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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 29, 1936)
II T1 til . . . II Lookin3;r.0ver Li . J4 l GossiP GAIL GARDNER L . 'V- '"X- i from the studios and social 1 VM Ma. MoT L,e EdH 1 f;; tV, )A---TT?1 CENTERS OF HOLLYWOOD Hollywood. rEAR FOLKS: One time "Ma" Kennedy told me the reason why What-a-man Hudson appealed so to the pub lic was because all the world loved a lover. Apropos of nothing, I was thinking of this when I stopped in for a few minutes on the M-G-M set to watch Robert Montgomery play the lover in "Petticoat Fever." In this picture Bob is a lonely operator of a Labrador wireless station who finds adventure when to his isolated, snow-covered cabin come Myrna Loy and her sour-faced fiance, after a ship-wreck on the n,ear-by coast. Bob loses his heart to Myrna at once. He holds her and her life tfPy It used to be that the first contract for a film player Immediately sent him (or her) into a frenzy of buying 16 cylinder automobiles equipped with symphonic horns and sun-rivaling spotlights, but those days have gone. Instead, the modern Thespian socks away the money. Left you see W. C. Fields, basking in his modest home all paid for. Upper center, lovely Carole Lombard, who could make a terrific splash, but doesn't. Upper right, Jack Oakle, a leader In the simplicity school. Below, Mrs. Jeanne Colbert with her very famous and thrifty daughter, Claudette. Flashy Actors Fade From Picture-Post-Depression Crop Favors Simplicity Gone Are The Day Ot Hot-Cha Plumbing in Movievilie As Present Stars Bank Then Money, Buy Homes And Do Their Traveling In Moderately Priced Cars By Donna B'sher , ; Mb Jean Hersholt Bob Montgomery and Myrna Loy in "Petticoat Fever." fiance prisoners until she consents to marry him. As I approached the stage, Myrna and Bob were sitting face to face, knees touching. Myrna was saying in that throaty voice, "I'm sure you and Sir James will hit it off. He's a man's man, too." Montgomery drew his chair closer. "I'm not a man's man," he confided. "I'm a, well, I don't get much chance to be a woman's man up here. But I know you are the most beautiful woman in the world. Why . . . I . . ." He was interrupted by the soft voice of Director George Fitzmaurice. "I think you should be a little more ardent there Bob." "Pleasure." grinned Montgomery. HE TOOK up his lines again, perfectly oblivious to the organized flurry of activity around him. Cameramen peered through "finders" and gave orders to electricians, who surried about. A prop man watched the "snow" outside the heavy win dows to see that it didn't slip. An assistant director gave the okay for the lights. "Dear, I love you," Montgomery started over again as he reached for Myrna's hand, on which she wore the engagement ring of another man, "if Donna Risher 3sl. ; " V''. Scene from "Little Miss Nobody," with Jane Withers. you leave me, life will end for me." Director Fitzmaurice watched intently. "I didn't know until I saw you that roses bloom, that stars shine overhead, that birds sing to their mates . . ." "Ah, that's perfect," complimented Fitzmaurice. "Sorry, but we'll end this sequence here. We've got to do the dog scene." Myrna arose and walked towards her dressing room. "Ta, ta. Bob," she threw back over her shoulder, "all the world loves a lover and are you good ?" After the love scene I drifted over to Fox THE "flash" actors, who used to dominate in Hollywood in the days before the depression, have bowed out. Old-timers say they can scarcely recognize the place because it s so hard to find a black onxy bath ub or an Italian sunken garden! The fellows with the cream and green limousines, with auto graphed shirts and penchants for crashing royalty have sung their swan song. The new crop, the boys and girls who have made money since the financial bottom dropped out, are taking things in their stride, saving as much money as possi ble and living simply with an eye out for the rainy day. There's Carole Lombard, for instance. , Carole has been around Hollywood quite a few years now and she has made good money. She could "put on the dog" in no uncertain style if she wanted to. But she doesn't want to. Her's is a modest "family-style" home, intimate and com fortable. It is a house to live in, not to show off FRED MacMURRAY is doing all right, too. Fred lives simply in a two-room apartment with his mother. They've got one girl, the Mac Murrays have, for "servants." She helps Mother MacMurray with the dishes and keeps Fred's socks separated from his shirts. Fred could afford a few servants, including a gentleman's gentleman, if he wished. He could studios where I discovered the man who started the legend that ostriches bury their heads was talking about ant eaters. Certainly no one in little Jane Withers' company expected the ostrich to stick his head through the heavy glass door but neither did anyone expect the ostrich to do what he did. THE scene was a j)et shop and everything was going smoothly until the ostrich, who had been acting quite gentlemanly, saw some white mice in an open glass pen. With a cry that somewhat resembled the sound "Ork," the bird went berserk in an effort