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Looking 'em Over
WITH
GAIL GARDNER
Five Star Motion Picture Editor
, Hollywood.
DEAR FOLKS: ,
I bumped into an odd incident out on the Fox
lot this' week. It's the sort of thing that makes
these childlike movie people the most superstitious
aggregation in the world. . - 1 .'
Director Harry Lachman was doing a sequence
with Warner Oland and another actor, a blue
python, in "Charlie Chan at the Circus."
Oland was supposed to be asleep in a train berth.
He was to awaken to find a python sitting on his
stomach. The "business" was gone through a
f&3
If
Warner Otand In
Charlie Chan at the Circus.'
. Just because Henry Fonda said he'd like to get married, Hollywood's eligible bachelors are up In arms, maintaining
( that he's threatened their seclusion. Here are some of the young men determined to stay bachelors, regardless.
Left, Cary Grant tried matrimony, found It a failure. In circle, Robert Taylor says, "Nix." Fred MacMurray, shown
with Astrld Allwyn, whom he -frequently escorts, finds the single life is best. Next above Is Fonda, who started all
the bickering. Below, with his pet terrier. Is Michael Whalen, who says, "I can't Imagine a guy wanting to get
married." Right, Erlo Linden. He, too, Is dead against alliances.
Henry Fonda's Yen For Married Life
Upsets Belligerent Film Bachelors
Because He Wants To Tie Himself Down, Fellow Players Fear They'll Have A New Fight For
Freedom Mike Whalen Wants A Debate, On The Subject
By Donna Risher
FROM THE STUDIOS AND SOCIAL
CENTERS OF HOLLYWOOD
By Jane
couple of times and Director Lachman made sev
eral takes. Then getting "a hunch" he abruptly
called a halt on the filming.
Oland thought a better take should be attempted,
but Lachman refused to shoot the scene again.
"But," interrupted S. W. AUman, movie reptile
purveyor and expert, as he reached for the shake,
. "there is absolutely nothing to fear."
Just then the python, without warning, ripped "
into the first finger of Allman's left hand. He was
given emergency treatment and later anti-tetanus
injections were administered.
Allman said later it was Lachman's fear which
made the snake react to his own fearful thinking
. . but it was a strange happening, wasn't it? .
IALSO dropped in at M-G-M to see Janet Gaynor
as you wished me to do. Janet was on the set
going through a little sequence from "Small Town
Girl," when I arrived. In this picture she plays the
part of a wistful hick who rebels at the humdrum
life of her narrow environment and in order to get
away from it all she elopes with Robert Taylor, a
sophisticated city doctor.
There was Janet "out in the country" sitting
comfortably under a tree. She was telling Taylor
all about her dreams of life in a big city.
"I know the city is wonderful," she was saying.
"I know how grand the ladies dress, that they wear
it
Donna Risher
Robert Taylor and Janet Gaynor In "Small Town Girl.'
thin chiffons that cling around them, and that they
go to gay parties and ..."
Taylor leaned over and reached for a large black
insect with four legs which crawled off the tree's .
bark on to Miss Gaynor's shoulder.
"Sorrv to interrupt the dialogue," Taylor said
laconically, "but if this bug gets in your ear, Janet,
you'll appreciate the city a darned sight more."
"Cut" yelled Director William Wellman while the
prop men and Taylor laughed uproariously at
Janet's horrified look.
MEANWHILE, I learned that the last shots were
being made of that long, long story
. CYER since Henry Fonda made the candid, ad
l mission that he was tired of single blessedness
and wanted to get married, the love lives of Holly
wood's eligible, independent yes and smug
bachelors have not been the same.
. These unmarried ones and there is a . large
number of them who revel in their freedom from
the marital ties young Fonda re
gards as desirable, now look upon
the young New Yorker as being
something like the man who
stalked dramatically out of the
house after saying to his wife,
"Everything is over between us.
You will never see me again,
goodbye" then had to go back
for his hat.
In other words, these film
bachelors claim that Fonda, by
leaving their ranks and closing
the door upon bachelorhood to
champion marriage, has placed
them in the spot where they must return and fight
for their lonely, but desirable, solitude all over
again.
BACHELOR MICHAEL WHALEN, being Irish
and independent, is the first to challenge
Fonda's desire for marriage.
Mike is comfortably established now in a brand
new hilltop home in Hollywood and he is enjoying
his freedom to the fullest.
Therefore, he felt he could not let Fonda's an
nouncement go by without saying a few words.
"If that guy Fonda will, meet me in open debate,
'Resolved, That Bachelorhood Is a More Desirable
State Than Marriage', I'll lick him before he opens
his mouth," Mike retorted.
"I can point myself out as a living example of
"Anthony AdveVse" and I galloped over to Warner
Brothers to see the finishing touches.
Director Mervyn Le Roy was putting his troupe
through a Venetian crowd scene.
He tried many, many times to get it, but a crowd
scene is unwieldy because everything and every
body has to be watched and everything has to be
perfect.
