Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

Those of you who are regular followers of this blog now know why I purchased this particular book...

SO YOU’RE GOING TO TAHITI, EH?…
By Fredric March
[Reprinted from The Screen Guild's Magazine, 1934]



Beverly Hills, Friday August 17th

“Of course, I think that’s the wisest decision you could have made, Flo. You’ll simply love every minute of it.”

“Yes, I think it’ll be fun. You see, Casper finished We Dress Again three weeks ago, so he’s sure now Sam won’t have any retakes for him. Jack and Jill Gorman are going with us, you know.”

“Really? How swell!”

“Oh, yes, they’ve already looked after their passport. I’d do mine today, but I won’t have any time until Monday or Tuesday because Jill and I have got to live at the shops the next few days getting some decent clothes to take.”

Santa Monica, Sunday, August 19th

“Well, Casper, old kid, I don’t envy you that Tahiti business a damn bit. This little boat we’re on is plenty rough enough for me.”

“But, Zeppo, you don’t realize it’s supposed to be something like a mill pond all the way. In fact, I wouldn’t mind going in this little tub if it weren’t for the pitzling and torsing.”

“Be careful of that phrase, Casper, in mixed company. Incidentally, what do you hear about the women down there? Hot stuff, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, just that—too damn hot. A skin you’d love to touch, but God help you if you do! Myron said the other day that Eddie told him they’re all dynamite and to stay away.”

“Geez, I’d almost forgotten, Casper, there’s a guy on board who can tell you all about it. He lived there for months. Hey! Cuthbert! You know Casper Lerch, don’t you? He and his wife and the Gormans are going to Tahiti for a month. Give him the dope.”

“Oh, I say, old boy, what luck! You’ll love every moment of it. By all means take a little house with a Chinaman for a cook and a Tahitian maid. It’s quite the best way to live and really to know the Islands. The sunset off Moorea will intrigue you beyond words and you’ll do nothing but swim and take long walks and bike rides and live on fruit and fish. You’ll be eating raw fish before you return. It’s practically their only food you know.”

“Geez, and I hate fish!”

Beverly Hills, Thursday, August 23rd

“But wait ‘till I tell you what happened, Marian. We’re leaving next Monday—driving up to San Fransisco. Today a notice came back from the passport people in San Fransisco saying I’m not an American citizen. I was born in Brooklyn and Casper in Racine, but when I married Howland I lost my citizenship, because Howland came over from England when he was seven. When I divorced him I must have lost my British citizenship and my marrying Casper didn’t do me a bit of good. I’m still a woman without a country—neither fish, fowl, nor good red henna.”

“That’s the stupidest law I ever heard of, and must make Brooklyn feel pretty sore. Couldn’t you take it up with their Chamber of Commerce?”

“No, we’re leaving in a couple of days.”

“Oh, you’re going away?”

“Oh, surely. You see, they nay be able to get me a certificate of something-or-other to sort of introduce me to the customs men and I’m sure they’ll be nice to me. But when I come back I’ll have to do night school and learn how to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Poor Casper is tearing around today trying to get my certificate business and also to send to get his own passport. I feel so sorry for him—the poor darling had a call from Sam this morning saying he has retakes for him tomorrow and Saturday on We Dress Again. Can you beat it!—the luck of the Lerches, I mean? I’ve never known it to fail. I’d have helped him get the certificate, but I just haven’t a minute. Jill and I still have loads of shopping to fo and we’re having all those people in on Saturday, you know. But, honestly, Marian, have you ever heard of such a silly law?”

“No, I haven’t. What a shame Howland had to come over when he was seven.”

Santa Monica (and Formosa), Friday, August 24th, and Saturday, August 25th

(Retakes—God forbid!)

Beverly Hills, late Saturday afternoon, August 25th

“Tahiti or no Tahiti—I think you’re silly to leave this lovely house.”

“I know it. It seems silly. But I’ve got to get away. I wake up in the middle of the night and start making little notes about things to be done around the house. The Venetian blinds really only work properly on odd Thursdays and Casper’s toilet sings on and on till it drives him to distraction.”

Where is the old buzzard?”

“Why, I haven’t seen him since his third old-fashioned. I imagine he’s taking a touring party through the house. He’s got he heart and mind of a guide. I’ll give him five minutes more and then send out the St. Bernard and a flask. I really can’t blame him for not coming down, though. He worked till one-thirty this morning on retakes and was back at nine. Probably he’s afraid if he comes down he’ll run into Irving or Daryll and they’ll dig up retakes on Barretts or Cellini—and we’ll never get away day after tomorrow.”

“But once you do get off you’ll all have a swell rest on the boat.”

“Oh, I know we will. And there’s nothing to do there but take long walks and swim.”

“But are you sure this is the right time of year? I’ve always heard that September and October were the rainy season.”

“No, I think you’re wrong—at least I hope you are.”

“But I do know, Flo, that you must be very careful what you eat down there. And as for the swimming—be sure you always wear sneakers and take a first-aid kit along with plenty of raw alcohol, because the coral cuts are most infectious and spread right up your body almost immediately.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. Well, say goodby to Casper for us and have a grand time without even a touch of elephantiasis.”

Beverly Hills, Monday, August 27th, 10:00 AM

“Hello, hello, Flo—what’s the matter? I can hardly hear you.”

“Oh, Marian, I can’t bear it—we may not go after all. Casper’s secretary just phoned from the French consul place and told Casper that my certificate thing will get me out of this country and into Tahiti, but I can’t possibly get back into the States without a re-entry something or other, which calls for my former marriage papers, more birth certificates, and more of those awful passport pictures.”

“Oh!, How nice.”

“Isn’t it? I guess I’m just not destined to g. Our only hope is that nice Al Cohn, who says to go ahead and he’ll see what he can do about getting me back in when we return. Isn’t that a pretty picture—me cruising back and forth from San Francisco to Tahiti the rest of my life because they won’t let me off at either end? It just doesn’t seem to mean anything to be born in Brooklyn.”

“I know just what you mean, dear.”

Santa Barbara, Monday, August 27th, 6:00 PM

“Well, you four dears, before you take another drink I want to tell you that I’ve got all the dope for you on Tahiti! Helen Casserly was there last spring and I phone her today and she told me plenty. She says not to think of taking a house—it would take at least two weeks to clean it and put it in order and you’d have the devil’s own time finding decent servants. She says to stay at The Coral Reef Hotel, which is perfectly lovely and the food is really quite good. She says to wear sneakers everywhere as you are liable to all kinds infection; to travel very lightly; not to take any new or good clothes at all, and to protect yourself in everyway possible against leprosy, elephantiasis, and a little blue flower that blooms everywhere and the No-No fish, which is deadly poisonous, but which you can’t find at all when you want to because it’s exactly the color of the sand. But she said you’ll really love every minute of it because the sunsets are so lovely.”

Burlingame, Tuesday, August 28th, 6:00 PM

“But I was there just a few months ago, and although I don’t know this Casserly person, I do know that you must take a house for the month because twenty-four hours in the Coral reef Hotel is plenty long enough for any civilized human. The food is beyond words atrocious and everything about the place is unbearable. You must rent a little car (which will cost you only about $420 for the month), and the drivers are all most attractive. Whatever else you do, be sure not to touch a drop of water until you have boiled it thoroughly. And are you a camera enthusiast, Casper?”

