Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Qhapter XI HOLLYWOOD— ACTING ON THE FILM NE Sunday evening we played our Spanish folk-music on the laud and guitar at the house of James Cruze, director of The Covered Wagon and The Great Gabbo^ and many other successful productions. Cruze and his wife, better known as Betty Compson, kept open house, an easy hospitality that welcomed great and small with a breezy, democratic sense which still lingers sweetly in some American natures. It was, indeed, one of the few houses of the Movie Great into which we penetrated undisturbed by a subtle feeling that we were being accepted rather as poor relations from the country. The guests were divided naturally into the four groups already shown on the Cruzes' Christmas card. Some were taking advantage of the unlimited whisky and ginger-ale, others were on the love quest ; the small were hunting the great, and the great dodging the small. After having been greeted by our hosts, and having been provided with large doses of hooch, we stood on one side as observers, for nothing is more self-centred than a large community interested in and living upon one central industry, and the provincialism is doubly marked if the industry touches the arts. For the topers and the amorous we had little interest. The great were unknown to us, for their names, however eminent in Hollywood, had not always spread to the outside world, except among their particular fans. Our ignorance of their fame tended to chill them. The small found little profit in us, and even if we did manage to corner one in conversation we usually noticed a wandering look in his eye, which was probably focused just over our shoulder, [197]