Screen Mirror (Jun 1930 - Mar 1931)

14 Screen Mirror • For March Published by arrangement with J. H. Sears & Company, New York. VI • WHEN the two girls reported for work the next morning, it was unnecessary to overwhelm Edgar, the office boy. Old Tatum, the gateman, recognized them instantly, and they walked right in, loftily passing some fifty hopeful aspirants waiting without the mystic portal. “Let’s see if we can’t do our own makeups, Kit,” said Tessie, leading the way to the extras’ dressing room, which they found already crowded with supernumeraries in various states of undress. "They’re goin’ to shoot the big reception-scene in the Phelan set,” announced a tall blonde creature in cheap chiffon and Woolworth jewelry, to her similarly dressed companion, sitting at the long, mirrored bench. “Is Mr. Belmont goin’ to act?” asked Kitty breathlessly, with eyes sparkling. “Sure, Montie is goin’ to act; an’ say, kid, if you want to see somebody that’ll drive Spencer Crandon back into vaudeville, just come over and see him work. I had a close-up with him on Friday. He says I’ve got the makin’s of a real fillum queen.” "That’s nothin,” cut in the lady’s social rival. “Do you remember 'The Purple Hour’? Well, in that scene at the swell’s garden-party, I was standin’ right beside him. I got Jimmie Bates to get me a print of the still and it shows his hand actually restin’ on my shoulder. ‘Rose,’ he said, 'you got a great figger. I wanta use you some time in a bathin’ girl story.’ It’s good Cutie ain’t seen that still. I bet she’d be sorer’ n a boil. She’s supposed to be the boss’s cutie, but she’s awful stuck on Montie.” • PRETTY Lillian Bond seems to be in a reflective mood. Perhaps she is thinking of her good fortune in being brought to Hollywood and given a contract by M-C-M. Photo by M-G-M That the great Montaigne Belmont was a favorite with the ladies was made even more evident when the girls wandered over on the big interior set an hour later while Driver was having a Chinese opium joint built into the street that had been under construction for two days. Phelan was directing some action with a butler and two maids in which the leading man and the society extras did not take part, and during the wait Montaigne Belmont in dress-suited elegance had seated himself in his private chair, upon the back of which his own name was emblazoned as a warning of its exclusiveness. Gathered about him on cushions and foot-stools clustered six adoring admirers of his cast. “Chee, your friend Montie is some sultan, eh, what?” asked Tessie of her excited companion. “Lamp the Fatima on his right. She seems to be his favor-ite all right.” The observation appeared correct, for at that moment Montie was casually running his fingers through the young lady’s blonde and curly thatch, while, with his head sunk low on his immaculate shirt-front, he was looking off thoughtfully into space, resolving, no doubt, some of the more recondite problems of his dramatic cosmos. Had Tessie been on the other side, however, she would have noted that while the great actor toyed, with the tresses of his blonde “Fatima,” he impersonally patted the cheek of the dreamy-eyed lass on his left, whose face lay languorously against the post of his chair. The truth was that Montie’s affections were distributed with the greatest catholicity. His soul was too great to be given into the possession of one woman. “You can have your beautiful Montie, Kit, for all me. When your little Tessie becomes the cutie of any man, she’ll not be one of a chorus.” But Kitty was nevertheless impressed with the luxuriousness of Montie’s attentions and would have given her soul to have changed places with the blonde Fatima. Yet what gulfs separated her from such a court! She was merely a little waitress who had come in to type a part, and would no doubt be back shooting beans in another week or two. She had a very short time to learn, however, that in the Fairyland of the Climax Studio the great distance between the upper and lower crusts was more apparent than real. As a cat may, with perfect propriety, look at a king, Kitty, seeing the many functionaries passing