Silver Screen (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

59 Buck Jones believes in a good luck charm that he has had for many years. (Above) Virginia Bruce keeps a memento of her former life. Safe S DEPOsr Una Merkel keeps a scrap book of press clippings that recall her "yesterdays." vays will probably water! "My dad gave it to me long ago," laughed Charles. "I recall his words perfectly. He said, 'Charlie, my boy, keep this deed and pass it on to your children. Let it be a grim reminder never, never, never to buy real estate that you don't see Avith your own eyes!' " Carole Lombard has a much-handled, EGRETS By Oordon R. Silver WHAT is in the safety boxes of great motion picture players? Reference is not made to tangible values, stocks, bonds, the family silver and the like. Safe deposit boxes at the various Hollywood banks, in addition to the storage of valuables, hold many strictly sentimental treasures, things the screen celebrities o u 1 d n ' t part with for anything in the world. Comedian Charles Butterworth, for instance, keeps as a memento and a warning the deed to a lot in a certain little town in Illinois. The lot is and be— ten feet under HiJJen Treasures Dear To TKe Hearts Of Tke PI ayers. cancelled check for fifty dollars— payment for ten days' work as an eleven-year-old child in Monte Blue's silent picture, "The Perfect Crime." The thing Ann Harding prizes most is a blackthorn stick, a oot long! Not so odd that she should rate it so highly, when you learn that it was made by her father (the late General George Grant Gatley) when he was once stationed in Cuba. It has a heavy silver head and tip, and would be very handy as a weapon of defense, but since her dad's passing, Ann has kept it hidden at the bank. She used to carry it as a swagger stick. Basil Rathbone has in his box the torn and muddy coat of his brother John. It was taken from the body of Lieutenant Rathbone alter he had been shot down in Flanders. . . . A blonde wig is to be found nestling beneath Myrna Loy's will, and the deed to the house in which she lives. It is a memento of that part in "What Price Beauty," directed by Mrs. Rudolph Valentino, which marked her film debut. Also, in the same box, is a pair of sandals Myrna wore in the "The Desert Song." Irene Dunne cherishes an old-fashioned locket, the gilt of her inother, in which reposes the tiny fragment of a note. This note, in the handwriting of the late Florenz Ziegfeld, was sent to her dressing room at the end of the first act during her tryout performance for the role of Magnolia in the initial "Showboat" road company to be organized by the producer. The note reads: "My troubles are over! " It was Ziegfeld's method of telling her that she -would have the role. y\nother keepsake is a gift to her from Laura Hope Crews-an exquisite lace fan. It is not only a token of friendship and love, Miss Dunne says, but the fan has a history that also makes it sink into one's heart as a precious treasure. It was in Miss Crews' family for far more than a century; in fact, it was carried in Colonial days by an ancestor of hers, a lady who was a beauty of the day, and whose fan, Irene rather thinks, must have set a new fashion in those early years of our country. Yet another item dear to her inner self, is a tiny doll. This is her one souvenir of herself. It wears what Irene calls an Alice blue gown, and it is the doll to which she sang in the stage musical, "Irene." Clark Gable still has the lucky penny he flipped to decide between stage stardorn and a career in motion pictures and it's there in his bank box. Virginia Bruce's hidden treasures bring her both sad and glad memories of her late husband, John Gilbert. Besides rings, pins, watch chains and such that he owned, she has what she terms her most precious possession and she says she Avouldn't part with it even for a day for a million dollars! It is a short story that Jack wrote shortly before he passed away and is entitled "Thou Shalt Not Tell." It relates the story of a cynical, bitter man whose beloved only child dies. 1 hen his ^vife leaves him and he loses all of his money in a big business gamble. At last, discouraged and weary of everytliing on earth, he dies and goes to heaven and finds there such wonderful, such magnificent peace that he begs to be allowed to return to earth in his original form and personality and tell all creation of the beauty and happiness he has found in the other ^vorld. But, in place of bringing peace to men and women of the earth. it biings such disconlent whh life on the earthly planet that he is warned to return pirit world al)o\c, and to keep to himself the glories he has loiuid lest all civilization be ruined . . . An altogether different sort of prized possession belongs to Fred Stone, who made such a fine screen debut with Katharine Hcpliurn in "Alice Adams." Resting in his l)ank deposit box are a [Cfiil. nil I'/igr 1 Ann Harding keeps a stick once carried by her father. (Center) Fred Stone has an odd souvenir of the past. (At right) Anne Shirley has a childhood engagement ring.