Silver Screen (Nov 1939 - May 1940)

74 Silver Screen for May 1940 The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful [Continued from page 53] Ever>'body who was anybody in Hollywood was there and you should have seen the scramble when two rival producers saw him at the same time. What a matinee idol he would have made! He was six foot two with shoulders that went with his height and he looked like a young god with his sun bronzed skin and crisp black hair and blue eyes. It was a shame to waste all that on stocks and bonds, but wasted it was. For Deems was a Wall Street man, as his father and grandfather had been before him. He had no more use for a screen career than he would have had for a third thumb. There wasn't any doubt that Deems was headed for Hollywood's Glamour Boy No. 1 with all the top rating stars flocking around him. But, believe it or not, I was the only one to arouse any interest in him at all that day. This is how it happened. I heard shrieks of laughter coming from the part of Frances' garden she has given over to her two sons. It's hidden from the house and the terrace, where we were having luncheon, by a row of pepper and Eucalyptus trees and only her closest friends know of the miniature zoo and aviary that's back there. Now I can never resist Fred and Dick and whatever game their vivid imaginations have seized on, so I sneaked away from the party to say hello to them. That's how I met Dirk, his eyes round as he watched the antics of the two honey bears, and I was flattered when Fred insisted I stay to see their circus. Fred was balancing himself on the tight rope strung between two trees when I realized someone else was watching the game, too. I looked up and there stood Deems, his eyes tender as he looked at that small boy of his doing a tumbling act with Big Boy, the St. Bernard. ■ "It's a great place for kids out here, isn't it?" he asked. A blind man could have seen Deems' absorbing interest in his boy. He told me things I don't think he'd ever told anyone before, certainly not a stranger he'd just met. But it was enough for him that I liked Dirk. Somehow, it was a lonely picture Deems painted of himself without intending it to be that way at all. But I could see the little rich boy he'd been, who had grown up and married a girl he loved only to lose her and who hadn't cared for anything after that except his work and his son. So, I understood how Deems felt when we went back to the others and he seemed so aloof and alone for all that he was so gracious to everyone. Wilma came late that day and, as usual, she was surrounded by admirers. But for once their adoration wasn't enough for her. Her eyes followed Deems, who wasn't paying any attention to her at all, and for the first time I saw something very close to pique come into them. That was a luxury for Wilma. She always steered clear of any emotion, knowing what feeling anything intensely can do to a woman's looks. I was interviewing her the next day For the first time in her life she was obvious. Wilma was actually going after a man and he couldn't see her for dust. and, as usual, I dreaded it. But when I got there it was different than it ever had been before. Wilma seemed really interested in seeing me and was obviously in a chatting mood, which is the greatest blessing a star can bestow on a scribbler intent on a story. But it wasn't long before I knew what lay underneath it all. Deems, of course. It was the first time I had seen her take an active interest in anyone. I told her about the httle boy and how absorbed Deems was in him and then I wished I hadn't. For Wilma's eyes grew speculative as she listened and I realized she was preparing a campaign to get Deems' interest. And Deems was too good for that. "Do you know I'm thinking of adopting a baby," she said. Any other time I would have seized on that, knowing that for once I was really getting a story from her. But even as she said it, I made up my mind that was one story I'd never write. It was so palpable that she wanted to put herself down as a lover of children in order to get Deems' sympathy. And I was certain, too, that by the time the story was published Wilma would be off' on some other tangent and Deems would be forgotten and the story would make a laughing stock of both me and the magazine that had published it. Wilma went around a bit after that. She was at the Santa Anita race track the day Deems was there as a guest of Bing Crosby's and she attended the polo games the days Deems played and she even went to the West Side Tennis Club matches, though everyone knew she hadn't the least interest in sports of any kind. For the first time in her life she was obvious and for the first time, too, a little ridiculous. She always managed to be part of the group Deems was with and, though he was as charming to her as he was to everyone else, it ended where it began with just that. And polite interest wasn't enough for Wilma. She was actually going after a man and he couldn't see her for dust. I was amazed the day Wilma called me and asked me to go to the desert with her over the week-end. Then when I read my morning paper I saw the reason. Deems and little Dirk were listed among the guests staying at La Quinta. Of course, we went there and registered at the same hotel and that afternoon Wilma put on the briefest and most glamourous bathing suit I'd ever seen and wandered down to the swimming pool. It would be amazing enough to see Wilma actually dipping into the pool with no regard for the blazing desert sun streaming down on it, without her seeking out little Dirk and getting into a huddle with him. Wilma who had never had the slightest use for a child before. There they were stretched out beside the pool and she seemed like a kid herself, laughing with him as she helped him launch his toy sailboat and watching its progress as breathlessly as himself. Deems went over to them and something happened as he looked at them. They seemed to belong together, the woman and the boy. He grinned and his whole face lit up so that you could see the other times he'd been smiling it hadn't meant anything at all. The three of them went on a picnic the next day and the night before we were going home Deems invited us to dinner in his suite, and it was amusing to see Wilma insist on going into Dirk's room and hearing his prayers and tucking him into bed. "Do you know," she said simply as she came back, "I always used to think children were a bore. But Dirk makes me know what I've missed. I wish he belonged to me." At first, I thought she was being clever, then suddenly I sensed her honesty sprang from something deeper than that. I looked at her and I was amazed at what I saw in her eyes, loneliness and hunger and sadness. Even a clever actress couldn't have simulated those emotions so poignantly and Wilma had never been a clever actress. It had begun as a game. I knew that. But in those brief days her game had become a reahty. We left the next morning with Deems coming down to see us off, his hand holding Wilma's as if he never wanted to let it go again as he said goodbye. "I'll be back at the end of the week," he promised. "We have a lot to make up for Wilma, so many days, so many years. Goodbye . . . darling." Wilma was crying as our car sped away. "Did you hear what he said?" she whispered. "He called me, darling!" So many men had called her that, lightly or intensely or in despair and it hadn't meant anything. Now it was as if she were hearing it for the first time.