HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18550, 25 August 1928, Page 19 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

By

MOLLIE MERRICK.

No. I. This article introduces to the readers of the “ Stcr ’* a new and entertaining contributor. Miss Mollie Merrick, whose dispatches from Hollywood will form a bright chronicle of the whirling activities of the cinema capital of the world. Miss Merrick lives right among the players. She knows the stars and their foibles, and she knows the ‘ extras and their heartbreaks. Hollywood and its vivid personalities will live in her column. This article gives a general oen picture of Hollywood as Mit s Merrick sees it.

HOLLYWOOD, California, July 16. IT lias been called various names, by various people—gelatine town, movieland, Cinema ville. It is known from one end of the earth to the other. A tag rather than a I own. Hollywood spells romance to a world of reality. It represents adventure—glory—success, attained in swift, fairy-tale fashion. A place where every extra may he a beggar maid, any director a King Cophetua; where Hie pauper to-day is the prince tomorrow. More workers here than in any community of its size on earth. Varying elements. Main Street meeting Fifth Avenue. Sunshine and beauty of the Riviera, intrigue and indirection, playboys and playgirls of the earth come here seeking new diversion. Retired lowa farmers hunt it out as the ideal place in which to grow old in perpetual sunshine. Grandmothers who

were gingham aprons and helped "Pa" with the chores -in their youth roll their stockings and bob their greying locks in Hollywood. It has a certain reckless touch, for it represents the marriage of sophistication and hard common sense.

Hollywood Boulevard is not more than a dozen blocks long in its business core. Five, years ago there were occasional churches, numerous parkin;places. To-day smart shops and popu Jar eating places have elbowed eff all but established successes. Gowns from the Rue de la Paix, priced to remind you of .Franck; entire shops given over to perfumes; useless extravagain whimsies at every hand.

Here is the world’s largest colony of spoiled feminine beauty. To serve it have come the Charles, the Jacques, the Nicoles. Bandolined gen ties, bland and suave; murmurous voices and lick, reassuring hands. To them a perfect finger wave is the acme of art; and to the ladies they serve. Each ndividual hair is trimmed, coiled precisely. baked into shape, skilfully pa teed; grand and impressive "flubdub" Polvglot cars crowd the Boulevard, from England, Italy, Spain. Patrician motors, for boys and girls horn on Tenth Avenue or Wyoming cattle anger. Genius graduated from a comfortless Russian village.

Gilda Gray in an orchid Rolls Royce Cabbage fields in Poland, Shimmy Queen in Chicago. Movie star in Hollywood. A biography in three sen tencec, and an ambition aptly expressed in the blatantly beautiful car.

Beauty * advertisements at every hand. Noses made over,' chins defatted, crow’s feet ironed out. .plastic surgery in perfection. The camera eye in cruel and movies must have youth at any cost. John will take his 180pound Mary to the cinema, but the girl on the silver screen must be waferthin. lie will squeeze the ample arm of his spouse affectionately, but his ! eye must be fed by a willow-slim nymph. Din of motor horns, a crushing surge of traffic. Clara Bow still in her teens a few years removed from Pa’s Coyev Island eating ‘house. And subway rides; an eternity removed in point of experience. The IT girl of moviedom. Flaming red hair, laughing eyes, same love of life that characterised the lean days; silhouette that makes women sigh with envy and middle-aged men wish they had done their daily dozen more faithfully. Clara’s once brown hair is now warmly red. The once inevitable gum is relegated to hours of privacy. Clara has been groomed for stardom.

Green and white awnings. Impres give doormen. Food served with ar accompanying sight of the famous; paid for by eveful as well as by mouth ful.

Hollywood where life is a seesaw Up in the morning, down at night

Here to-day, gone to-morrow. Flaming comets, dark stars. But heaven to a lot of people nevertheless.

At every hand the influence of the cinema. Shops have the colour and quality of stage sets—Spanish patios, unexpected fountains. Everywhere colour and gaiety and life. It is a town made for youth, designed to feed beauty-hungry souls. Dancing in the luncheon places; orchestras with fifty - cent meals.

Sandwiches and “hot-dog” stands do a great business, silk hosiery manufacturers flourish. Heads must be curled, nails manicured. Clothing jaunty, even if the stomach be empty. Alice White, the idol of the boulevard super-flapper. Red-headed to-day, mustard-topped to-morrow. Twinkling calves and tiny feet. Colourful vocabulary, raw slang of the studios lit by occasional individual flashes.

Life at full tide. A disarming frankness in admissions of innermost thoughts and feelings. The most startling and interesting type motion pictures have given Hollywood. While the average housewife is deciding whether to bob her hair, Alice

White has passed from stenograpner at the Writers’ Club to script girl at a studio; into small parts, next leads; to-day a star. Every star has five points. Alice’s are Live, Love, Laugh, Let-the-other-fellow-worrv. Let-no-opportunity-pass. She is a thousand suppressed desires come to life. A husky-voiced girl with no inhibitions and much ambition. An eye like a naughty angel and a wink whose eloquence has done much to 'weep her to the heights. Hollywood has a code all its own. An artist sports an imported car one lay. drives the humblest of the homemade variety the next. No questions asked. It may happen to anyone, any day. Reputations pass in the night—mysteriously. Cinema life moves so rapidly' that often the successful one is not missed—for some time. Actors carry' their own trays in the twenty-cent cafeteria in lean times. Swagger into dim-lit regions where ser vice is sleek and linens are slick when they are in funds. Nobody remarks. Life of extravagances abandoned and resumed as the tide of luck ebbs and flows. The Bohemiatiism of the Boulevard is beyond cavil.

Theda Bara, Warren Kerrigan. Florence Lawrence, Florence Turner, William Farnum, Bob Santschi—a score of old favourites of the cinema live within a stone s throw of the studios. Most of them would come back to the clicking eyes if opportunity offered. Mae Marsh has been sought repeatedly' by directors who cannot forget her whimsical smile, but maternity claims her entire attention.

Every train that pulls into the station brings its freight of movie-ites. Boys and girls from small towns and vast cities; lads from obscure streets, girls from luxurious homes. Youth seeking short-cuts to fame, ready to stand wearying hours in mud and rain, willing* to endure the heart-breaking routine of the casting offices, desperately hoarding their little stake while waiting for the "Break.”

The “break” comes, sometimes the reverse of luck, and the boy becomes a soda-jerker or an usher. The girl a waitress or a clerk in a store. Or the "break” comes on the glowing side ol the fate coin. A bewildered lad finds himself blinking dazedly in the white light of fame won overnight. Besieged by interviewers, by insurance men, by motor-car salesmen,' by real estate men. The girl proves to be a “natural.” and beauty' experts, social instructresses, ladies’ maids and all the pageant of sycophants who follow success surround her. In three months they forget the lean days. Life moves fast in Hollywood. (Copyright by the “Star" and the Nor'i American Newspaper Alliance. All rights reserved. )