“Yes, rather. Jack and I each have ten rolls of sixteen millimeter film and ten loads of Leica apiece.”

“Well, that’s really a shame, because the duty on your film going to Tahiti is prohibitive, and because of the humidity, it swells and sticks in your camera ten minutes after you’ve loaded it.”

“Gee, that’s too bad. How about the fishing, is it any good?”

“Not particularly, but you won’t mind that because of the greatest fun you’ll have is going out into a boat and looking down through a box with a glass bottom to see the cute little fellows swimming around.”

“Oh, something like Catalina.”

“Yes, only not quite so much fun because it’s only a little box and the glass isn’t magnifying.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I do hope you girls are traveling light. I made the mistake of taking some clothes along and you really never wear them. You wear just the native pareus from four on.”

“From four?”

“Oh yes, everybody rises at four a.m. There’s really no point in trying to sleep later because the whole island wakes at that time and you couldn’t really sleep any longer even if you wanted to.”

“Well, what time do you usually turn in?”

“Oh, there’s the cinema once a week, and Moo Fat’s is a fascinating native cafe, where you’ll go a lot. I should say we were usually in bed by eleven or twelve.”

“Are there some nice long walks around the island?”

“Yes, but be awfully careful about the little blue flower. And whatever you do don’t take any leather shoes—because the humidity is so terrific that everything mildews. But you will love the sunsets—they’re really lovely. And the mangoes are delicious. And the fish isn’t bad at all, for the most part.”

“But Casper doesn’t like fish—even if it’s good.”

“Oh! That’s really a shame.”

Aboard S.S. Maunganui, September 4th, 1418 miles from Tahiti, 2247 miles from San Francisco

“Thank God, he was on board.”

“Who?”

“That nice Mr. Hall. I’m trying to think what he wrote.”

“Why, he co-authored Mutiny on the Bounty and a couple of others.”

“He certainly was a godsend. I haven’t any of the qualms I had before talking to him.”

Neither have I. You know what I really wish, Flo. I almost wish we were going down to live there—right alongside him.”

“I do too. There’s nothing I’d enjoy more—if only Casper liked fish.”


Besides being a wonderful actor on both stage and screen, March also possessed a great sense of humor and ability to talently fill a blank page. Since i have covered him extensively on this blog you will find his autobiograghy here.

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

UNIQUE AND EXTRAORDINARY

By Ann Harding
[Reprinted from The Screen Guilds’ Magazine 1934]


There is a clause in actors’ contracts that always makes me want to hang my head, chew on a finger, dig my bare to in the soft loam and say, “Aw, shucks!” A clause which claims that the actor is “unique and extraordinary.” That is not inserted purely as a compliment, however. The actor is requested to endorse the claim, and is then requires by law and various acts of producer-gods to live up to it.
Now, how can he—after the fan magazines have run him through their mill and turned out just another “new” movie star, complete, C.O.D. for ten to twenty cents, with a full set of hobbies, favorite colors, breakfast foods and purple underwear? A few months later, the usual routine calls for a lead: “Is he slipping?” and after another period, he is neatly buried in a two-page spread: “Can he come back?”

The answer is: “Why should he?”—if you are one of the thousands who have followed his idiotic path through the fan magazine pages, believing, as you read, that “where there is some there is fire.”
How short-sighted of the mags to go so far afield from their grand old Pappy, the honored Fourth Estate. The garbled and twisted versions of what actors actually said in interviews—let alone the out-and-out inventions placed within quotes—have driven all of us into our armor plate at the sight of one of their approaching representatives. At that, the misquotation itself is often less painful than the libelous grammar in which it is couched.

What started this de-bunking mania, anyway? All right—H. L. Mencken—you win. But why bring it into a field of illusion to the millions who find life itself sufficiently debunked to begin with, and seek adventure and romance and beauty vicariously, through the lives of others? We—who according to contract are unique and extraordinary—have at least the touchstone of direct living. And that gift is not lost to us—though fan magazines pour the hottest lead and their most poisonous gas upon us in telling the wistful the “real truth.” Which isn’t the real truth—what is?—and if it were, the greater cruelty is not against us—it is the veil of deeper discouragement in the wistful eyes that read it.

The fan identifies himself with the hero in an hour of high adventure and emotional release. He doesn’t enjoy coming out into a sweltering or freezing or otherwise uncomfortable world, to find on the nearest magazine stand, that the person whose talent and personality have the blessed power to lead him into a land of dreams, is a driveling fool, a fake, or a monster. He feels somehow that he himself has been insulted too. Our fan mail is full of such indignant reactions to the phoney filth, the bald “insinuations” and sewer rakings. The don’t want it, they don’t like it when they get it, and it seems worth a wonder whether indeed this destructive approach is not, to a considerable extent, responsible for the drop in circulation among the more blatant of the scandal mongers.

It is a little fantastic that the boys and girls become enraged at those of us who decline to contribute toward our destruction by giving interviews and making possible those direct misquotes that too frequently follow our conversations with such pencil- pushers. They then set out to “get” us—using the power of print to avenge what they consider a personal grievance. Sporting, I call it. Naturally we withhold donations from the pages trying so cheaply but so doggedly to wring out personal and professional necks.

Fan magazines and actors draw their incomes from the same source. Both would profit by cooperating on a constructive policy for the benefit of the industry as a whole, instead of chasing each other around in this vicious circle. Mutual antagonism is burning brightly—the mags bristling with pins to stick into us—the actors locking themselves behind gates of reticence for sheer self-preservation. How silly, when we could really be of help to each other.

We turn to the Fourth Estate as our only true channel of communication with the world beyond Hollywood—and there IS a world beyond Hollywood, my little kiddies—a world that the fan magazines would have something to sell to, if they could win back our confidence by remembering the days when they were honest-to-God reporters—with a nose for news instead of a taste for unsavory hash. Some of them don’t even blush when an actor says, “But that isn’t news—can’t we think of something that hasn’t been covered so many times?”

Their way of earning a living is to shovel out so many words a month about us. If we don’t give them material, they must invent it to survive. And we can’t give it to them—as things are now and have been for some years—because of that embarrassing clause in our contracts. It has become a violation of our legal obligation to go into their ears as individuals and come out of their presses as rubber stamps of what they think all movie stars ought to sound like.

Obviously they agree that we are “unique and extraordinary”—and delight in printing in just what way they think so. Same to them! All right—let’s cry quits and play something else. Aren’t we all tired of this game? Let’s pretend that each side is “unique and extraordinary” in a decent way, for a change.
The mags can always stop first—we are the only ones who have to keep it up.


Debuting on the Broadway stage in 1921, Ann Harding was eventually brought to Hollywood like many stage actors and actresses due to her lovely speaking voice. Extremely beautiful with waiste-length blonde hair, Harding was promoted as RKO's answer to MGM's Norma Shearer. debuting onscreen in 1931 with Fredric March in Paris Bound, Harding found herself playing mostly in films for the "women's pictures" genre. Realizing she was being type-casted as the innocent, self-sacrificing character in film after film, she returned to the stage for the next five years. Eventually, she got in front of the cameras again and even tried her hand at several television shows.

I really enjoyed Harding's entry in the The Screen Guild. It's quite fascinating that as early as the thirties there were people who spoke out about the fantastic stories and libelous claims such fan magazines produced and unfortunately, are still producing. If only more people had taken action, we might be living in an era where nude photos and sex tapes aren't a means to revitalize or jump start one's career. It was especially brave of Harding to speak out as she was an actress under contract with the type of factory that encouraged such magazines to be produced.



Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

AN ACTRESS’ WORKING DAY


By Genevieve Tobin
[Reprinted from The Screen Guilds’ Magazine 1934]


Promptly at 10:30, one of the maids quietly opens the door to remind me that it is time to go to work. Usually I do not feel like working in the morning, so I yawn sleepily, draw the silk coverlet over my eyes and go back to sleep.
The maid is well trained and knows without being told that she is expected to phone my director to lay the company off for the day or until I feel like coming to the studio.
At 1 or 1:30 in the afternoon, I have my perfumed bath and a Continental breakfast, after which one of my secretaries comes in with the mail.
Sometimes I go to the club for a few holes of golf, or more often, I must confess, drop into one of the Golden Salons that line Hollywood streets and risk a few thousand on roulette.
This usually tires me—so I return home for a milk bath, after which I take a nap until 7 or 8.
Then—my day really begins!
It often takes an hour to select my costume for dinner.
When my escort calls, we have a few champagne cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Sometimes sixty or seventy people drop in for dinner, or more often I go out to dine, as my place only has thirty rooms and is really too small for entertaining.
After dinner, I make the round of dancing places and unless things are particularly interesting, arrive home at about 3 o’clock, as I think an actress should not keep too late hours when she is working hard.
This, dear reader, is the accepted notion of a movie star’s routine, but is far from the cold and desolate truth.
The facts of the matter—which differ materially from the glorified popular notion—are as follows:
The conventional 9 o’clock “call: means that I must be in the hair-dressing department at 7, which in turn means that I must get up at 6, bathe hurriedly, snatch a glass of orange juice and drive ten miles to the studio. This part of my routine is the same, whether I am sleepy, tired, moody, or what-not.
From 7 to 7:45 I sit sleepy-eyed in the hair-dresser’s chair, and then go to the make-up room. This means another hour.
By 8:45 o’clock, I am in my dressing room. It takes only about fifteen minutes to get into whatever costumes needed for the first scene.
By 9 o’clock I am on the set. Incidentally, it is a matter of price with players nowadays to be prompt. It is no longer the movie fashion to keep companies waiting. The business office gets reports on those who do. Here, temperament is figured along with all other unnecessary expenses. Nowadays, Geniu$ is spelt with a “$”.
From 9 o’clock until 12:30 we work and then I return to my dressing room, where my hour of rest and refreshment consists mostly of fitting costumes, seeing interviewers or doing a little last minute brushing up on my lines for the afternoon.
Often the afternoon’s work is not over until nearly 7 o’clock, when I return to my dressing room and realize that I have eaten practically nothing.
In my weariness, I drop my clothes—rather than take them off. By 7:30 I get my make-up off and start for home.
At about 8, I open the door and from the atmosphere, to which I am keenly sensitive, I know the cook is out of patience. He cannot see why these actresses he reads about should be detained by so prosaic a thing as work.
I manage to enjoy my one and only meal of the day and gather some measure of strength from my dinner.
I leave the dining room, with the thought of how wonderful it would be to fall into bed. But I cannot.
There is still a lot of studying to do on tomorrow’s lines. Sometimes I allow myself the luxury of listening for a half hour to a radio program, to take my mind off my work.
At about 10:30, I drag myself wearily from the tub and toward the bed.
It has no golden canopy; no liveried servant wafts incense toward it with a peacock plume; no diamond-brocaded coverlet gleams in the soft light of an amethyst lamp.
It is just a plain bed—not a movie bed.

And I fall into it. I am an awfully tire girl!



Vivacious, highly stylish and a great commedienne, Genvieve Tobin was always a wonderful addition to any movie. I especially loved her in Kiss and Make-Up with Cary Grant and her last film No Time for Comedy with Rosalind Russell and James Stewart. Both movies were quite quirky and deliciously humorous. Genevieve and her sister Vivian (so ironic for me as I love both these names and if I ever have two little girls, this will be what I name them) were daughters of a stage entertainer. Along with their brother George, they all three became stage and screen performers from a young age. Considered more stylish and attractive than talented, Genevieve didn't let this deter her from taking on challenging roles such as King Lear. But much like Constance Bennett, Genevieve gave up on her career for high society and never looked back.

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

I PREFER THE SCREEN TO THE STAGE

By Edward Arnold

[Reprinted from The Screen Guilds’ Magazine 1935]

One great reason why I prefer picture work better than the stage is that after thirty years of trouping, I can live in my own home.

The house we have now in Beverly Hills is the first real home I’ve ever had. For thirty years I moved from hotel to hotel, from town to town—the uncertain, hazardous life of a trouper.

Cooking is one of my hobbies, and I can remember trying to prepare dinners over a single gas flame in those days—inviting other members of the company to eat with us, to give them a touch of home.

Bringing up my children properly, worried me too, because I realized how important security is to growing children how they need to feel that some definite place in the world is theirs.

I’ve always been a family man at heart. With my wife and youngsters—that’s where my chief interests are. We’re a close little family circle, sufficient unto ourselves. And Hollywood has given us our first chance to be together, as a real family should be.

My daughter acts as my secretary and answers my fan mail. My son is now beginning on a career of his own in pictures, and I believe he will have success. I enjoy the Sundays we spend together—days when I indulge in my hobby and prepare the meal, whether it’s the cook’s day out or not.

I can spend nights at home now, too. Hollywood has given me that. I usually quit work around six, and I have my evenings to myself. And when I go for a trip with Mrs. Arnold, it’s a real vacation—not just another tour.

So far as the mechanics of acting are concerned, I like the screen better too. I’ve never changed my methods of acting for pictures. Some of the things other stage actors complain about in picture work have never bothered me. The business of breaking up a dramatic part into several scenes, for instance. I like it. You have a chance to do a scene over if you’re not so good the first time. On the stage if you pull a bloomer, it remains just that, beyond hope of recall!

Also, I like knowing that my work reaches millions of people. On the stage you can only hope to be known by those who live in or near large cities. I’m proud and pleased to know that I have fans all over the world. I get a kick out of watching my kids bask in my reflected glory—stangers speaking to me when we are out in public, people asking for my autograph.

On my recent trip to Honolulu, I was really astonished at the number of invitations Mrs. Arnold and I received—at the hundreds of people who wanted to show us a good time. It brought home to me literally how many fans a Hollywood star has, and how much pleasure he brings to millions of people.

When I returned home, my children had a home-made “Welcome” banner hung across the front door. Mrs. Arnold’s birthday had occurred while we were away, and they chose the night we returned to celebrate. They had prepared a birthday cake for her, turkey and champagne… Is it any wonder I prefer motion pictures, when Hollywood had brought me all this?

Then there’s the money. Perhaps I should write that in italics. For the first time I can do the things I want. For the first time I can have the home I’ve always dreamed about. I am providing for my family’s security for the future. And I feel that in pictures I have a future, myself. I want nothing more. 

I have said on here before that I am unsure as to whether I like Edward Arnold. I know that a lot of hesitation stems from the fact that he has played some pretty mean and petty characters. However, that being said, I should just give over and recognize that he was not only a good character actor, but a damned convincing one too! Debuting on stage in 1907, Arnold was, as his article states, just as much a stage performer as a screen star. He made his screen debut in 1916, participated in several films, mainly shorts, until the 20's which he spent dedicated to the stage. Reappearing onscreen again in 1932, Arnold had no trouble adjusting to talkies and and remained in front of the camera for another 22 years. However, he never gave up the stage and participated in plays right up to his death. 

