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An Open Letter to STIRLING HAYDEN
He'll Have No More of This or This-?
DEAR STIRLING HAYDEN: When they say you are leaving Hollywood for good because you are bored, I believe it. Usually I would take such a report with a large portion of salt, but I am inclined to credit this— because you are the one young man in the history of motion pictures who would walk out on Hollywood without so much as a backward glance. And I believe it about the boredom, too. Ordinarily a young actor who wins sudden fame with prospects of fortune is sitting on top of the world and shows it. Not you. I remember when you came up to my office to say hello on your first trip back East after your hit in "Virginia." You sprawled your six-feet-two over two chairs, displayed absolutely no enthusiasm whatsoever over your budding film career, and only showed a spark of excitement over a picture of Errol Flynn s boat that I happened to have on my desk, when you said: "I wonder if I'll ever afford one of those"— in short, the whole business of being on parade bored you stiff and you didn't care who knew it. Here was no ham, no exhibitionist— but a hard-bitten young realist who would rather be sailing a ship than posing for closeups. When you left you forgot your hat— a brand new hat obviously acquired as part of your movie-star equipment but just a big unnecessary nuisance like all the rest of it.
Then after being rumored as "up" for the big role
Rumors flying thick and fast about Stirling Hayden's handsome head have him: I, joining the Navy; 2, signing up for ambulance service with the British. As we go to press the only fact is that he's left Hollywood behind him — so no more screen love scenes with Madeleine Carroll (as at left, from "Bahama Passage").
of Robert Jordan in Hemingway's "For Whom The Bell Tolls," the part Gary Cooper is set to play; after being the target of romance rumors with Madeleine Carroll; after completing your second picture, "Bahama Passage" — you walked out of the studio. Leave of absence, to sail the boat the studio reportedly gave you to keep you contented; or for keeps — who knows? Not only the production heads of Paramount, who considered you their best bet since they discovered Cooper, but assorted thousands of starry-eyed femme fans who find it hard to face a Hayden-less screen on the long winter evenings, would like to know the answer. You aren't talking. You're letting everybody else talk about how you are joining the Navy, or signing up to drive an ambulance with the American Field Service. If one of these reports is true, then you will win more fans and influence more people than you ever did on the screen. The Stirling Hayden Legend — like it?
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