FILM STARS’ FOLLIES

Evening Star, Issue 20510, 14 June 1930, Page 22

FILM STARS’ FOLLIES

Fortunes and film stars, in the general imagination, go together. Wo hear of their ermines and jewels, their limousines, and the three or four palatial homes most of them own. Their earnings are immense. Yet, in actual fact, few of them are what we call really rich people. Mabel Normand, supreme queen of the early days of slapstick comedy, proved to have left only £lB,000. _ Of course, she had not been working much for some years, and she was both extravagant and generous. Valentino, idol of a public of millions, certainly loft £100 ; 000, but Barbara La Marr and Max Linder were comparatively poor when they came to their tragic deaths. A man whose name was spelt everywhere in footlights ten years ago is now reduced to borrowing from Ins daughters. Poverty stalks the rich stars of yesterday. So keenly do some of them fear the future that one woman, still at the top of her profession, and wife of a film magnate, has stored bullion and unset jewels in a safe deposit in New York. Stocks and shares, she feels, may vanish, banks perhaps go broke, but her nest egg will remain. The really rich ones of Hollywood (accordinig to an article on the subject in the _ ‘ Daily Mail ’) are those who have invested wisely and lived under their income during the good years. The temptation to extravagance is immense; every star wishes to outshine the others in hospitalilty and sumptuous splendour. But Marion Davies, who is believed to bo the richest woman in Hollywood, owns about £600,000 worth of real estate both in the film city itself and in New York. Greta Garbo lives in mysterious obscurity on a fraction of her immense salary and saves the rest. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks own extensive property, which in a growing community constantly appreciates in value, and they, like Chap-

lin, have done well in real estate. Victor M'Laglen has bought cheap and sold high more than once, and he and his family live simply and save. So does Clive Brook. Lilian Gish, living as quietly as a mouse, is a rich woman. Nearly everyone, from messenger boy to magnate, in America speculates constantly. As stars and_ others go out to lunch they stop daily to scan the share prices. Many of them lost fortunes in the recent “Wall street crash—fatal for the ones who no longer earn, unimportant for those who draw £I,OOO a week. And the wealthiest man of them all is probably Will Rogers, who seems to possess only ono suit, a shabby hat, a delightful ranch with its own polo ground, and a sense of dry humour which brings him ifi a constant flow of gold.