. Liked her. Knew that her stepmother did the best she could, really. Why, she wrote to her, even now, when she remembered it. It was just that Marsha didn't quite fit in, wasn't necessary. The step-mother couldn't quite (Continued on page S2) 21