Silver Screen (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

Saxon, was telling me the incredible things that had happened to Gable while he was in the Maryland city. Police reserves had to be called out at the railroad station on his arrival to guard him from being sawed in half by the girls, who later invaded the floor of his hotel. Gable s^vitched to another Baltimore hotel, signed his name as "Goldberg" on the hotel register and went back and forth to the theater all week long, without attracting any attention in the hotel lobby. I asked Loretta Young once if she minded signing autographs for her fans: "I only mind the first one," she said, and then explained what she meant. "If any of us in the movies could withdraw to a secluded spot and sign ten or fifteen autographs, that would be perfectly all right. But the autograph-seeker grabs you just as you're going into a theater, or a restaurant, or on Broadway. Now just as soon as you start signing an autograph, the trouble starts. People passing by immediately stop, their attention arrested. In a moment, instead of one autograph seeker, you have hundreds milling around you. As the crowd grows, taxicabs pull up to the curb to see what is going on. If you are entering a theater, with a party of friends, you feel like a perfect fool, honestly. You don't like to tell the autograph-seekers to run away, because that will hurt their feelings; yet, on the other hand, your friends can't go into the theater until you join them, and the crowd blocks the entrance so completely that other theater-goers are scowling and muttering." It is for this reason that when the Hollywood stars arrive in New York, they prefer the Colony Club, El Morocco, "21," the St. Regis and the Plaza Persian Room. In these places, they are never bothered by autograph hunters and they are never introduced from the floor. When they go to the Hollywood, the Cotton Club or the Paradise, they most certainly will be introduced and spotlighted. They generally effect a compromise, however, by asking the Masters of Ceremonies to accompany the introduction with a request to the other diners not to besiege them for autographs. This never works out happily, as, once it is learned they are in the place, it is every man and girl for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. Fred Astaire does not spend a great deal of time in New York proper on his infrequent trips east. However, he told me that on his first trip back to Manhattan after his initial picture, he hadn't realized how intense was the enthusiasm of movie fans: "I went up to Saks to do some shopping," he recalled, "and a woman came up next to me, stared in my face and shrieked: 'My God— he dances with Ginger Rogers.' In a minute, women were running from all over the store to look at me and I never felt so^ silly in all my life. I had been a dancer all my life around New York, and nothing like that ever happened. One picture and I was a freak attraction." The genuine modesty of Astaire finds excellent reflection in this typical reaction. Yet, despite the fact that in 999 out of 1,000 cases the movie stars behave themselves quietly along Broadway, they must ever be careful, because their slightest mistake will be red-lettered. Constance Bennett took a terrific rapping because she arrived late at a Broad^vay theater, and had to stumble over a quarter of a row of sulky knees to her seat. "There were fifty other people just as late," Miss Bennett protested, and not without reason. "but because I was from the movies, I was held up as a horrible example. They said I was disrespectful to the cast— nuts!! As a matter of fact, I had dinner at the home of some friends, the dinner was served late and I couldn't very well get up and leave the table before my hostess." Sylvia Sidney has been rapped for wearing dark glasses around Ne^^' York. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of New Yorkers «'ear dark glasses without being abused for it. She is a movie star and as such evidently is fair game for any criticism. Herbert Marshall apparently enjoys himself thoroughly in New York, attends plays and parties, and yet never attracts attention by any personal absurdity. Jimmy Cagney, Mervyn Le Roy, Lewis Milestone, Robert Montgomery, Paul Muni and Ed^vard G. Robinson drop into town frequently and behave normally. There are hundreds of fights in Broad^vay night clubs, but because he was from the movies, Johnny Weissmuller was pilloried because he was on the outskirts of a scrap that resulted in a black eye for a naval lieutenant at the Stork Club. Actually it wasn't his fault, but names make news. No, I'm afraid that as a reporter, I must conclude that left to their own devices the picture stars mind their own business very successfully when they come to Broadway. I see them all, and the net impression is that they do not seek publicity, but that, on the contrary, it seeks them. Only when the publicity offices of the various companies step in and propose "stunts" for the visiting stars, do they get into trouble. For these publicity stunts are always in bad taste. The stars themselves always display good taste, and on Broadway, at least, they can match their public lives with that of any man, or ivoman. Margaret Lmdsay, Warner Bros Star appearing opposite Errol Flynn and Anita Louise in Warner Bros.Cosmopolitan Picture "Green Light" S I L V H R S c R i; i; N 93