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?
By Chester Morris
[Reprinted from The Screen Player, 1938]

Christmas comes but once a year and when it comes it brings Good Cheer! To whom? I’ll tell you.

To The Amalgamated Society For Ruptured Newsboys, Mrs. J. Dufflefinkel’s Needy Cases, Inc., The Home For Unwed Mothers, The Home For Fatherless Babies, The Society For Leading of Blind Police Dogs, The Police Dogs Leading the Blind Society, Inc., The Better Milk for Little Tots, Ass’n., A Christmas Turkey for Every Cab Driver Society, Mrs. J. Dufflefinkel’s Next-To-Needy Cases, Inc., The Fallen Arch Society For Policemen, The Fallen Women Society Against Policemen, Religious Turkey Raffles, Inc., Motorcycle Officers Fund for Widowed Wives of Speed Maniacs, Inc., Society for Anybody’s Widowed Wife, Better Little Moppets in 1938, Inc., Who Won The War Society, Inc., The “We Did” Society, Veterans of The Boxer Rebellion, Ltd., Veterans of Any War Ever Fought Anywhere, Inc., Mrs. J. Dufflefinkel’s “Nothing-Will-Help” Cases, Inc., The Bad Child Actors Society, The Society for The Prevention of Bad Child Acting, A Christmas Tree in Every Intersection Fund, Inc., No Christmas Trees in Any Intersection Fund, Inc., Let’s Give Our Boy A Bike Society, More Happy Wagging Tails In 1938, Inc., etc., etc., ETC.!!

Good cheer, eh? What’s good about it? Just for fun, in 1934,--four weeks prior to Christmas, I set out to do a little statistical research on organized charity. Being a charitable man myself, I was a bit annoyed at my own reactions.

“Someone must do this work,” I thought. “Why should I complain because every morning I’m forced to read a personal (mimeographed) letter stating: “I’m only three years old, Mister--Mother left me last Tuesday and I haven’t eaten since last August--.” “Of course,” I said, “There must be cases like that and somebody must take car of them.” So, I’d send the five dollars.

After the first two weeks, when my breakfast every morning was costing me in the neighborhood of twenty bucks, I set about my task in earnest. Each day I’d compile all the “Calls For Help” from starving moppets, starving policemen, and that pathetic little heart-tearer-outer, --“Please, Mister buy me a new dog,” etc., and I discovered I was receiving some fifteen letters a day.

Figuring my Yuletide sympathy at five dollars a crack--that totaled $75. A day, mind you! On a weekly basis, my philanthropy would reach the munificent sum of $500.00--this amount figures on four weeks--the letters dwindle after the tree lights burn out--presents a sum total of $2,100. All this, I might add, does not include Mrs. J. Dufflefinkel, Inc. The hell with her!

Then, of course, there’s the little (?) item of my own family’s Christmas to look after, including about eighty relatives, whose little girls’ mothers have all, practically,-- “left them last Tuesday and they haven’t eaten since last August.”

Approximately, my charitable offerings for the year 1934 totaled $7,200. Add to this one’s household budget, clothes, hats and shoes for the kiddies, food, upkeep on the car--a Filipino to bring in the “Fifteen letters a day”--an occasional trip to keep you in check-signing condition--and what have you when it’s over? Nothing, brothers,-- nothing and that’s where the trouble starts.

If every letter from the Mrs. J. Dufflefinkel, Inc., was answered with a “fiver” or perhaps a “tenner” (your heart may be bigger than mine), over a period of two years, I figure, providing of course, you’re not a millionaire, you’d be badly bent if not broke. Then what happens, you say? Oh, lots. I’ll prove to you just how vicious this charity business can be.

In your sympathetic efforts to raise these poor “Fallen Ones”--you gradually, oh, so gradually, become party of the first part yourself! You have spent all your money--you are broke—and so, one morning you have to sit down, if you can find a place to do so, and write Mrs. J. Dufflefinkel’s Needy Cases, Inc., asking for a few dollars help because “—your wife and children left you last Tuesday and you haven’t eaten since last August!” You think you’ll get it? You will not! A letter will arrive in a few days informing you that, “—there are needier cases ahead of yours—that they’ve put you on their list and will probably get to you around 1940 when they’ll be only too happy to look into your case.” Case is right. By 1940 it will have four sides, a top and bottom and be made of knotty pine!

Believe me, gentlemen, --I made up my mind they wouldn’t catch me with buttons off my panties! No sir! I’ve solved the problem in my own way and it works.

“How?” you ask. Simple. I send letters to myself from myself! Pathetic letters they are, too and I start them four weeks before Christmas.

They arrive at breakfast along with Mrs. J. Dufflefinkel’s, only I throw hers in the waste basket. My heart is naturally touched as I read of my pathetic state of affairs, and, as I have already stated, being a charitable soul, there’s but one thing to do—and I do it. I put five dollars in an envelope and send it to myself!
Be your own Mrs. J. Dufflefinkel, gentlemen, and I promise you one of the happiest of New Years!



With a career that spanned over fifty years, Chester Morris was born into a Broadway background and started his career onstage. Comfortable with audiences and a magician enthusiast, he often incorporated magic tricks into his personal appearances at film premieres and in his films themselves. Gaining stardom in the early thirties, Morris’ career waned by the end of the decade forcing him to perform in a few B-rated movies until he found a firm following with his Boston Blackie character in fourteen low-budget movies produced by Columbia.
Morris spent the latter half of his career mostly on television, performing in the occasional film, and doing some stage work. Already dying of cancer, Morris was appearing in a stage production The Caine Mutiny Court Martial when he took his own life via an overdose of barbiturates in 1970.

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

THE HAM INSTICT
By James Cagney
[Reprinted from The Screen Player, 1934]

Among my close friends I may count a number of people whom I call “Dicussos,” the reason being that they will discuss anything, under any condition, and love it. It doesn’t matter where they are or who is present. They will wade into a gab-fest without regard for any consideration but the subject at hand. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk—gab, gab, gab, gab, gab. Frank McHugh, Pat O’Brien and Ivan Simpson are all terrific. They will “kick it around” with anybody, and make history in the kicking.


Recently we beat each other’s ears back in a verbal set-to on, of all subjects, acting! It has always been an opinion of mine that whether acting be good, bad, or indifferent, is all a matter of individual tastes; because the Discussos, in a body, accused me of side-stepping an issue and avoiding giving a positive statement of viewpoint. You see, all they were looking for was an argument—always the mark of an incurable Discusso.

Then we got on actors; and “on” is what I mean. Why are actors? What makes them? Where does the endless supply of bodies come from each year? And again why? We pushed that around gleefully; and then the answer seemed to present itself—that is, the universality of the ham instinct. They all agreed that most humans have some tendencies toward exhibitionism and when those tendencies are developed in the individual to such an extent that he can think of nothing but strutting his stuff before an audience, you have the true Westphalian, Swift, Armour, or any other name you may care to apply to us.

However, we were not greatly concerned with our own particular group. We all knew what we were about—well, to some extent anyway. We didn’t go into that, because we didn’t want to get too close to ourselves. We tried to avoid unpleasantness as much as possible.

