HOLLYWOOD AUSTERITY

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1943, Page 8

HOLLYWOOD AUSTERITY

HOW THE STARS LIVE Florabel Muir, London “Daily Telegraph” Hollywood correspondent, writes: — , , Hollywood, where money used to be the magic wand with which the world’s film favourites could obtain almost anything they might want, is finding it. hard to adjust itself to the lean days of war. The time has gone when unlimited supplies of petrol, butter, meat, vegetables, fruit or silk stockings or shoes could be taken for granted. Those who have not yet learned to do without patronise the black market, but even they are discovering that it has its disadvantages. The steak they buy for 7/6 a pound usually turns out to be tough California cow instead of Kansas .City corn-fed steer. The butter purchased by devious means for nearly twice the ceiling price contains almost as much water' as butter fat. One star learned his lesson when he made secret arrangements to buy five new tyres for £75 on the black market. They were delivered late at night at his garage, and he cautiously made the seller tear off part of the wrapping paper in order to make sure that they were new. They appeared to be very good tyres indeed. On the following day, when his chauffeur removed the rest of the paper, he found that these contraband acquisitions bore the mark of the United • States Army. He told his chauffeur to get rid of them as rapidly as possible, and that night they were abandoned in a quiet back street.

The more serious members of the film colony are making earnest efforts ot adjust themselves to the new conditions. Many have sold their homes and moved into small apartments. Those ladies who were posing’ in their kitchens for the photographers not long ago are now learning to cook in all earnestness. i The most indifferent cook asks £25 a month with, board and lodging, and those who really have soffie culinary skill obtain from £4O to £5O a month. In very few homes are to be found the complete staffs of efficient servants of pre-war days. Maria Jeritza still has the four servants she brought with her from Vienna, and is in consequence one of the rare hostesses who can still give a large dinner party. Even she has to borrow an assistant butler from the Army. Albert,- a private stationed at Fort MacArthur, spends his days of leave at her house, shedding his uniform for the occasion.

Servants always receive higher wages in Hollywood than eleswhere because of the long hours, the mammoth parties, and the often unreasonable demands of newly-rich mistresses. Now there is a constant auction for their services in progress at the Beverly Hills employment office, where one sees screen stars trying to outbid producers’ wivrts in a most reckless fashion. Linda Darnell gave up her big home in the San Francisco Valley, 25 miles from the Twentieth-Century Fox studio, and now has an apartment behind the studio from which she can walk to work. Her flat is so small that she can do all her own housework .in an emergency. Hundreds of country estates are being abandoned and sold at heavy loss because their owners cannot obtain petrol for the drive to and from their studios, much less to theatre-going or night club visits in Los Angeles, one of the most sprawling cities in the United States. Houses in Beverly Hills and Hollywood which filmland used to scorn are being snatched up at fancy rents simply because they are within walking distance of drug stores, grocers’ shops, cinemas, post-boxes or ’bus or tram routes. All the film stars who own estates of more than 10 acres in the San Fernando Valley are given a farmer’s rating by their rationing board, which enables them to obtain the petrol necessary for journeys to their studios and for a certain amount of pleasure driving. Those who have less, than 10 acres are frantically buying up land to qualify for more petrol.

Shortage of man-power is all but crippling the film industry. Clarke Gable, Tyrone Power, Van Heflin, Victor Mature, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Robert Montgomery, Gene Autry, Douglas Fairbanks, jun., Laurence Olivier, Richard Greene, David. Niven, Robert Taylor, Ronald Reagan and a number of others have gone off as a result of the war, many of them into the armed services, and picture producers are forced io fall back on the older stars. OLD-TIMERS’ “DAY” Such actors as Ronald Colman, Brian Donlevy, Bob Hope, Bing' Crosby, Gary Cooper and Paul Muni can ask for almost .anything they want and get it. New and old film players are being turned into stars overnight. James Craig, who was first 'noticed in “Kitty Foyle,” is an example of what is happening to the younger actors. There is a spirited contest amongst the studios to borrow him, and his salary has doubled. Amongst those who had been almost forgotten is Charles Starrett, who had been given fourth-rate cowboy roles for a number of years and recently signed a new contract with Columbia which promises him bigger and better parts. Another is Johnny Mack Brown, the star football player, who once appeared with Greta Garbo but has been playing only in cowboy films in recent years. He is married and has three children, and, like Starrett, who has twins, he is not likely to be drafted. John Wayne is in the same category. He has four children. There is also a grave shortage of technical experts. Hundreds of camera-men and sound-men are enlisting or being drafted into the Signal Corps. Scenario writers have been snatched up to write propaganda films. There are still plenty of producers and associate producers, the only big name that is missing being that of Darryl Zanuck, who gave up an income of £150,000 a year to supervise the photographing of battle scenes in North Africa.