Finally, things were just as he wanted and Di
rector Le Roy approved. His eyes roamed all over,
taking in the minutest details.. Then all at once the
corners of his mouth turned down sharply.
"Hey!" he called irritably to an "extra." "What
are you doing, reading a Los Angeles paper in
Venice two and a half centuries ago?"
"Why, yes," the startled man admitted. "I didn't
think the name of the newspaper would photo
graph in a long shot like this."
"Well, stop thinking," Le Roy countered. "This
is not a comedy and the Chamber of Commerce is
not putting its message over in Venice."
And with that I galloped back to my typewriter.
Cordially yours,
GAIL.
the bliss of solitude . . . wasn't that what some
poet said, 'the bliss of solitude ?"
Mike looked around his womanless domain with
a sigh of content.
"When a guy wants to give up freedom for bond
age;" he went on, "he doesn't need a wife, he
needs a doctor. There is something wrong with
his head."
WHALEN said it was his opinion that such
good bachelors as Fred MacMurray, Eric Lin
den, William Powell and Robert Taylor would back
him up.
MacMurray, who was making love to Joan Ben
nett over on a Paramount stage according to the
script certainly did back up Mike, one hundred
percent.
Mac, it might be stated here, is the target for
many romantically-minded girls in Hollywood, but
to date he continues to pursue his policy of being
"just a good friend," to blonds and brunets alike.
"I know when I'm well off," he said, with a broad
grin. "Marriage must be pretty bad from what I
hear. I can't imagine a guy wanting to get tied
for life, can you?"
WILLIAM (DEBONAIR) POWELL, who calls
himself the "backyard Demosthenes," lives
magnificently alone in a modern Grecian palace,
and is an exponent of the unmarried state also.
He distinctly prefers blonds and is seen most
frequently with the blondest of them all, Jean Har
low. Still, he clings like a pair of pants to its last
suspender button, when it comes to his bachelor
hood. "Oh, there are so many, many things," he re
marked, casually, "that can be said in favor of the
unattached."
Nelson Eddy (who recently experienced a cross
country marathon with a too-admiring "Ariel"),
Eric Linden, Cary Grant and Robert Taylor all
staunchly defend their bachelor brotherhood.
' "We're sorry for Fonda," they exclaimed.
"Imagine a guy wanting to get married!"
mk m, m
n.
The sun won't burn Betty Furness, not by a ZO gallon
sombrero which she Is wearing. It Is made of red, green
and blue straw.
SlrQuy Standing
Charles Mlddleton
A DISTANCE of 100 miles separates the patio
from the living room of a Southern California
home in the picture "Palm
Springs." The patio is in the
desert and the living room is laid
inside a sound stage in the Wal
ter Wanger studio in Hollywood.
It took Sir Guy Standing four
hours to cover the distance by
automobile, a distance that will
take only a moment on the
screen.
SHADES of Lon Chaney!
Charles Middleton, character
actor, had to increase his height
for his characterization of "Ming,
the Merciless." So he called in Louis Hippy, make
up artist. Hippy made a false skull and fastened it
wwy,.?-" to Middleton's head with cement
ft A i and liquid collodion. The Jigger
7 I was so intricate that it required
( four hours to apply and two hours
I to remove.
"VkiI? f The other day Mlddleton n,
! few? , : elected to Orion the windows in
his well-heated dressing room.'
Fumes emanating from the pan
of collodion overcame the actor
and the make-up man. They were
discovered by Director Frederick
Stephani, who came to see why
Middleton's appearance on the set
was delayed. The director took
them to the studio's emergency hospital, where
they were revived.
WHITE sunshine aslant red poinsettlas ... a,
lone Mexican girl drinking in a picture of
Del Rio . , . an orange mansion set back in a grove
of redwoods ... an oil station attendant talking
about Iowa, as he helps an old lady across the
street that's a bird's-eye view of Hollywood
Boulevard.
: .; . 1
A HOLLYWOOD PRESS AGENT IN THE
THROES: "Reminiscent of a moonlit night in
a Southern magnolia garden is William Lambert's
romantic formal ensemble of Ivory souffle. It is
designed with floating ruffles,
crossed fichu-fashion over the
bodice, ascending over the shoul
der and narrowing under the em
pire waist to meet at the base of
the backless gown. The bodice
ruffles to the knee and the ex
ceedingly full hem flounce de
scends to a graceful, divided fish
tail train in back which Is
outlined enchantingly by bands of
tiny oblong mirrors. An ivory
crepe mantle, completely bor
dered in mirrors and fastened at
the throat with a large bow-knot
of the glittering glass, trails to the ground to
envelop the long train . . ." If she says another
word we'll bust out crying.
CHESTER MORRIS held a reunion 'with old
friends, when ho wandered onto a stage the
other day to find John Hyams and Leila Mclntire,
former famous vaudeville headlincrs.
Morris first knew the pair when billed as "The
Mysterious Morris," he opened the show In which
they starred.
BECAUSE he loves to hear the Shakespearean
linos, Nelson Eddy has been a daily visitor on
the "Romeo and Juliet" scL
PACK PIVK
William Lambert