Screenland (Nov 1937-Apr 1938)

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Trefle, Bouquet. Points west of Mississippi add 10c for postage* Name Address Strange Alice in Wonderland Continued from page 57 said, I went down and out. That was a fine start ! When I came to I was so ashamed of myself that 1 wished I were dead. Hut Tyrone was right there at my side again, saying: 'It was all my fault. I made that scene so tough for you that nohody could have got through it. Don't think anything more about it, Alice, because you're going to be tops.' All I knew was that I'd hit bottom. They sent me home and I tried to sleep it off. Things were easier after that, but somehow I had a hunch that something more was going to happen to me. Sure enough! After the big stage number I was coming down into the audience when my heel caught in the hem of my dress. As I started falling I thought, 'I knew all along I was going to be a flop, and here it is 1' " A cracker snapped with such startling ''timing" that it sounded like the breaking of a backbone. "I'll be lucky to get through this picture alive. So will Tyrone, I'm afraid. What I did to him ! After pulling all kinds of boners I forgot to pull my punch. In one scene I was supposed io hit Tyrone in the jaw. I tried to be careful and hold back the blow. But Tyrone said, 'That's all right, Alice, don't be afraid, let me have it!' Well, you should have seen "his cut lip when I connected with it! I was awfully sorry and terribly worried. Then in another scene I nearly brained him. I had to throw a big vase at Tyrone. The prop man had a 'breakaway'— you know, one of those phonies that fall to pieces at the slightest touch — but Henry King, the director, said we didn't need it. Tyrone would duck, and we could use a real vase. So I threw it with all my might. It hit Tyrone right in the forehead. I nearly died. But fortunately he didn't. At the last minute, without my knowing it, the prop man had handed me the 'breakaway' instead of the real vase. That was the only thing that saved Tyrone's life. But I was so broken up for days that he and Don Ameche began ribbing me to get my mind off the narrowly averted accident. They finally succeeded in the wedding scene, with Don, as the mayor of Chicago, performing the ceremony. 'Let's do another one,' said Mr. King, who was 'in' on the scheme. That time Don used our real names, then made me believe I was really married to Ty'rone. Of course," she smiled, "I wouldn't have minded on my own account, guess no girl would, but I didn't want to get Tyrone in a jam. I waited for a chance to get even with Don. It came one day when he wag showing a plaque awarded him by a magazine for being the most popular dramatic star in radio for the last four years. 'You work your head off for four years,' I cracked, 'then all you've got to show for it is just a tin pan.' Of course it was all in fun." For the first time during our talk Alice Faye laughed. Then, seriously : "When we were doing the wedding scene I had no idea I'd soon actually be married : to Tony Martin. We had talked about it, but somehow we never seemed to have any spare time for it. We probably wouldn't have found time if it hadn't been for Labor Day. That gave us a break. Even so, we couldn't have managed it without flying to Yuma. We left at fifteen minutes to twelve in the morning and were back at four in the afternoon. I was all dolled up in a new fall suit with a bunch of orchids pinned on it. That was all right in Hollywood, but not in Yuma. Hot! When we got there it was a hundred and twenty-eight in the sun. And we had to wait our turn, for we were the fifty-first couple to have the knot tied there on that sizzling day. Matrimonially, Yuma was doing a land-office business. That was because of the holiday. Like all the others, we were taking advantage of it. But when we finished the round-trip I was almost as wilted as my orchids. Anyway, I'd had my latest and greatest Hollywood experience. It made me happy. But I'm not saying, and neither is Tony, that we know we'll be happy for the rest of our lives. We don't know anything about it. We are two moderns, and we're not making any predictions, just hoping that our present happiness will last. That, we think, is all that anyone can do. Meanwhile we want to be a help to each other. This can be, and is, true of Hollywood actors generally, in spite of what you may hear to the contrary. "So much has been said and written about Hollywood actors stealing scenes from one another that sometimes I think people get the wrong impression of them, think them mean and selfish. Nothing could be further from the truth — at least so far as my experience goes. I've known nothing here but the greatest generosity. And I've needed it, for without the help that has been given me by everybody — why I don't know — I wouldn't have been able to do anything at all. I knew nothing about pictures and had nothing to give them but a song or a dance. All I'd done was work in a Broadway chorus" and sing in night clubs with Rudy Vallee's orchestra. I had no more idea of acting than a girl in a candy shop. But all the actors and actresses I've been thrown with here have gone out of their way to tell me what to do and show me how to do it. But I've been very dumb. For instance, I didn't even know who Spencer Tracy was when I played with him in 'Now I'll Tell.' I didn't know what it meant to be in the same picture with him. But now I'd give anything in the world to play with Spencer Tracy. For that matter I'm thankful to be allowed to play in a picture with anyone." Surely, Hollywood was never like this before. Conceit had nothing in common with Alice Faye, vanity was no part of her when first she arrived a Strange Alice, indeed, in this land of the exaggerated ego. And contact with it through experiences calculated to build up a strong case of self-sufficiency, not to say, self importance, has failed to change her in this most refreshing respect. Naturally changes have taken place, if not in the girl, at least in the relation of the Wonderland to the girl. Thus : "Hollywood has changed for me,:' she admitted. "I've been all wrong about it. It isn't at all the dreadful place I built it up to be in my imagination. At last I'm beginning to feel at home here. Now you couldn't drag me away from this place. But at first I didn't like the platinum hair they slapped on me and the slinky dresses they put me into. I wasn't Alice Faye. But) they've changed all that and made me look .lore, and feel more, like a human being. I'm only hoping I'll be able to make some return for it all. But I'll not know till this picture is finished. What I do know is that in giving me the part of Belle Faurett in 'In Old Chicago' they have given me the chance of my life. Everything else is up to me. I've had every opportunity to prepare myself for what I'm now trying to do, one part after another in a variety of pictures with highly talented actors. It simply remains to be seen if I've learned anything from them. Now that the studio has steadily built me up I keep asking myself if I'm going to let it down. This is my one concern. I myself don't matter. But if I don't live up to the opportunity that has been given me I will never get over it. That will finish me. It will break my hear She won't! 6S SCREENLAND