The ones who held our interest unfailingly, we found, were those who entertain the conviction that they can act like Hell and yet never seem to do anything about it. And believe me, their numbers are legion. In this group may be found all kinds of actors, some professional, some amateur, and some who never attempt to put a foot on the stage. The latter are the parlor entertainers and street-corner comics. You may have met a few. The pro contingent may be said to embrace the hey-hey boys or good-time Charlies who go into the acting business because it promises glory and approbation of a kind, looks easy, and there is fun to be had. Some of these have genuine ability and achieve great success; but all through their careers they make their jobs incidental to their pleasures and have a perfectly grand time. They never make any attempt to improve their gifts, but still do very nicely with whatever native equipment they have. However, they are another story, and an interesting one.

It’s the others, the boys and girls who work only now and then, or have a part-time job in some other field, or no job at all, who interest us most. It appears that at some time or another, each said to himself: “I am an actor,” heaved a sigh of satisfaction, and then proceeded to await fame’s embraces. All of us, at the beginning, started in almost the same way, but there was a difference. We would tackle anything. Nothing daunted us. Hamlet? A pushover. What can you do? Anything. And we would do just that—anything!

As for me, I tremble when I think of it; because I know I left a stench in many a fair theatre, and I have an idea that some of them may still be there—they were that bad. But at least we tried. The youngsters we had in mind seemed to be lacking in initiative; and that is one thing a person must have to succeed in any measure in this acting racket—a strong, driving ego that permits of no let-down. An actor without it, whatever his talents may be, is generally doomed to mediocrity. I say “generally” because of the exceptions typified by the good-time Charlies mentioned above. But they are sports and must be considered as such. I use “sports” in a biological sense.

It may be that today there is a different breed of youngster coming into the business, and I think there is some basis for such an assumption. The colleges are turning out thousands of young men and women annually, with no place to go in a business way, and to the uninitiated the theatre and pictures present a pretty fair opportunity for anybody who fancies that he resembles in no small way a certain glamorous figure in the entertainment world. A slight resemblance to Garbo, Hepburn, or Barthelmess has put more than a few young hopefuls on the train bound for Hollywood. Incidentally, I have heard that those who are supposed to resemble me, all hitch-hiked. It seems to be a matter of type. Mind you, they all are all sure they can turn the trick without any trouble.

George Kelly, the playwright, found the type so amusing that he once wrote a sketch called “The Flattering Word” and played it successfully for years. In it he “threw the swell” into a cleric, by insisting that he (the cleric) looked and deported himself as did Edwin Booth in his best moments. And then he sat back and waited for the ham to come to the fore—and it did, decidedly.

G. K. maintains that one might throw a handful of rice on any crowded street corner, and every kernel would hit at least one who needed only a whiff of grease paint and a push to bring out the Hormel.

I seem to be wandering a bit. There are so many phases to the situation that I am rather hard put [to it] to stay with the main idea. However, my aim in the beginning was just to point out the fact that experienced actors find great interest in the doings of the novices. So much so that I expect any day to hear that blood has been shed in the defense of a youngster’s rights to take up time and money and the energy of other actors, after he has represented himself falsely as an experienced player of parts. I mention this last just to start another argument. Some one of the Dicussos will be bound to read all or part of this, and it will start all over again. If that happens, I will not have desecrated these pages in vain.

 
James Cagney started out in the business as a "hoofer" and worked himself right off the stage onto the screen with notable gangster roles in such movies as The Public Enemy, Angel with Dirty Faces, and White Heat. Though he had a very particular delivery of speech and mannerism that limited his range as an actor, he didn't let that limit him from fighting for various types of roles, succeeding at most (check him out in A Midsummer's Night Dream). Possessed of a wonderful sense of comedic timing, a passion for dance that made his moves seem effortless, and a sure-fire cockiness with a brain to back it up, Cagney was a very distinct individual indeed.
 
 
Tonight on TCM!
Last Tuesday to spend with Jean Harlow. Personally, I'm very excited about:
 
The Beast of the City (1932) A police captain leads the fight against a vicious gangland chief.
Cast: Walter Huston, Jean Harlow, Wallace Ford. Dir: Charles Brabin.

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

NOW AM I HOLLYWOOD...

By Henrietta Crosman

[Reprinted from The Screen Player, 1934]

Sooner or later, we all come to Hollywood. I am referring to stage players whose names still do, and did, make up casts of plays that are produced in our New York theatres. Some I know, and some I don't know.

But on studio sets, in the streets and in restaurants, I continually run into old stage friends with whom I played in the heyday of Broadway. Evidently, they have all followed Horace Greeley's advice and "gone West."

Men and women whose names, in former days, emblazoned the facades of our theatres in electric lights, now haunt the studio lots where a few years ago they were taboo. A few are stars, some are near stars, and others contribute sterling performances in just bit parts.

And with our knowledge of the "spoken word," it is quite natural that we should drift to Hollywood, where talking pictures are produced.

When we arrive, we know little of the technique of pictures, but we do know our theatre, and that is the art of acting. So, the camera soon becomes to us just another medium for the expression of human emotion.

What has been our contribution to pictures?

Well, in the first place, we have brought Hollywood some of the tradition of the theatre, and that was sadly needed. Pictures are much too new to boast traditions, and traditions are essential in the production of any art. But time will remedy that.

At first, it is all very new and strange to us. We of the theatre have always been accustomed to a very close relationship with our management, and I think we miss that in Hollywood more than anything else.

Lack of proper liaison between departments in the large studios is responsible for the feeling that the management has little sympathy with the actor's hopes and ambitions, so that we sometimes feel like sheep lost from the fold and left to stray as best we may.

We actors are an emotional, sentimental lot--children, if you will--and we need sympathetic response from those who guide our artistic destiny if the best in us is to be brought out.

Then, too, I miss the dignity of the theatre.

Time and again, since I have been out here, I have been told not to take pictures seriously, but I am not the kind to take my work lightly. To me, acting is an art, and as an artiste I cannot slight my art. I don't believe any real artiste can.

Just a few months ago, I passed my fiftieth year on the stage. I had forgotten, but the fact was brought to my mind by the receipt of a letter from a man who wrote that he was proud to have in his possession a theatre program of Bartley Campbell's White Slave, dated 1883--just fifty years ago--in which my name appeared in the cast.

And that was my first part.

Recently, I had to sign my name at the post office here for the delivery of a package addressed to me. The clerk took the paper from my hand and finally deciphered the name.

"Henrietta Crosman," he mumbled, as if trying to recall something vague.

Then, looking at me, he asked:

"Wasn't you an actress once?"

"Yes," I said. "Once--or twice--."


Henrietta Crosman had a long and successful career onstage before she was tapped for a one picture deal with Famous Players in 1914. Though she appeared onscreen only a few times in the silent era, her movie career took firmer hold in the thirties with her first talkie The Royal Family of Broadway. Usually playing grande dame roles, she appeared in seventeen films from 1930 to 1937.

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

STOP CRUELTY TO ANIMALS!

By George Arliss

[Reprinted from The Screen Guild Magazine, 1937]

From time to time, the movie public is being shocked by publicity given to instances of cruelty to animals involved in the making of pictures.

I consider such reports to be bad for the industry and therefore bad for the members of the Guild.

