Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Hollywood — The TSand of Hope that, pretty and smart as she was, she refused to set off to Hollywood to try her fortune. " Nice figure Fd make going off to Hollywood," she confided to Jo. " Me, brought up in a little bum place like this and going amongst all them swell stars. Don't I know that I'm better off here with them all thinking Fd be a great success than coming back with my tail between my legs and all my money spent? " And yet, paradoxically enough, a girl so well balanced was possibly the very kind of girl who might have climbed to success at Hollywood. For never was there a place where feminine beauty counted less and feminine vitality more. But even with her well-balanced mentality she might not have been able to pass the portals — not those entrance portals with buzzing or clattering doors, for to be sitting on the plush-covered seats waiting for somebody is already a big step upward ; the doors to which we refer are the doors of the central casting-bureau. Here the aspirant must apply for work. Unless she can show some recommendation from a director or an assistant, she is only wasting her time. As in Monte Carlo, if she has not the money with which to return home, her ticket is paid and she is shipped back without delay. All the professions are full in Hollywood, even the oldest. For Hollywood may spell disillusion for lovely woman. Here she is told the exact value of her face, which, unless it is backed by an arresting personality, is exactly that of a weekly wage-earner in a shop, restaurant, or drug-store. The casting-bureau has, they say, at least twenty thousand names on its books, all listed under their possible and characteristic parts, so that here Gilbert's lyric is only too true: Lord Chancellors were cheap as rats, And Bishops in their shovel hats Were commoner than tabby cats . . . And Dukes were three a penny. t233]