Screenland (Nov 1940-Apr 1941)

k I 0 ONE wants to believe that the whis• ^" per of trouble between Ann Sothern and Roger Pryor is really serious. If these two part permanently it will be a blow to the entire film colony in more ways than one, because Ann and Roger always made a show of being so genuinely well suited to each other, always seemed so sensibly down-to-earth. Even now, in public, they are still the best of good sports. That hardly makes it seem possible that they are fighting desperately to keep their marriage from going on the rocks. But inevitably movie couples deny their marriage difficulties until the very last. However, Ann has recently broken down and even promised to fly with Roger, which she swore she would never do before. And again, at a British benefit party, she and Roger were the life of the wing-ding with their entertainment antics. When two people have as much fun together as Ann and Roger have, I wonder how they can ever think of separating. JUST because Bing Crosby is firm enough to stand up for the right to keep some of his private and personal life completely to himself, a few piqued big-time gossipers are beginning to hint that after all these years they've just found out that Bing isn't really a perfect gentleman. You've no idea how brutally blunt Bing can be to over zealous, curiosity filled female reporters when they avidly try to force an inquisitive nose into his life. Consequent^ the veiled threats and slams you've been reading about Bing by big-time tattlers can be divided in half, then quartered, then dismissed altogether. A good lot of grumbling has been going on about Crosby even going so far as to hold up production with his unthinking, selfish obstinacy. That is not the truth, and it has all arisen because of the fact that, written into Bing's contract, is the stipulation that he is to have one specified day of the week to himself, and he is firm enough when that day comes, to quit the studio cold. Because ''Back Street," one of the greatest love stories ever written, takes place between 1898 and 1929, in early scenes, Miss Sullavan wears the bustles and ruffles of "the good old days." IOCAL know-it-alls have been harping over the fact that the loud squawks from out 20th Century-Fox way are coming directly from the argument that's going on between Alice Faye and her studio. You'd easily gather from the inside gossipers that "Fazie" is seriously bouting with her bosses and that she is not at all satisfied with her roles, her salary, or her treatment, which is far from the truth. You can dismiss the rumors you've been hearing about this pitched battle. The only argument Alice has had with her employers concerns her getting permission to make her own radio deals, when and with whom she pleases. She has nixed all airway offers until now because her studio, with its contract for her exclusive services, had control over any deal she might make, and Alice's ether offers have been far too lucrative to turn over into someone else's hands. As soon as you hear "Fazie" on the air you'll know that she has talked her bosses into a much more favorable deal on the money angle.— IT IS persistently rumored that the hot' test undercover romance in town is the strictly unbelievable combination of blase Constance Bennett and a sedate_ Eastern business man. Until now, Connie's taste has run much more decidedly to the glamorous type of gent. . . . Very _ absentminded Hedy Lamarr had a neat little arrangement contrived in the form of a charm bracelet that was very helpful in aiding her to remember her private, unlisted home telephone number. Now Hedy has completely forgotten where she has mislayed her bracelet. . . . The very latest giggle around town at the expense of oh-so-fussy Carl Laemmle, Jr., tells of the very hasty retreat he beat from a formal dinner table at the home of a very dear friend of his when he learned that the cook and the butler had come down with the flu a fewhours before. Super-fearful Mr. Laemmle was positive he would pick up a germ if he stayed. TALK about having something to remind I you of less fortunate moments so you can appreciate your present superior fortune ! Jimmy Ellison can give Hollywood a very large dose of what it must be to remember something like that. He can barely turn around in Hollywood without coming face to face with some spot that used to furnish him employment when he was hanging on for his break. There isn't a good golf course in town that he can play these days without remembering when he caddied there. He can't pass the Y.M. C.A. without recalling his days of parttime physical instructor there in payment for. his room. When he plays handball at the Hollywood Athletic Club his memory brings him back to when he was forced to take the job of locker-room boy there. He doesn't live very far from the U.C.L.A. campus right now where he did janitor work to put himself through school. Then there's the big department store where heused to clerk on Saturdays. Jimmy can't help but remember — and then thank his lucky stars. Jimmy will next be seen in the new Latin-American musical for RKO, "They Met In Argentina." DETTE DAVIS can giggle when she tells it now, but when it happened she was just plain scared to death. Late one night not long ago, moved by the fantastically beautiful, mid-winter California night, Bette threw a coat over her shoulders, called her Scottie, Tibbie, and slipped out into the night for a stroll through her garden. The inscrutable moonlight spotted the grounds with shadows and false, deceiving splashes of light Bette walked quietly, moved by the eerie mystery of it all. She found herself puzzled by the strange likeness of the moment to the compelling, hypnotic scene in "The Letter," just before she was coldly, murdered. Suddenly Tibbie stopped short, bristled menacingly and growled a most uncanny growl. "I never finished that walk," Bette confessed with a grin, her eyes as big as saucers. "I suddenly realized Tibbie and I were within a few feet of the very tree I was murdered under in 'The Letter.' I admired that beautiful rubber tree and the studio gave it to me. I had it planted in my garden. Of course, Tibbie merely imagined he heard or saw a cat, hut the whole mood of the incident scared the daylights out of me and I flew for the house as fast as I could." 65