Unfortunately, there seems to be very little doubt there is ample foundation for these reports. I have before me an article written in the National Humane Review of October, 1936. It records apparently with great satisfaction that a plan has been agreed upon between the American Humane Association and the Hays organization. This is the plan-- I quote from the article before me:

...Every scenario is to be carefully examined in advance of filming by members of the Production Code Administration, a creation of the Hays organization, to determine whether there are any situations that ought to receive special consideration from the producer of the picture. The producer will be instructed to pay special attention to any scene involving animals. Those having situations which might possibly result in cruelty to animals will be referred by the Code Administration Committee to one or more of a small advisory group appointed by the American Humane Association. The advisory member or members will go over the scene with the Code Administration and offer suggestions for precluding the possibility of any cruelty. When the scene is made, either the advisory member or an accredited representative will be available to interpret the formula for filming the scene as agreed upon between the Production Code Administration, the producer, and advisory member or members. Even after the picture is taken, there will still be opportunity for the advisory member to criticise the film from the standpoint of cruelty and the Code Administration, on the advice of the advisory committee, will have the authority to reject any portion of the film which they deem objectionable.

I submit that this plan is of very little value. I have been associated with films long enough to realize that no director or executive desires to be cruel to any animal, but we all know that the slogan "Anything for the good of the picture!" I am afraid I am of the opinion that there are directors who, if they were told that the filming of certain scenes would possibly involve the death of three or four unimportant actors, would find some way of salving there conscience-- and the scene would be shot! I believe that in such a case the actors would be warned that there was certain danger involved and it would be up to them whether they accepted those conditions. I am mentioning this because I have heard peoples say that the humans also have to suffer and that it is all part of the industry. This is perfectly true, but we must not forget that the humans are free agents and can walk out if they wish to and cannot really be compelled to do anything against their inclination: this is an important difference between the human and the animal.

The Guild has done much to better the condition of the actors and the crowd-workers. I suggest that it should now take a hand in the matter of preventing cruelty to animals; most actors and actresses are sympathetic towards the animal world-- this I know from long experience. They are at times consumed with anger at the indifference displayed in the treatment of animals used in pictures. We all know that it is practically impossible for an actor individually to lodge complaints; he would be regarded as a "trouble maker." But there is no reason why he cannot report to the Guild. I am suggesting that the Guild take over this responsibility with great seriousness and with the determination to stamp out this unfair and unpopular use of animals. I have been connected with more than one picture in which animals have been included; I have never seen an act of cruelty, and I am sure that many other actors have had the same fortunate experience, but that does not alter the fact that cruelty does exist and that there are instances of entire disregard for the fair and humane treatment of animals.

Although I feel very deeply on this subject, I have endeavored to write with restraint. But it is my contention that all actors and actresses who take part in films in which animals are made to suffer in order to increase box-office returns share the responsibility and the disgrace.


Successfully transitioning from stage to silents to talkies, George Arliss held a lot of clout both in front of and behind the camera preferring to pick his own co-stars (which sometime included wife Florence) and directors. He is responsible for allowing Bette Davis to showcase her talent when he insisted on her as his lead in The Man Who Played God (1932), she would forever credit him as the man who helped her to stardom. He best known for his role in the remake of Disraeli (1929) the sound version which won him the Best Actor Academy Award that year.


Tonight on TCM!
Spend the night with Jean Harlow...you won't regret it!

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

CONFESSIONS OF A WRITER-ACTOR

By Robert Benchley

[Reprinted from The Screen Guilds’ Magazine, 1934]


It is seldom that a writer for motion pictures gets a chance to hoist himslef on his own petard, but several times I have found myself in that humiliating position. I have been called upon to act the lines that I have written. Boys, it’s a living hell, that’s what it is!

In the technical matter of supplying “toppers” (gag lines which cause hard feeling among other members of the cast) I need hardly remind readers of this esoteric sheet that there are certain subterfuges, certain tricks of illusion, which make it look as if a gag had been written when, in reality, all that has been done is dig a space for a gag.

For example, when Mirabelle says to Toots: “Say, what’s the matter with you? You look as if you had been riding a panther,” there us obviously a good chance for Toots to come back with a quick one. After considerable pipelighting, the author of the dialogue compromises as follows: “Toot’s expression speaks volumes, as we FADE OUT.”

Or, when Reilly from Headquarters says to Muggs: “Come on, come on! Whader yer think this is—a flag-pole-sittin’ contest?” the writer is not really polishing off the job in tip-top fashion when he puts down: “If looks could kill, Muggs would have murdered Reilly.” However, in the script, it looks like a complete job.

I must admit that, on such occasions as it has been decided to save an actor’s salary and use me in a bit, I have not know in advance that I was writing for myself. Otherwise, I might have seen my way clear to clean up a few pay-offs which did not involve “experssions which speak volumes.” They might not have been exactly wows, but they would at least, have given me a chance to say something besides “Oh, yeah?” or “Sez you!”

However, it has been too late when I found myself on the set. (I am not one of those boys who can think up a topper on set. I have to have my pipe and a couple of other things—including the topper). I have been in the position of Mark Twain, who on being informed of the report of his death, said: “This is my story, and I’m stuck with it.”

I would like to have some of my little writing-friends get up and try to give an “expression which speaks volumes” by way of answering a gag from somebody else. It is a pretty sickening business. You can raise your eyebrows or lower them, you can purse your lips as if you were going to kiss someone, or you can blow out your cheeks like a comic in the Chave Souris. You can also place your thumbs in your ears and wiggle your fingers. But somehow it never seems to be exactly what the director wants. The only thing to do seems to be to say “Oh, yeah?” and fall over backwards.

This year they seem to have plenty of real actors to go around, and so I am devoting myself exclusively to “the writing end.” But, as I sit with a page of dialogue in my machine in front of me, I think back on the days when I used to be stuck with my own lines (or lack of lines) and try to give the actor a break. I have evolved a new bit of stage direction which avoids putting it up to the actor to kill someone “with a look.” If the Captain has made some crack at Lefty which obviously calls for a returnshot, I write:

“Lefty apparently does not hear.”

Robert Benchley, was a twentieth century humorist, a charter member of the infamous Algonquin Round Table, and a theatre critic for both LIFE and The New Yorker. He was also a wonderful co-star to have in your movie. Though he participated in films, both writing and acting, from 1925 until his death, he is best known for his short subject work. Indeed, that’s how I discovered him. Benchley’s short film How to Sleep was a popular success and won Best Short Subject at the 1935 Academy Awards. This eventually led to a contract for short subject work that produced 48 short films...all of which you should check out.

Tuesdays with the Screen Guild Magazine

THE THEATRE IS THE ONLY TRUE ACTOR’S MEDIUM


By Leslie Howard
[Reprinted from The Screen Guilds' Magazine. December 1935]


When one is asked as one so frequently is, which is the better medium for acting—the stage or the screen, one’s first emotion is that of amazement—or was, before the emotion faded from repetition. Amazement that the screen could be seriously regarded as an actor’s medium. For surely the first requirement of any craftsman in relation to his medium is that he have control of it. And surely no one can seriously contend that the actor has any control over the medium of the motion picture.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean physical control. Granting him all manner of authority over the writing, the direction, the photography, and the cutting (an inconceivable state of affairs under the present system), he still, as an actor, is practically in chains during the only period which counts for him—the period of actual performance. Nor can he ever be otherwise. He is fundamentally at the mercy of a dozen mechanical hindrances, of a constantly interrupted continuity, and, most important, he is deprived of that other vital element of drama, the audience.

