Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Hollywood — The ^Artist of the Film know is : did you take a moving-picture camera with you to Albania ? Jo. No. You see our idea in travelling is to go with as little luggage as possible. When possible we only take our rucksacks. . . . Mr Goldwyn, who could not imagine anybody travelling at all except for the purpose of arranging to have movies taken, to take them oneself, or to sell or hire out movie films, lost interest, and turned to his other neighbour, the deluded Viennese star. However, he kindly gave us introductions to the " United Artists," and by the usual stages we arrived at the Publicity Department, and by it were given the freedom of the place. The United Artists was much freer and easier than the Paramount or the M.G.M. It was not dominated by a single management. Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Samuel Goldwyn, D. W. Griffiths, Lubitsch, and others here pursued semi-independent courses with little in common except the use of the studios, workshops, the gymnasium called Basilica Linea Abdominalis, and the Artistic Department headed by a brilliant artist in his line, W. C. Menzies. Probably the Publicity Department of the Paramount would have forbidden us to study this section of their activities. That stars and actors were illusionary they admitted, but then glamour can be built up round the fact that the salary of the illusion may be as much as £1000 a day. A thousand a day transforms a very ordinary person into a good imitation of a superman, for we are all prone to believe that anyone who can be paid so much is therefore intrinsically (not merely commercially) worth the money. We are content that the superman should stoop to create illusion. So it might be also with the scenery. We should not quarrel emotionally with the medieval castle, though we might be aware of its falsity, if the castle had cost as much in [175]