Screenland (Feb-Oct 1949)

to bed at four a. m. His life has been turned entirely around while he's playing himself in the picture. — o — Brian Donlevy, who swore off women when he and his wife, Marge, were divorced, held out for quite a spell but finally broke down when he met Audrey Totter. They've been doing the town and the rugged Brian has even hauled out his dinner clothes. Their first date was at the Friars' Frolic. — O — ■ When Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bering and Mrs. James Hart, who play host to film and stage celebs at Chicago's Ambassador East, were in Hollywood, Margaret Ettinger returned some of their hospitality by giving them a large and very beautiful party. Mr. Bering's plane was grounded and he didn't make it until late. Betty Hutton, whose Ted had just flown to Chicago for a minor operation, was so lonesome without him that she went home early. Rosalind Courtright, pretty wife of the Bevhills Hotel's man simplicity. It's the little beginners, trying to act as if they're stars, who display all the temperament. These embryo Crawfords and Davises always arrive late on the set. Their mannerisms are cloaked in folderol and generally they are snobbish. Most of these little ones never learn and it's sad to see their mistakes." "Is there anything you don't like about Hollywood women?" I asked. "Nope," Glenn sighed, "but there is something about the town that annoys me. Namely the position men are relegated to in Hollywood. Men out there are merely nameless escorts. For example: Suzie Doakes is a famous screen personality. If she has a date to go to Ciro's, the table is reserved in her name, not the man's. Hollywood caters only to names and they have to be Hollywood names besides." Glenn continued eating his eggs in silence so I pursued the subject of women further. "Glenn, how do you react to career women?" was my question. "Fine," he answered, "unless they are super-ambitious. Driving ambition in most career women spoils everything. Those women are very aggressive and, as a result, are not feminine." "Oh, then you like feminine women?" I asked. "Certainly," he replied. "Doesn't everybody? I think all men like sweetness and femininity in women if they are honest. I hate tough gals if they are obvious in their hardness. "One thing I notice a great deal, Florence, is the way people act with movie stars. For some unknown reason, a stranger who has absolutely no conception of what makes me tick, will decide that I follow the Hollywood pattern. Sometimes I get the idea that they don't think the pattern is worth very much for most of the time their deportment and ager, Hernando Courtright, also had to bow out early — she was playing a singing engagement at Mocambo and a very successful one, we might add. — o — Sally Cobb, wife of the Brown Derby owner, Bob Cobb, had us fascinated with her original ideas about staging a fashion show on the Hollywood Stars' home baseball diamond (Bob also owns a healthy chunk of this ball team) . Dorothy Lamour was listening to everybody telling her that her expected infant was going to be a girl this time. In the crowd were Van and Frances Heflin and she gets prettier every day, fashion designer Charles LeMaire and his chic wife, those amusing people Mike and Bess Curtiz, Louella and Harriet Parsons. It was fun to see Stu and June Erwin and Sheets and Pauline Gallagher and hear them talking about their teen-age kids. — o — It was a wonderful evening — maybe that's why we're a little beat at this point. conduct leaves a lot to be desired. I hate rudeness in both men and women. "Here we are today having lunch in one of the better hotels in town. The people who patronize this place are supposed to be ladies and gentlemen, but did you hear the woman sitting next to us? She raised Cain with the waiter over nothing. That to my mind is an unforgiveable sin. Her point could have been won in gentle, softly spoken words just as efficiently. Maybe she feels she is impressing someone. My motto has always been, be nice to the little guy." Glenn went even further. "While we're on the subject of women in restaurants, let me say once and for all that there is nothing worse than the woman who orders her meal when a man is present. Talk about irritating gestures. That's the height of bad manners." While Glenn was talking his dual personality leaped into focus once again. On screen he is the epitome of sophisticated, male virility, yet off screen he is boyish to the nth degree. His face which turns up in all corners like a happy child is thrown off by his strange eyes. Maybe it's the weird, unearthly green color, but the eyes don't fit the face when you talk to him. Granted his personality goes hand in glove with his boyish look, for he seems to bubble with enthusiasm. Glenn admits to a moody, stewing type of nature despite his apparent interest about everything. The intangible difference in his personality and character, this touch of Jeykll and Hyde, is confusing. You never quite know just who he is. Once someone said, "We are all three people. The person we think we are. The person the world thinks we are and the person we really are." In Glenn the division is noticeably present, but not so you can put your finger on it. But to get back to women and Glenn. CAREER WOMAN Of the Month by Selene Holzman CLARA LANE How often have you wondered what it'd be like to consult a social introduction agency — seriously, or out of sheer curiosity? The latter prompted me to visit the Friendship Center . . . and not only did I succeed in satisfying my editorial curiosity, but discovered a woman who well earns the title of "Career Woman of the Month." She's Clara Lane, director of Friendship Centers throughout the country. In the course of my conversation with Miss Lane, I thought of my many unattached young and middle aged friends who somehow don't manage to meet enough people for the law of averages to bring about marriage . . . and yet they favor loneliness to what they consider the "embarrassment" of consulting an introduction center. Therein lies the irony of convention: dating a man one meets at a bus stop is passed off as "romantic" and the intelligent approach to meeting men via an expert on human relations is often called "undignified." In meeting Miss Lane, I shed some of my deep-rooted ideas about introduction services, convinced that: cupid is not a plump little boy with an arrow, but a charming, intelligent woman with deep understanding of human relations — Clare Lane. The Clara Lane Friendship Center is not a "Lonely Hearts" Club. Clara Lane now has Friendship Centers in New York, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Washington, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Every large city in the United States has thousands of men and women who want companionship, but try as they will, they cannot find friends. Society as a whole is doing nothing for these lonelv people. It is only a person like Miss Lane who has grappled with this problem and succeeded in bringing happiness to these people. Thousands of discriminating men and women have found Miss Lane's Introduction Service the answer to their problems. Every religious and age group Is represented among her clientele. Miss Lane has cover girls, showgirls, schoolteachers and hundreds of secretaries, salesgirls and career girls. Among male members she has doctors, lawyers, architects, actors, writers and hundreds of executives and businessmen. They come to her for aid because they arc cither too harried making a living to find .sufficient time for meeting people on a social plane, or simply can't find "the one** among their own small circle of acquaintances. • FREE: The above is an excerpt from an article about Clara Lane appearing in MAYFAIR MAGAZINE. Write for a free reprint of the full length article. Miss Lane will be happy to send it to you, together with a reprint of "CUPID IS MY BUSINESS** which appeared in a foremost national magazine. You may write Clara Lane for further information: Clara Lane Friendship Center, Inc., Hotel Wentworth, 58 West 47th Street, New York 19, N. Y. I Like Everything About Women — Almost Continued from page 24 63