On the stage, however, the actor is manifestly supreme. At the really crucial moment, the moment of raising the curtain, all the other contributors to the show have departed; the playwright, the director, the scene designer, costumer, lighting expert—everybody but the actor. He is left in solitary glory, in supreme command, with nothing between him and his living audience, to command and control as he thinks fit. Then commences that extraordinary partnership between actor and spectator which is the very essence of theatre. Here, to my mind, exists the only possible control over the art of acting.

But if the theatre is the only true actor’s medium, the screen is incomparably the superior for the director. For the ideal motion picture director should be also a writer, or a collaborator to a writer. He must be a natural storyteller, for it is he who tells the story. And what a great medium for storytelling the screen is. An to have at one’s disposal the innumerable devices for this purpose which the modern motion picture offers is indeed a millennium for the spinner of yarns the good director is.

Does that answer the question? Probably not. Except—very definitely—for me.

Leslie Howard was the epitome of lukewarm romantic charm. Best known for his role as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, Howard up to this point was a popular leading man with movies such as Of Human Bondage, A Free Soul, Pygmalion, The Petrified Forest, and Romeo and Juliet already under his belt. The stage, however, continued to be an important part of his career.He usually served as either producer or director of the Broadway productions in which he starred, such as his 1936 production of Hamlet. He was also a playwright with productions such as Murray Hill, Out of a Blue Sky, and Elizabeth Sleeps Out making it to the Broadway stage.

Oscar trivia:
Leslie Haward was nominated the Academy Award for Best Actor twice in his career for his roles in Berkeley Square and Pygmalion.

Tuesdays with the Screen Guild Magazine

Why I Prefer The Stage To Pictures…Or Maybe I Don’t!

By Mary Astor
[Reprinted from The Screen Player, May 1934]


It has always been my opinion that one should stay in one’s own department, and while mine may not be acting, it certainly isn’t writing, so I’m going to pass the buck to Ye Ed and say that it was his idea, not mine!
Feg Murray, in the Examiner the other day, said that, although I had appeared in about eighty pictures in my fourteen years in business, and in only one stage play, I preferred working behind the footlights to working in pictures. Now, that seems to call for an explanation and maybe an apology, doesn’t it?

Well, it all dates back to the time I was about seven years old. (Don’t get scared, this isn’t going to be an autobiography.) I lived on a farm and went to a two-room country school; and if you know anything about country schools, you know that about twice annually they bust out with what is called an entertainment. All the mamas and papas come to watch their offspring do their stuff, which usually consists of a one-act play, a flag drill and an unending series of recitations---I always got in on the recitations. The usual technique was to stand up, staring straight ahead, arms woodenly at the sides, and get through it as fast as possible.

In one occasion I selected Riley’s “Brook Song” and unfortunately read it with some “expression” and a few little simple gestures. The audience tittered all through it, but I was quite oblivious, and when I came down off the stage to receive the customary congratulations, some of the kids were still laughing and whispering behind their hands. I asked the what was funny, thinking my sash was untied, or something, and one of them said, “It’s just that you make those funny motions.”

Of course, my family thought I was a potential Duse, and so, whether I liked it or not, by the time I was fourteen I found myself making “funny motions” in front of a camera. And, what’s more, I’ve been doing it ever since.

I’ve never had a great deal of ambition and never thought much of myself as an actress. I relied for years on a sort of stain-glass type of prettiness, and if I’m any good at all now, it’s simply because of the fact that you can’t work at acting for fourteen years and not absorb at least a few of the rudiments.

Along about 1929 came the talkie ogre and he swallowed me along with a lot of others. I took a test and was so frightened I couldn’t do a thing. As a result of that, I couldn’t get a job for ten months. I got so I was writing to casting directors, saying I was at liberty, and couldn’t they do something about it. I figured I was a pretty big shot and they ought to jump at the chance. They didn’t figure it that way.

At that time I was going around with a group of people that included Florence and Freddie March. Florence was very sympathetic and told me about a play she and Edward Everett Horton were going to do shortly, and there was a swell part in it, and maybe she could talk Eddie into giving me a try-out. She could and did. The show was Among the Married. It played at the old Majestic here is Los Angeles, and I’ve never been quite the same since. In the first place, I wasn’t able to see myself and see whether I was any good or not, so the result was that I thought I was pretty good. My own rushes have always given me a slight twinge of nausea.

The opening night, I went against all the rules, out of sheer ignorance. I had a huge dinner, got to the theatre early, made up, and re-read the whole play. I had no first night qualms, nothing but a pleasant glow of anticipation. Florence and I made our first entrance together, and she was sort of holding on to me. She told me afterwards that she had no idea what I might do the first time I saw the audience, and I guess she was afraid I’d fall over in a faint or something.

She kept giving me my cues very plainly and watching me anxiously. One of my first lines was a rather funny wisecrack and the audience laughed, and from them on nobody could have been happier than I was. I just relaxed and had a swell time. Florence saw that I was going to be all right, so then she started to think about herself and got jittery. We had some ad-lib conversation behind the piano upstage while the action was going on downstage, and she whispered to me, “Oh, Mary, I’m so nervous, I’ll never get through this thing.” I patted her on the shoulder and said, “There, there darling, you’re doing great.” Imagine me, a mere amateur, “there, there-ing” Florence Eldridge!

And that, children, is why I’m stage-struck and why I’ll never be happy ‘til I try it again.

There are those who may argue, “Think about having to do the same show, night after night.” True enough, but at least you have about twenty-two hours before you have to do it again, and certainly that’s pleasanter than having to do it over and over again after you’ve been squeezed dry, which happens all the time in pictures.
And think of only having to work two and a half hours a day! Think of being able to see the sun every day, if it’s shining. Think of not having to get up at an ungodly hour and hurry through breakfast, hurry to the studio, hurry through make-up, and then drag home at night to hurry to bed and grab a few hours’ sleep before starting all over again.
That’s a pretty dreary picture and probably if I’d been on the stage for fourteen years and made only one picture, I’d sing another song. But I doubt it.


With a career spanning forty-five years, Mary Astor is best remembered for her role of Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon. She had a private life marked by scandal, death, alchoholism, and overdoses- all of which she overcame. She would eventually tread the boards again and in 1956 made a success of Don Juan in Hell which was directed by Agnes Moorehead. She also wrote two very successful autobiographies as well as several fictional books. 

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

How A Butler Would Raise Money For The Guild
by Arthur Treacher
[Reprinted from The Screen Guilds' Magazine, October 1936]

I am flattered, but impotent!

You put me in a very embarrassing position.

Yu could do no worse if you asked me to be "funny," which, as you know, is an American idiom applied simultaneously to things that are humorous, bizarre, unique and inexplicable.

I have built my (alleged) career on boredom and you ask me to be interesting! Why, even if I were, I couldn't be right now. (If that sentence is not immediately clear to you, read it aloud a couple of times; its meaning will sink in, I'm sure.)

You see, old chap, I have just finished a picture called Under Your Spell at 20th Century-Fox--and for the past five weeks I have been in daily association with one Gregory Ratoff. I feel like a gilded lily. (Remember De Quincey's: "There are degrees of merit, even in cancers.")

