Screenland (Sept 1922–Feb 1923)

placing of her favors has won her stardom, or kept stardom for her in face of advancing age. For every story that gets out, such as the Corliss Palmer and Eugene Brewster love tangle, there are a hundred which are kept out of print because they don't reach the courts. But they exist just the same, and serve still further to gum up the machinery of the studios. One famous star, who has recently suffered a relapse of popularity, is said to have exacted love tribute from every woman who had the luck or the misfortune to play opposite him as leading lady. He came one cropper in the form of screenland's most irreproachable ex-s"chooltebcher star. He liked the novelty so well that he has played with her more often than with any of the more exotic and more easily conquered beauties. One famous blonde beauty in the East owes stardom and many, many pages of inspired and otherwise publicity to the fact that her producer likes the color of her eyes and the smile of her lips — and other charms. As an offset to her blonde loveliness — she is really lovely but will never set the world on fire as an actress — this producer, for a While, made a great fuss over a brunette beauty as a star. She got quite a distance, for she could act a little, before the producer decided that his. blonde lady-love's wrath was too much for him and that he valued her smiles above those of the dark fascinator. The Free Love Director o ne very famous director in Hollywood, who is always photographed for newspapers and magazines with his wife and children, in the most appealing domestic surroundings, is a notorious player of boudoir politics. He does not let his interest in certain players completely cloud his judgment, however, for his stars are not as a rule among his boudoir companions. But 'he keeps at least one lovely player on his permanent payroll, giving her fat parts in all his pictures, regardless of her innate fitness for the roles. She is seen as the vamp, the society sister, the wife, the ingenue foil for the exotic star, even as the lead, in lavish picture after lavish picture. Of this actress and a writer who 38 is said to hold the really-truly first place in the director's affections, there is told a story which amuses, even while it reveals a side of studio life little dreamed of outside of Hollywood. It seems that the charming writer is jealous of the actress, though she knows that she cannot be the only member of the harem. Once the feud between the two became so hot that the writer went on the warpath, chasing the actress around the lot with a pistol, demanding that she give up the director or her life. But the triangular affair continues, along with other pleasant little excursions into primrose bypaths on the part of the director. The point is that the director will continue to give his ladyloves preference to the possible exclusion of better talent. The Protege in Pictures v\J/ccasionally a producer takes a fancy to a sta-" for purely platonic reasons, because he -thinks she is a good bet. He spends a fortune trying to boost her into public favor, for, after all, it is the public who makes the star, and not the producer. But just as Lasky's most labored and expensive efforts failed to make a star of Lila Lee, because she was not ready for stardom, so does often the friendship of a producer fail to make a star of a relative or an admired friend. For unfathomable reasons, producers, like other erring human beings, form freak friendships for members of their own sex, and in order to demonstrate their undying palship give their proteges jobs in the movies. The tritest saying in Hollywood is that you must have a pull, and truer words were never spoken. On the other hand, the generous, impulsive type of producer, usually one who has risen from the cloak and suit trade to his present eminence in the pictures, never turns down a friend. Maybe it is the chap who was his bookkeeper in the good old "Mauruss and Abe" days ; maybe it is the stenographer who took his dictation when he could afford to pay only ten a week. But it is always someone who is about as well fitted for a big job — such as casting director, or director, or general manager — as Krazy Kat is for the kingship of the Zoo. But the" misfit stays on, clogging the wheels of the most complex machinery in the world, keeping trained executives out, keeping the quality of pictures down by just so much. One amusing instance of this sort of studio politics is to be seen at the same studio mentioned above — the one which turns out very rapidly a vast quantity of program pictures which create not a ripple in the movie world. One or two big stars, whose pictures are labeled specials, serve to keep the studio in the "Pictures of the Month" columns of the magazines. The Big Chief s Friend T he big chief has a friend who was once a road show publicny man. He did the big chief a favor once, and ingratiated himself forever. When the big chief, then only an embryonic magnate, entered the production field, he took his friend in as director. But as he began to turn out five-reelers instead of tworeel westerns, he came to realize that writing spicy news about musical 'comedies does not necessarily make a great megaphonewi elder. So the director became a scenariowriter, after the general manager had told the producer he was going to fire said director if he had to lose his own job to do it. Then the scenario chief swore roundly that he would not keep the producer's friend in his department, when he needed real writers as badly as he did. He took matters into his own hands and fired the producer's protege, and the protege took the matter up with the producer, who happened to be in Europe or New York or somewhere. Eight-page letters flew thick and fast and finally the protege was again on the payroll as supervising director, which is a harmless enough job. His real job, of course, is to report tomis very good friend, the producer, on all doings of the studio. In other words, he is the pet spy of this particular producer. The producer officially holds a residence in Hollywood, but he spends most of his t?me in the East and in Europe. It is necessary, in his opinion, to have a dependable "kept" spy on the lot. Part of this spy's duty is to see every picture before it is released and report on it to the producer. He writes at great length of minor faults, telling how the star failed to let her