to get off the set. His unexpected ferocity and speed gave everyone else the same idea. Someone rescued the camera, but the microphone "boom" was tipped over in the excitement. One kick of the bird's giant foot upset a counter in the pet store and another shattered a plate glass window. The frightened bird's trainer finally quieted him and the director resumed the filming, I presume, because I, taking my cue from an Arab standing iicaiby, quietly Etole away. Cordially yours, GAIL. drive a long car with all the gadgets so dear to the hearts of the stars of yesterday. Instead, he motors about in one of the most popular medium-priced cars, indistinguishable from that owned by the girl who "helps out" at the MacMurrays. W. C. Fields lives in a ranch house with the out doors for neighbors. Fields, who knows full well the meaning of poverty, has carefully saved his money through the years until he could get a "roof over my head." "And when I am old," he declared in discussing the matter recently, "I will still have a roof over my head." JACK OAKIE, who would be suspected of being the flashy type by those outside of the movie colony, refuses to live in one of those Romanesque palaces perched on a hillside which housed the fa vorites a decade ago. Instead, he lives with his mother quietly or as quietly as Jackie can live in a modest home. Claudette Colbert, being French and thrifty, has acquired a reputation not only as a good business woman who counts the pennies, but aa one who saves those pennies as well. CLAUDETTE parted with about $50,000 re cently when she built a new home in West wood, where she and her mother and husband. Dr. Joel Pressman, reside. But her best friends say Claudette can save more money than any other movie star, except Garbo, in the business. Bing Crosby, who makes money faster than any one man in the colony, indulges in hobbies like racing stables occasionally, but he has also used discretion in investing it. Bing's Rancho Santa Fc will always remain the permanent home of the Crosby family; therefore, he paid a pretty penny for it. His investments, too, in phonograph companies have paid him well, his friends say, while his luck in backing prizefighters has, to date, yielded him an income which fluctu ates with the fortunes of the ring. , t. . n rl' 1 ft til 1 lAMf..7:. Ginger Rogers, Frank Moran and Harriet Hllllard In a scene from "Follow the Fleet." YOU'D be surprised what a price tag on a new suit of clothes can do to interrupt the harmony of existence. But you wouldn't be if you were Jean Hersholt, for. he was the guy in the new suit bear ing a price tag, who had to be followed all day by a bodyguard to protect him from overzealous price-tag pullers. No one, it seems, can resist pulling such a tag in the belief they are doing a favor. But in Jean's case the suit and the tag were necessary props for a se quence in a picture. FIRST, the make-up man "oblig ingly" yanked the tag off be fore Hersholt could stop him. A new one had to be sewed on be fore the actor went to lunch. In the dining room, he barely prevented two people from tearing it off again, but a third party was a little too quick for him. The wardrobe man was called to sew the third tag back on the coat and then ordered to follow Hersholt for the rest of the day to prevent any further acts of tag vandalism. THE world lost a "barking actress" when Sara Haden found her way into the movies. Sara, who is the daughter of the famed Charlotte Walker, used to be a dog imper sonator for her own stories on the radio. She can imitate, she admits, the yapping, barking, whining and snorting of such varied ca nine breeds as Chows, Pekinese, Russian Wolfhounds, Scotties, Great Danes, St. Bernards and English Shepherds. The other day out on the Fox lot, filming was disrupted when Sara and Jane Withers got into a barking contest. Jane herself in no slouch of a barker, having dubbed animal voices for animated cartoons before she got her break in pictures. LESLIE HOWARD was all set to ride away into Mantua in a scene from "Romeo and Juliet," but his horse refused to remain quiet while he jumped off the wall of Juliet's garden. Every time Howard jumped the horse jumped. Without cracking a smile, Director George Cukor solemnly read the stage directions to the horse and, believe it or not, the horse remained perfectly still as the camera recorded the scene without a hitch. "That," remarked Cukor, "is driving horse sense into a horse." MISCELLANY: Rochelle Hudson resplendent in a snorts coat of the new watermelon shade. Frank M. Thomas, recently signed from the New York stage, checking in for a ESP Rrreen tent. Walter Abel tolling ' Frances Sage what he saw in a Los Angeles court. Blond Claire Trevor in a black wig for a new movie test, and Michael Whalcn giving his sister Claire, who has been ill, devoted attention. HOPE springs eternal . . . Fif teen years ago a screen and stage player of international fame with producers in Hollywood and New York clamoring for his serv ices; today a humble "bit" player. But Gaston Glass is hopeful of a comeback that will at least restore a measure of his former popu larity. PACK FIVB-I Sara Haden Clair Trevor II c
