Screenland (May-Oct 1940)

It was like old home week at the 48th Street Music Hall in New York when these former favorites got together at a party for the benefit of the American Theatre Wing of the British Relief Fund. To refresh your memory, they are: Taylor Holmes, Madge Evans, Viola Dana, Gertrude Lawrence, Eileen Percy, Walter Huston, Jane Winton, Conrad Veidt, Ruth Taylor, Hoot Gibson, Marguerite Clarke, LI I a Lee, Beverly Bayne, Jacqueline Logcn, Enid Markey. Pretty Boy" Squares his Jaw! Continued from page 33 haps I could hit one occasionally." Bob told us not to wait for him as he was going to stay with that ball until he hit it, and it was just as well we didn't wait as he didn't show up until almost dark. He had a grin from ear to ear, and on an empty stomach, too. "I know," said Barbara dismally, "a hole in one." "Not today," said the pro cheerfully, "we're saving that for tomorrow. But boyoboy, Mrs. Taylor, you've never seen such beautiful driving. He'll be one of the best players on this course in no time. Of course, Mrs. Taylor, if you would persevere a little more — " And the last I heard Mrs. Taylor was promising, but not with too much enthusiasm, to persevere. Then there was the case of the stallion who wouldn't be broken out on the MarWyck Ranch, the summer before Bob and Barbara married. He was a nasty one, that stallion, and all the stable boys, several of them nursing broken arms, warned Bob to keep his distance. The sight of a saddle simply brought out the devil in him. But Bob was determined to put a saddle on the evil critter, and sure enough, after hours of perseverance he nearly frightened the daylights out of Barbara by riding the stallion across her front lawn as casually as you please. Now no one admires Bob Taylor's perseverance more than Barbara Stanwyck. But Barbara admits that there are times when she finds it doesn't exactly simplify her life. Bob is very particular about his food, it has to be cooked just so. He doesn't like fancy things — no breast of guinea-hen under glass for Bob — and he'll trade you all the squabs stuffed with wild rice in the world for a good juicy round steak. Barbara tries out her cooks on lemon pie (Bob's always raving about his mother's lemon pie) and when the crust is bad she shivers as she knows another cook will soon be on her way. Bob, an optimistic soul, feels certain that if they just persevere enough some day they'll find a cook who can make pie crust that will simply 80 melt in his mouth — "like mother used to make." Barbara is not so optimistic. Then, too, there's that getting up in the morning. Bob has decided that Barbara is going to be an outdoor girl, and there doesn't seem to be very much Barbara can do about it. Having been in the theater ever since she was a kid Barbara is used to sleeping late in the morning, when she isn't making a picture, and sort of grabbing off her breakfast coffee around noon. Sudden contact with fresh air and daylight have, for a number of years, brought out the worst in her. Her friends advised Bob that she would never take kindly to early morning rising. But Bob is the persevering type, or have I mentioned that before? He always feels like a million dollars when he wakes up in the morning, so simply reeking with health and high spirits he bounces into Barbara's room at a quarter to seven, throws open the shades, and exultantly announces, "What a wonderful morning!" From the covers on the bed comes a muffled, "What's wonderful about it?" But that does not depress Mr. Taylor in the slightest. Somehow or other he manages to get Mrs. Taylor out of bed (he admits that it wasn't so easy at first), on her feet, in her shower, and out on his ranch in San Fernando by eight o'clock, where they ride for hours in the brisk morning air. And strangely enough this brisk morning air did not send Barbara into a violent decline as she prophesied. She's never looked better in all her life. Brooklyn should see her now. And believe me, it took a deal of perseverance for. Bob to get through his latest picture, "Waterloo Bridge." Vivien Leigh was the rave of the country. Her brilliant performance of Scarlett in "Gone With the Wind" was on the tip of everyone's tongue. Fans were fairly bursting a blood vessel to see Vivien Leigh's next picture. "You won't have a chance in that picture," Bob's friends told him. "They'll throw all the scenes to Vivien, you know that. She's hot now, and the studio's no fool. Boy, you won't have a Chinaman's chance." Others said, "Poor Bob! With Vivien Leigh in all the close-ups we won't see anything but the back of his head in this picture." Even the story was against him. Typically a woman's story. Vivien's part was by far the best. The kind of a part that actresses give their eye-teeth for. As Myra, the little ballet dancer turned streetwalker, she could suffer and suffer and suffer, and finally, all for love, dramatically throw herself under the wheels of a passing truck — a performance that would undoubtedly chalk up another Academy Award for Vivien. "Don't do it," his friends continued to urge. "You'll only be a stooge for Leigh." Which naturally was like turning a knife in a wound to Bob as he recalled only too well a couple of years ago in England when an unknown actress named Vivien Leigh played quite a minor part in "A Yank at Oxford" in which he was the star. But Bob read the script — he's got a mind of his own these days, that Robert — and he liked the role of Roy, the idealistic young soldier. "I think," he said to Barbara, "I can do something with that part." "Of course you can, darling," said Barbara. And that settled that. Bob has a terrific amount of pride, and though he wouldn't admit it in a hundred years, I know that he didn't exactly find seventh heaven on the set of "Waterloo Bridge." Vivien Leigh was besieged by interviewers. No one particularly wanted to interview Bob. Special layouts, special art for this magazine and that magazine, all for Vivien Leigh. Important visitors to Hollywood from the East, the South, Europe, all bowing and scraping and simply drooling over Scarlett O'Hara Leigh. No one particularly wanted to meet Bob. Though I couldn't get a peep out of him all during the production of the picture I know there must have been times when Bob felt pretty badly about it. Any other actor would have said, "Oh hell, what's the use, anyway? My part's no good, everybody wants to see Vivien, I'll just walk through this picture and forget it as soon as possible." But not Bob. Not old persevering Taylor. "Waterloo Bridge" was previewed at the Grauman's Chinese, and all Hollywood