Screenland (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

which the blues exact. She needs every atom of her energy and her personal force and color every second of the time. "When you read biography," Joan said in that lovely voice she has worked so hard to acquire, a voice which one of her friends refers to as "that cello in Joan's throat," "you know how few and how trivial your trials and disappointments and fears are compared to the trials and disappointments and fears others have surmounted in order to become great. Whereupon you despise yourself for a weak sister, for bowing your head and your heart before whatever it is that besets you. And this destroys any self-pity you've acquired, just about the worst symptom of the blues. In fact, once you get your self-pity well leashed you're usually well on your way back to normal." Once upon a time the vapors were fashionable, for ladies especially. But not today! Today they're as outmoded as the other stuffy and neurotic standards and habits of the Victorian age. Today it's the thing to be fit and up and doing, mentally and physically. We still get the blues. But if we plan to do anything with our life we get rid of them — one way or another, like the stars. Class amused! Lana Turner, Paulette Goddard and Virginia Grey in "Dramatic School." sign of recovery. It proved I was alive inside after all. I'd begun to doubt it! Wide horizons, they're infinitely better for us at such times than night life. Besides, if you possibly can get away from the people and the surroundings that have been the background for your depression you feel better immediately. For they constantly remind you of your apprehensions and problems and the one thing you must do is forget these things." I asked Olivia if she had talked to her friends at Vancouver Island about her blue devils or pretended everything was all right, except that she was a little overtired. "I talked," she said. "And it helped ! It acted as a carthasis. It seemed to relieve me of some of my ridiculous gloom. But there have been times when talking made things worse for me, when I depressed myself further by everything I had to say. So whether or not you should talk must, I'm afraid, be decided anew every time. Unquestionably much depends upon those you talk to. For it depends to whom we talk how we talk. When we talk to those who are intelligent we instinctively strive for an impersonal and objective point of view in what we have to say. That helps ! Whereas when we talk to those who are sentimental we're encouraged to drop our sense of humor and wallow a little in selfpity. And that's very bad!" Youngsters like Olivia always make me certain that I suffer from arrested mental development. They know so much! Take Olivia, for instance, who is not much more than half my age, and who knows things I'm just learning. It's enough to give me the blues. Wide horizons, Olivia said. And Jimmy Stewart recommends them too. "I'm a worrier," Jimmy says in the same serious, puzzled way you adore in him on the screen. "My thoughts have a way of stewing. Even when I don't show it and even when there really isn't anything for me to stew about. So you can imagine how I fussed not long ago when I'd been ill and off the screen for five whole months." There was a short silence while Jimmy went to work on a chicken pot-pie and a plate of little hot biscuits. The waitresses in the Metro commissary always bring Jimmy extra portions ; not only because he's always hungry and because he has to put on weight, but because he's so darn nice. "I always do the same thing when I'm low," he continued, finally. "I go out to the airport and I fly. Around six o'clock it's grand up there. You climb above the clouds and the heaven is blue and there's the sun going down. It's vast and the light is wonderful. But maybe that's a lot of stuff. Maybe what really gets you out of it is the fact that you don't have a split second to think about yourself if you're piloting the ship." I think the color and the vastness up there have a lot to do with it, and I think Jimmy thinks so too. So, if you live near a flying field or an airport, give yourself a big treat the next time the blue devils swamp you, take a flight, at sunset if possible. The least it will do is remind you that you believe a lot of things you've forgotten all about— and that draught of spiritual wine will do you no harm. Curious how definitely the cures for the blues which the stars employ indicate thenpersonalities. When Joan Crawford gets all mixed up, when her lot seems hard, and when the things she doesn't have become much more important than the things she does have, she reads. And she reads biographies. Joan, and I say this in passing, not as news, is ambitious. She has come a long way but she has an even longer way to go if she is to phase herself. Consequently she can ill afford to pay the toll Paris Continued from page 63 Annabella was the third prodigal daughter to return. Of the three she struck me as being the happiest and to have gamed, more from her Hollywood experiences. Very soon after her arrival she gave a very gay cocktail party at which La Annabella was coffee, coffee colored and more blonde than ever. She explained that she had just finished "Suez" and as most of the film was shot out-of-doors she was constantly in the bright sunlight. She adored California. "When my youngest brother returns ask him how we love California. He is in college out there for a year. The producers don't like for us to bring our families, Naturally when we are together we talk French, which isn't good for our progress in English." Out of working hours, though she said that the French players generally foregathered. She spoke especially of her pleasure at being with the Fernand Gravet's and Charles Boyer's. Her first job on arrival here was to synchronize in French "The Baroness and the Butler, ' Mme. Nazimova, Dialogue Director James who is the star of the picture, snapp Vincent, Ann Todd and Claudette Colbert, ed on the sidelines of the "Zaza" set. 92