Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Star-dust in Hollywood daking a chob ass an egstra at seffen tollars a tay. Yess, me vot vos vunce a director 'imself." " A director ! " I ejaculated in astonishment ; his false whiskers idealized him and made him seem remote from any hint of possible Hollywood success. " Sure," he said, " I vos directing for Anna Veigell. Vot a voman ! She tink 'erself joost as big as Got Almighty. She vont everything joost as she like id, and herself in de mittle all de time. * Anna,' I says to her, ' you can't make de film dat vay.' But vot can I do 'gainst her? She got de money. And she go on like a crazy t'ing, like a maniac. Yell, I dell you, it vos de most God-dam awful flop dat effer you see in your born life. And den it's me for de dump. Sure. You can't make a flop like dat in Hollywood an' get another chob. And me wit' a vife and four kids, and dis is de first chob I gets me in eighteen months. Dat's pooty mooch like hell, dat iss. And only to tink dat eighteen months ago I direct myself, yess. . . ." As the assistant director of another film confessed : " Sure I been a director. Flop? Why, you could have heard it from here to San Francisco. Ain't it just lousy when you gets to a place like that, and then, for no fault of your own, you goes straight to the bottom again ! It's this way, mister. My leading man was drunk from the start to the finish. Half the time he didn't turn up on the sets, and when he did his acting was lousy. And we got 'way behind time on schedule. And, gee, it was a flop ! Three months before I'd been thinking : ' I'm right at the top now, excuse my dust.' And then to find yourself clear at the bottom again, so deep down that you're clean out of sight. Nobody's going to use a flopped director : he might butt in. He's got to learn to be humble again. And he learns all right, I can tell you that. Sure he learns. Why, I couldn't even get a job in the Props Department. I tell you that a chap who [242]