This is not true, of course, of the directors and of some who rank as director-producers, including Frank Capra and John Ford, both of whom have been making war films for the Army Signal Corps. According to the latest compilation 27,677 members of the motion picture industry are now in the armed forces. The majority of these (some 18,000) are men who were working in the cinemas all over the land, while another 4,700 are from the home offices of the film companies. The Hollywood studios have contributed 5,177 men, of whom 041 pre"actors, 32 directors and 224 writers. Howard Hughes, the multi-million-aire oil man, aviator and plane builder, who dabbles in picture making, flew in the face of newly established customs recently when he transported 50 reviewers and their wives from Los Angeles to San Francisco for the gala opening of his film, “The Outlaw.”

Although it is difficult to travel up and down the West Coast nowadays, he managed to charter a plane and a whole coach on the Lark, the crack train of the Southern ' Pacific Railroad. Entertainment was on a lavish scale, but Mr. Hughes was almost forgotten when a rumour spread that Chiang Kai-shek had arrived in San

Francisco. All the reporters disappeared in a vain search for the Generalissimo. I found that San Francisco was far more war-conscious than Los Angeles possibly because there are so. many men there waiting to join, ships leaving lor the battle zones. IN THE DIM-OUT Lt.-Gen. John DeWitt, who is in charge of the 9th Corps Area, which includes the whole Pacific Coast, rules this region with an iron hand. Ignoring political pressure, he moved all Japanese inland before any sabotage occurred. He stopped horseracing and large gatherings for more than a year. Recently he banned the sale of spirits in the entire area after midnight, and he will not permit gambling in Nevada, with its popular desert resorts, after two a.m. He saw to it that all neon signs were extinguished and that the dimout was enforced wherever lights might be visible at sea. This put an end not only to night golf and night baseball, but to Hollywood parties on flood-lit tennis courts and in brilliantly illuminated swimming pools. Night-time picnics on the beaches are also a thing of the past. Life near the sea is so dreary in these days of darkened streets and driving with nothing but parking lights that of the big houses at Malibu and along the Santa Monica “gold coast” are deserted. " Horticultural establishments are doing a roaring trade in seeds, plants and “victory garden” equipment. All ■jhe “starlets” are busy trying to grow vegetables, and patios where roses once bloomed are now bristling with artichokes. The intention is admirable, but the results for the most part are disappointing, for California is probably the worst place in the world for gardening. Pests are legion. They increase and multiply from one year to the next because there are no cold Winters, and, as a result of the war, it is difficult to obtain chemicals with which to fight them. Orange groves which were models of cleanliness are now given over to the rust which is always waiting to move in. The Japanese, who formerly monopolised the vegetable growing business on this coast, used to fight insects the hard way by putting in long hours of back-breaking work. Amateur gardeners find such chores a burden, and in the markets there is a dearth of the tomatoes and strawberries in which the Japanese specialised.

The expensively-tailored uniforms of various volunteer organisations in which many Hollywood women appeared soon after Pearl Harbour are disappearing from the scene. It is felt that their wearers look rather foolish when a “Wave” or a “Waac” walks into the room, and in any case the soldiers and sailors have made it plain that they prefer to see pretty dresses when they are on leave. Entertaining is now very informal and evening clothes are seldom worn. A.t the Howard Hughes opening in San Francisco all the women wore short dinner dresses with hats, and none of the men changed. Raising funds for good causes all over the world has become the principal war-time activity of Hollywood. The fear of invasion which spread after Pearl Harbour is vanishing. Black-outs are few and far between, and most people have believed since the Battle of Midway that the Japanese wall find it too difficult to visit the Pacific Coast even for a token raid. Defence workers have become so bored that the authorities warned them recently that unless they attended more meetings they would lose their C cards, which entitle them to more petrol than the average civilian.