Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Hollywood — ^Acting on the Film suit with a yellow shirt-front and cuffs was modelling a small copy of the Discobolus, that Discobolus which so shocked Canadian morals in the days of Samuel Butler; "O God, O Montreal." Jo spoke to him and found that his ambition was to become a sculptor. " I work like this whenever I get the chance," he told her. " I'd go to the evening classes if I could, but a chap like me has to be at parties pretty nearly every night. I've got to keep in contact with the big guys. That's the only way I can get jobs. Otherwise I'd be listed with the twenty thousand other extras at the central casting-bureau, and if I got one day's work a month I'd be lucky. You just have to be seen all the time, and that takes up your evenings." On a garden-bench a row of old and seemingly aristocratic gentlemen dozed away the afternoon. The ruck of Hollywood actors, even the stars, spend the greater part of their time waiting like this. Ten minutes' work out of a seven or eight-hour day is a good average. The rest of the time is spent in comparative mental vacuity, playing cards, or gossiping. The young sculptor was a bright exception. Very few read books. Small wonder then that the wits of Hollywood are dulled and unresponsive ! No greater contrast could be imagined than the difference between Cruze's directing and that of Von Sternberg. Meticulous artistry did not interest Cruze ; he was concerned with the task of telling the story as vividly as possible and of getting the work done as rapidly as good picturemaking would permit. The difference was like that between a lusty scene-painter slashing on his effects with a broad brush and a Pre-Raphaelite slowly building up his effects by an accumulation of carefully considered detail. But, to