Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Star-dust in Hollywood you still want to see around the lot, why I'll get you into it." " All right," I answered, " let us look in at a movietone production and the lithograph is yours/ ' "You mean that?" he cried, his eyes sparkling. " All right. Meet me to-morrow at eleven in the Publicity Department. " We refrained from putting what might have been a damper on his ardour by offering to sell him as many of my lithographs as he would take at two pounds apiece. We had to wait a long time outside the movietone stage before a signal told the doorkeeper that the * shooting ' had come to a temporary halt. In the interval we were smuggled through the discreetly opened door. Even an everyday set hardly welcomes the intruder. He is a tolerated nuisance ; the stars prefer his absence to his presence. They have become used to acting in a vacuum, and, far from stimulating them to higher flights, an audience hampers their ease of expression. It makes them self-conscious. But here, where the actors were still feeling nervous in experimenting with an almost untested technique, the atmosphere was charged with an amount of subconscious dislike that almost amounted to a smack in the face. Feeling like very small mice in the presence of an annoyed cat, we hid ourselves in a darkened corner and tried to become as inconspicuous as possible. Jo, who had a slight cold, sucked a cough-lozenge with all her might and prayed for no preliminary warnings of a tickle in the throat. I became very conscious of my superfluous pounds and inches. However, the scene was just beginning, and there was no time for the actors to concert an objection to our presence. Here was none of the bustle and jollity that ruled on the [278]