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246 Yes, Mr. DeMilk Five months later a second writer was engaged. His salary was $750 weekly. At first the two writers worked together, then moved into separate quarters, taking time out only for those dreaded conferences with DeMille, whose patience was getting thinner by the minute. DeMille assigned Writer No. 2 to the task of checking what Writer No. 1 had written thus far toward a screenplay. He ad- vised DeMille that in his opinion it lacked a basis for a story, even though he was aware that DeMille had contributed much to the material thus far. Writer No. 2 was of an independent turn of mind, and we felt as the days wore on that he wasn't going to last much longer. One afternoon DeMille returned a few pages of copy to the newcomer. "This stuff is ghastly. What does it mean?" the producer said with a grunt of derision. A seasoned staff man would have fended off the thrust with a smile, knowing the boss's weakness for this sort of hyperbole. Perhaps he really liked the material but wanted to hear the writer justify his story approach. Writer No. 2, no apostle of the way of life in the bungalow, put on his coat and departed. Writer No. 3 was brought in, at $300 a week, to bend his efforts to furthering the story line, while Writer No. 1 worked on the script itself. It was not usual to start writing a script when the story itself was incomplete. "We've been at it a year now and we still don't have a story,'* DeMille said grimly, one day. He remembered a circus classic, the silent movie Variety, which starred Emil Jammings. Its plot suited DeMille in every way; it was great drama. The boss waxed lyrical over the old silent movie, like a collector fondling a rare gem. For weeks we lived on a diet of Variety. If only we could hit upon something with the same power. In Variety, a husband