HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 242, 12 October 1929, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

GOSSIP OF THE-STUDIOS. ' (By MOLLIE MERRICK.) HOLLYWOOD (CAL.) Sept. 20. "There.was once an orchestra leader and liis 'band of musicians " With, this charming 'beginning, sit down and figure out the rest of the Paul Whitenran picture for yourself. Then perhaps you'll know wtat Dr. Paul Fejos is up against. Given a music personality wonth in the neighbourhood of five thousand a day— j who needs a story?

: "The man is a story in himself— —" ■ No, 1 didn't eay that,.'but I heard it said.' :

Two Boulevard eating places keep open after midnight. And only two. The soda fountains' furl their paper napkins at midnigM and are off to beddybye.: And the restaurants do not encourage an after dinner trade. :•■': ■ The all-night rivals are located one at each- end of -the Boul. proper. The Boul. ds only a ! bout a dozen blocks; long in its intensive'business district. Beyond that either way, it branches out into a residence district to the west and Automo'bile Itow to the. east. And the two all-night centres of gaiety are delicatessen and restaurant combined and are supported largely by the lesser lights of filmdom, 'brightened by occasional vieits of.the mighty at such times as hunger assails them downtown after- curfew has struck.- . •I . happened into one of these last evening for that very reason —hunger. JEven Oonrad Nagel has been known to do the same thing, so I had perfect justification. : A red-faced man in plus fours was leaning on the delicatessen counter opening his'heart, so to speak, to the clerk. .. '•'.'.-.' ' "So itihis is the Hollywood I've 'heard about," said-he, scornfully. "The awful centre of iniquity—the lecherous spot of America! Well, I'll have you know. I'm ipaet ; seventy, and I've never been so 'bored in all my days.

"I came out to-night —not to eatjust to take a little walk before going to bed. I wanted to see if everyone in this town was asleep. They are! I've travelled in every country. Lived in every big city from London to Buenos Aires. . And I have never been accused of going to bed before three a.m. in the "But I've 'beat my record here.- Why, even the lights are out in the houses. Yes, sir! They don't 'burn electricity after ten. I walked about these streets the other night and I saw one'.-lighted house at one o'clock in the morning. I was 6O curious that I walked up to the window to look dn. And what do you suppose I saw? An old fellow—as old as myself—reading- a newspaper in his shirtelegves. Hollywood—a town of actors that punch a time clock ait eight in the morning and think they're devils if they drink a finger of gin as late as ten at night." My escort and I-agreed, so he left in high good' humour—a fine old,lad of the two-bottle regime, scoffing' the puny follies of movieland. . s

Nobody is getting a bigger kick out of talking pictures than Laura Hope , Crews, who is ■ teaching ■ movieites to speak for «the mike. She can be found on any set that is registering signs of activity, 'and she will sit for hours waiting for the'scene to be shot. "Two years ago," I accused 'her, "'when you were at the Guild Theatre in New York, you had. no notion of this, did you?" . ■ . "No," ehe grinned., "but this is tike loveliest vacation I've had in years. Why, tohe sun shines all the time and you can drive so far and so tf&st. And. everyone is so interested ■ and amusing

And tho money rolls in, I might add. All New Yorkers regard Hollywood as the ideal vacation place. And among us, movies there can be found the young person who speaks three languages "fluidly;"

These are "bumeln" days in Hollywood hamlet. The bumeln (pronounced boom-el, as near as this nervous typewriter" will register it) is an informal thing. More, it is impromptu. You are likely to start a bumeln when your hostesses' cocktails have been potent arid ' frequent and you've forgotten that' the director is a dog, the producer a monster, and the morrow an aching stretch of toil. The bumeln starts anywhere, and ends everywhere. It is a noisy, spirited progression from night club to cafe, from Russian art groups where the pirojok and borsch put one in adventurous humour, to the prosy counter' of a , white lunch or the still more Bohemian locale of a street-car lunch place.

Beach shooting' galleries have come into favour as a phase of the bumeln evening. Dainty beauties trek' into'the all-night delicatessens of the- village bearing trophies of the sport. Two large plaster of Paris lions, , a huge wooden cat, four kewpie dolls,and an aluminium coffee pot were in the collection of a vivacious brunette as her share of a beach bumeln the other night.

MISS SOPHIE TUCKER, so beloved of London, and especially of the "Kit-Cat" and "Coliseum" audiences, has now gone on the movie-talkies, and is here seen caparisoned {or the fray in "Honky Tonk." When Sophie Tucker was in London she kept repeating that "Nobody Loves a Fat Girl," but London would not have this at any price.

This new sport is more favoured than the treasure hunt which waxed so furious that frequently its participants were no earthly good to register emotion at nine in the morning. Come to think of it, what a ghastly experience it must be to roll out of bed, roll under the shower, roll over the road to the studio, where a roll of film is shot into the camera, and the lady or man is told to roll out a little high-powered emotion. Eight on top of breakfast, it's what I call a shame. Jack Gilbert has one great ambition — to make Monte Cristo in talk. Gilbert made the story several years ago. It was one of his finest essays in celluloid. Gilbert has the grace •to say that his first talkie didn't thrill him overmuch. He saw how much work lay ahead of him. This leads me to believe that as time goes on Gilbert will improve in his talking technique. There's always hope for .the person who doesn't think he knows it all.