HOLLYWOOD NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 5, 6 January 1934, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD NOTES.

GOSSIP OF THE STUDIOS.

A WORD FROM FREDRIC MARCH.

HOLLYWOOD (Calif.), December 5.

Dear Reader, —Presenting Fredric March, while I rest from wise-cracking at stars to let a star wise-crack at columnists.—MOLLlE MERRICK.

They tell me there are 250 accredited newspaper correspondents in Hollywood —columnists, gossip-writers, photographers. That information helps to piece in my mind the spectacle of your correspondent being hauled in a tumbril by 250 columnists headed for every composing room "hell-box" in America.

I have been asked to write a Hollywood column. Does that, Miss Merrick, cmbrace some privilege of discussing the nature of news dispatches that flash daily from the cinema circus ? If it doesn't, then there are grounds for the hapless destiny expressed in the foregoing paragraph. For I am, if your Sherlockian nature hasn't suspected it already, about to give steam to some random observations on the subject of news from Hollywood.

Without wishing to appear immodest, could I use a personal experience as a case in point? I refer to my recent illness. The ailment was a mild attack of influenza. What I needed was one good night's sleep. Did I get it? Like Rasalas got happiness! Every telephone in the house blasted away all night. The scribes were afraid I was dying, and they weren't going to be "scooped." I'm not sure, and I hope I'm wrong, but a few of the callers seemed disappointed when I answered. After this had gone on for hours I felt like shuffling off just to accommodate the boys. The general tone was that I had no idea how much inconvenience I was causing editors by clinging to life. What is it that keeps millions of words buzzing out of Hollywood to the effect that some thrifty actress has just discovered a potato peel and corn-cob salad; that Mac West has been seen talking to a cop on his beat; that so-and-so aren't speaking becausc his Scotch terrier nipped her Boston bull

the other day? That Sally Swell is not even engaged, let alone married, to Morris Moron, the movie actor.

In short, Hollywood through the keyhole is innocuous stuff, and I am glad to see the better columnists ignore most of it. I earnestly believe it isn't news, and I doubt that people read it seriously. Youthful readers, I believe, are far from eager to follow such information with bated breath; and as for adults, I'm certain they either read between the lines or say, "Why don't they let people lead their own harmless lives 1" I hardly think such notoriety or adulation helps anyone connected with it. Indeed. I'm inclined to believe it was responsible for the decline of the theatre. When famous stage stars arrived in various cities, and were drawn in carriages through the streets, bravoes unhitched the horses and wheeled those personages to their hotels. At the theatre that night they threw violets and jewellery on the stage to demonstrate enthusiasm. Somehow it occurs to me that everyone in that crowd wasn't hurling trinkets across the footlights. And that doesn't imply they didn't enjoy the performance, either. To-day we have the same sort of people. A few of them will get excited and make more sound about it than the impression created by those who appreciate things in silence. I once sat in a stadium next to a group of ardent football fans. The game was a "corker." Yet they didn't smash every hat within reach! They simply took deeper hauls on their cigars or when the tide of victory swept their way. This ramble of observation is, I suppose, nothing but an appreciation of the Hollywood correspondents who have written constructive news. If it doesn't suggest something to the others, then it's all very pointless, because it isn't meant as downright criticism. AVhat I am attempting here, rather, is to suggest some manner of immunity to motion pictures from the misfortune that came to the theatre as a result of notoriety. Strictly speaking, they weren't notorious persons at all. They merely saw an opportunity to flash in print across the nation—"Actress alive, sleeps in coffin" —"Anna Held takes milk bath"—"Actress bathes on horse in surf." That brand of news, taken literally by the public, did the theatre far more harm than it did good to the individuals concerned. Then motion pictures stepped in as the theatre declined, and now it is my hope that newspapers and correspondents won't let film stars make the same unwitting mistakes that the theatre fell into. —FREDRIC MARCH.

When Baby Dietrich played a role in her mother's picture, two armed guards sat about the stages all day. They accompany her everywhere. Marlene says one of the delights of Europe was disposing of the bodyguards that are their invariable accompaniment here. Ncbody wanted to steal the little oi.e f.broad, it seems. But out here —there are plenty who arc minded to snatch her if they could.

The telephone jingles to tell me that Adrienne Ames and Bruce Cabot will be wed to-morrow afternoon in Carlsbad, New Mcxico, thus culminating ( a romance which has had its ups and downs. Adrienne won a Reno decree this Tiiorning. Immediately after, she departed the divorce town for Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Bruce Cabot has been awaiting her. Cabot left here Saturday afternoon. So tomorrow in the little Presbyterian Church at Carlsbad, Adrienne Ames and Jacques du Bujack will be wed.