I speak with a broken accent, I am race conscious-- (that is, horse-race conscious) and anything I wrote would be quite ungrammatical. Also to be considered are the confessions that I can't think of anything to write of, or on, and if I did, I couldn't think of two thousand words to say it with. For your further information, I customarily conduct correspondence on one-cent postcards. I write a large hand and by cramping my letters, I can sometimes get as many as 40 words on a card. Two thousand words would be equal to how many postcards at 40 words each? Figure it out for yourself. I am certain it would provide for all of my correspondence for many months to come.

However, I am decidedly concerned with a scheme which I think would bring a great deal of revenue to our Guild. I do not know who is the father of the idea. I never originated anything myself in my entire life--but I do feel it's a good scheme, and worthy of our most serious consideration.

Here it is! Stamps to be issued by the Guild and to be placed on sale at all drug stores in the United States at a price to be determined. Any person wishing an autograph or an autographed picture of a screen player should buy a stamp and affix it to a peice of paper or to the photograph. The player can then write his name across the stamp--thus cancelling that particular stamp.

The proceeds of the stamp sales to go to the Guild for distribution among the sick and needy who are members.

I feel that a vast sum of money would come into the Guild--money that God knows it can use. I further feel that those actors and actresses who cannot even go to a public restroom without being asked for an autograph, would not mind it so much (despite their hurry) if they knew they were aiding a good cause.

I know of an actor who in answer to written requests for his photograph sends the following reply:

"I fell deeply honored that you wish for my autograph. On receipt of a money order made payable to either the Actors Fund of America or the Motion Pictures Relief Fund, I shall be glad to send you a personally autographed picture."

He gets many favorable replies.

Of course the press of the country would have to publicize this scheme and it would probably take about six months to get it working.

But I have no doubt that it could be worked out by that mysterious thing called a committee, a thing I have never been on and never shall.

I am very sorry I cannot write an article for you, but all my time is taken up by thinking of the money that is slipping away from the Guild, and by being a butler.

Kindest regards,

Yours very sincerely,
Arthur Treacher

Known best for his role as a snobby butler in several films, Arthur Treacher also has the distinction of lending his name to a popular fast food fish and chip restaurant- Arthur Treacher's. There are probably only 45 chain franchises left and one of them happens to be near where I live. However, I have never actually been inside one- the concept of fast food fish has never seemed appealing.

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine...

Awhile back I purchased Celebrity Articles from The Screen Guild Magazine. Edited by Anna Kate Sterling and featuring articles written by leading figures of the film world, Celebrity Articles from The Screen Guild Magazine contains personal opinions ranging from screen vs. stage, technicolor, politics, and critics, as well as celebrity short stories and glimpses into their personal lives.

History of The Screen Guild Magazine:

The magazine started in 1934 as The Screen Player. It was designed to keep members of the Screen Actors Guild (created a in 1933) current on guild activities. Later in 1934, the Screen Writers' Guild of Authors' League of America became a co-publisher of The Screen Player and the publication name was changed to The Screen Guilds' Magazine, later to become The Screen Guild Magazine, then from 1938 to 1947, The Screen Actor.
Despite the magazine's intention to promote the activities of the two guilds, there are several articles of general nature with the bulk coming from actors and actresses. These of which I will share with you.

WHERE DID YOU GET THAT HAT?
by Bette Davis
[Reprinted from The Screen Guilds' Magazine, April 1936]

The most encouraging thing to me today in regard to our mutual industry is the trend towards realism. I don't mean that we've turned or back on Cinderella, but at least she no longer sits on the lap of the Cinema with her arms around her neck swinging her little glass slippers. Some screen millionaires have moved out of Grand Central Station and have found themselves more believable living quarters. A simple family chronicle like Ah, Wilderness is a success, and a success because it's real. Alice Adams is another example of the trend from puppets to people.

However, there is one department that in my opinion is still on the other side of the fence--the phony side, the gingerbread side. Actresses still don't look like people. The blame for that can be spread widely and thinly. The actresses themselves share in it. So do the costume designer, the make-up staff, and the front office, and the director.

I have had battles with a few directors, who consider that the all important thing was a striking appearance, well-groomed hair, immaculate clothes, an undisturbed make-up, or an exit from a drowning episode. I was solemnly told that we must not disappoint our public. It might disillusion them to know that we could look badly. I once saw a crowd of extra players, women, who supposedly had poured out of a train when an accident on the track had stopped it suddenly. Every one of those women was perfectly groomed--every hair in place, every wave freshly set. I asked the make-up girl whether she'd ever seen women on a train. Her answer was, "I know it's silly, but if I don't do every one of those heads, I get call-down from the front office." In one of the important features which was previewed lately, the feminine star's coiffure and make-up survive a chase through jungles and a tustle with crocodiles.

I think the public are far more intelligent than that. I think things like that make them laugh. In other words they are, unlike the silent picture days, looking for realism. They want to see human beings on the screen, not actresses.

Clothes play a large part in the unreal, Never-Never Land appearance of many actresses. I have seen a young actress playing an emotional scene while she was wearing a hat which transfixed the attention of the audience. All over the theatre there was a rippling whisper, "Look at that hat!" The sincere, straight-forward job she was doing under that hat went for nothing. Some of the outfits worn by our leading women stars are beyond all reason. They're obtrusive and distracting. They form unbeatable competition to the scene that's being played, by making the audience clothes conscious. Somebody once said you never know what a truly well-dressed woman is wearing, you are only conscious of the fact that she is well-dressed.

Don't for a minute think this is all the designer's fault. We, as actresses, are often to blame. Hollywood costume designers are among the best in the world. We all acknowledge that. They naturally have a reputation to uphold, and that reputation is not helped by inconspicuous clothes. No plain sweater and skirt ever made fashion history, or established the designer as a "creator". Yet a dramatic scene may best be played by a woman who is inconspicuously covered, and not modishly gowned.

An actress who has the courage and takes the time to discuss with the costume designer the scenes he has to play, will almost always get full cooperation from the designer. If she wears outfits so elaborate and conspicuous as to detracts from her work, nine times out of ten, it's her fault. I know that I made that mistake fro three years out here. I went in for bizarre clothes, and also for crazy head-dresses. They weren't forced on me. I liked them. People have written me since I have returned to normality in appearance, and have said my clothes and my hair prejudiced them against me for years. That seems proof positive that the public which I believed wanted, demanded, something pretty fancy, were critical and discerning. I was doing them no favor, and myself a lot of harm, by getting myself up like an actress and not a person.

I'm not advocating that we dress ourselves in bungalow aprons. I just finished a picture called The Golden Arrow, which could have been played only in smart clothes, unusual clothes, striking clothes. Mr. Kelly designed some beautiful things, exactly suited to the people we were playing, to the atmosphere of that particular story. I believe that half the interest of that picture for the public will be his clothes.

If an actress knows when to unleash the silver fox, and holds to that knowledge--letting him run free in the Ritz, but keeping him out of the subway, the death house, and the jungle--she'll look more like a person and less like an actress, and furthermore, she'll get full cooperation from Adrian, Travis Banton, Gwen Wakeling and Orry-Kelly.


Bette Davis went on to become a powerful figure in Hollywood history making her mark as the actress who threw vanity aside and was determined to never care how she looked on the screen as long as it resembled the character she played. This helped lengthen her career when most actresses her age in the late 50's and 60's were being put on the shelf. Having played a streetwalker dying of tuberculosis in Of Human Bondage, a sixty year old queen at the age of thirty in Elizabeth and Essex, and an old (and quite plain looking) maid in Now Voyager, audiences were used to getting all types of characters from Davis.