The seven deadly sins of Hollywood (1957)

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF HOLLYWOOD of the furnishings of every public building . . . you find them in bars, in waiting-rooms, in foyers and at the airport. There is an entire gaming house built in the shape of one of these monsters. Most of my twelve dollars are in the intestines of these dime-hungry machines. Gambling affects every aspect of life. If you wish to make the acquaintance of a chorus-girl, you do not buy her a drink. You buy her a pile of chips and then watch the croupier scoop them away as all the wrong numbers come up. But the chorus-girls are not too lavishly supplied with chips. This is a one-vice town and chorusgirls cannot compete with blackjack. Against this background, Orson Welles cut a strange and unlikely figure, rather as if Othello had wandered into the pages of Damon Runyon. What was he doing there? I asked him this as we sat by the swimming pool of the Riviera Hotel under the hot desert sun. The answer to that question was perfectly simple. He was making 25,000 dollars a week. Of which not a nickel had found its way back into the slot machines. "My whole life is a gamble," he said; "I do not need artificial outlets as well." I found that, in any case, he had plenty of other things to occupy his mind. He was dictating a play into a Dictaphone; typing a novel (it might later become a film script, he said) ; preparing for his next TV appearance opposite Betty Grable; planning a new film; talking to Paris on the telephone; wheeling his baby round the swimming pool; resculpting his forehead with restless finger-tips — and giving an interview to me. All, more or less, at once. "I always do several things at the same time," he said, "then if I get bored with one I can get onto something else and that refreshes me." Was it conceit and the desire to prove that he can do anything that induced him to behave like an artistic 132