HOLLYWOOD’S STARS HAVE FEW SERVANTS.
There is a popular legend that a Hollywood star is surrounded by chauffeurs, footmen and butlers.
From time immemorial one sure sign of temperament in the male or female head of the house has been the frequent firing of people in their service; but there probably is less hired help in Hollywood than in any other aggregation of luxurious people elsewhere. When the motion pictures were introduced, the stars went in for huge houses with huge staffs of domestics. To-day, Hollywood rather inclines towards simplicity in dwellings with no multiplicity of servants, and they stay not for a few months, but for years and years.
How long on the average do you keep your cook, if any? Richard Dix has had his coloured chef for ten years. The chef used to be a railway cook. Dix has no other servant. Clara Bow’s cook has been with her for three years. One maid completes the household. Clara drives her own car.
As for the simplicity amid which the stars twinkle when off the screen, you’d be surprised. Chauffeurs are as scarce in Hollywood as motor-cars are plentiful. There is hardly a parlour maid in a carload of celebrities. You could count the butlers on your fingers; offhand. The only butlers are those at the Fairbanks’ place, the James Gleason house in Beverley Ilills, and at Ruth Chatterton’s. A footman in livery is simply non est.
Nancy Carroll has a maid; Gary Cooper has a cook; Jack Oakie has a houseworker who comes in for part of the day; William Powell has one servant. Mary Brian, living in an apartment, has a secretary. Frances Dee and June Collyer, also living in apartments, have no employees at all. Regis Toomey has one; Kay Francis has a maid. Buddy Rogers has one general houseworker.
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Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 25 (Supplement)
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305HOLLYWOOD’S STARS HAVE FEW SERVANTS. Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 25 (Supplement)
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