Screenland (May-Oct 1942)

Glenn didn't say anything. He just looked hurt. He has a "collection" of guns (if you could call three a collection) a rifle and two pistols. He's a crack shot He likes to pick off walnuts from our trees at fifty paces. I suppose his most prized item — next to the autographed photograph of the President which he managed to wheedle when he visited Washington last year — is his badge making him a captain of police at Santa Monica. He's constantly yipping about Santa Monica and that goes double. Everyone in Santa Monica from Mayor Claude C. Crawford to the men who sweep the streets knows Glenn Ford. They should. I think he hammed it in every one of Santa Monica's Little Theaters, a baker's half dozen, to the tune of 100 plays or more, when he wasn't running errands for local merchants, painting fences, delivering telegrams, and minding babies for a quarter an hour. Romantically, as far as I know, he's footloose and fancy free, despite the rumors. He doesn't plan to get married for three years, possibly four. It will take him all that time, he figures, to see that his mother has a home and is financially secure. Lately, I notice, he's been seeing a lot of Evelyn Ankers, the beautiful blonde actress under contract to Universal. He tells me they are "merely good friends." I don't understand the "merely." Miss Ankers is a lady of looks, parts, charm, background, and talent. The "merely" is Glenn's way of scuttling the engagement rumors. The romance — I mean friendship — started in the old movie formula fashion, the tried and true boy-meets-girl method. As follows: Glenn was halfway through his entree one Sunday night over at Ella Campbell's Restaurant when he looked up and spotted her. She was sitting across the room with a lady who was apparently her mother. He was still looking at her two minutes later when Miles Mander, the English actor, and a friend of his dropped by the table. "Lovely girl, isn't she ?" Mr. Mander said. Glenn said it was very warm for May or something like that. And Mr. Mander went away chuckling. Well, later in the week, Mr. Mander, a friend of Glenn's dating way back to Glenn's second or third picture, "Babies for Sale," called up and asked if he'd like to come along when he called on some friends of his for tea late that afternoon. Glenn said he'd like it fine. So they went calling. Mr. Mander presented Glenn to the hostess who had a fetching British accent. She looked very chic. Also familiar. "Mr. Ford, I want you to meet my daughter, Evelyn," she said a moment or two later. It was the beautiful blonde who had dazzled him over at Ella Campbell's Restaurant a few nights back. As of now, or so I hear, they rendezvous three nights a week. They listen to records by the hour, catch all the double features, and drive along the beach. They've never really done the town to this good day. They hadn't even been out dancing a single night until Harry Owens and his Royal Hawaiians checked in at the Blossom Room of the Hotel Roosevelt. I don't know how they happened to be there the opening night, but they were. And every single night after that as long as Senor Owens was in town. That js_ how it is with Glenn and his enthusiasms. Mostly he doesn't like blondes or actresses, generally, although he has taken out once or twice Jinx Falkenburg, Judy Canova, Carmen Miranda, Michele Morgan, and, as I recall, Patricia Morison. When it isn't Miss Ankers (who, by the way, presented him with that corncob pipe) it's apt to be either Mildred or Donna, two Santa Monica belles who work as secretaries. He iikes them fine and again it's mutual. A couple of years ago he made a test with Lana Turner for the part that Jimmy Stewart later got in "The Great Ziegfeld." He never followed it up. His personal habits and whimsies intrigue me. At last report the inventory of his finery read as follows : Three suits (top price $90), a dinner jacket outfit (a handme-down affair), a set of tails (Cary Grant wouldn't be caught dead with them on), and a sport jacket. This fabulous sport jacket is the one luxury. Every once in a while when we get on the subject of economy and what's the use of it all, Glenn will look at me proudly and say, in the manner of an old philosopher : "You're right, Bill. You sure can't take it with you. Only the other day I stepped out and bought me a sport jacket and paid. . . ." "Yes," I tell him, "I know. You paid $65 for it. Only it was a couple of years back and not the other day." Then Glenn and I both laugh. The point is that Glenn Ford knows the value of a dollar. Lord knows he ought to. I have heard friends of his from down Santa Monica way tell about the days when Glenn was just beginning to feel the acting urge in him and had to hitch-hike — either that or walk — all the way from Santa Monica to Los Angeles because he didn't have the forty cents bus fare, round trip. Glenn Ford has his impulsive moments. There was the time, not so long ago, when he fell in love with a beautiful necktie, French and hand-painted, in display in a store window near the studio. It was priced at $5, and naturally it gave him pause. Nevertheless, every time he'd pass the shop, to and from lunch, he'd take a lingering look at the tie. You could buy a Tschaikovsky symphony for $5, he'd reason to himself. Well, finally in a moment of weakness he bought the tie, admired it all the way home, couldn't wait to put it on. I don't remember whom he was seeing that night, Donna or Mildred. Whoever it was, she didn't like the tie. Maybe she even snickered. I don't know. All I know is that I've never seen the tie on him. I hear tell that he sent it to a colored fan who wrote in from the county jail at Tuscaloosa. Then again there was the time when, bivouacked at Miami for the world premiere of "So Ends Our Night," he found himself staring at a poster advertising an over-night flight by Pan-American Airways to Havana and back. In his pocket was a telegram from the studio instructing him to leave Miami for New York on the five o'clock flyer the following afternoon—without fail. He eyed the poster longingly, pulled out the telegram, read, and eyed the poster again. When the plane took off late that afternoon Glenn Ford was a passenger. It dropped him off one hour later at Havana a little before twilight. That night Glenn Ford will never forget for several reasons, but mostly because of a beautiful exciting girl named Elaine with whom he toured Havana, toured it so thoroughly that it was morning when he got back to the notel and found that his plane was leaving in exactly thirty minutes. A cab was parked in front of the hotel. Glenn jumped in, gave orders. So that in one minute with the automobile horn squealing like a wounded banshee he was racing for the airport. He got there in time to see the plane fade into the horizon. Like frantic Glenn hustled around, found the manager of the Airways. Was there another plane leaving for Miami in time to catch the five o'clock flyer? Yes, Senor, there was. But, unfortunately, it was all SALUTE There's always a salute for lovely, fascinating eyes. In love and romance, in social or business life, compliments belong to the girl with attractive, sparkling eyes — the girl who knows how to look her best. Don't take chances on a dull, drab appearance. 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