They
can't relax, in Hollywood. They have to be in the news, in the public
eye, on the dance floor, at the races, at the beach clubs, at parties,
giving parties...
Ginger Rogers and Jimmy Stewart are seen at the Troc'. .
. Carole Lombard and Clark Gable are seen at the races .
. Jeanette MacDonald and Gene Raymond are seen at the Cocoanut
Grove . . . Gloria Swanson and Bart Marshall at the Derby
. . . All right, then, Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor,
George Raft and Virginia Pine, Henry Fonda and his
"heart" . . . these and how many others must be "seen",
too, lest they be listed among the forgotten (movie) men and women . .
. lest tongues wag and rumors raise dust and heads shake and the waters
of oblivion close over their limelight-less heads. . . .
Walter Lang gave a party the other night . . . Clark and Carole and Fieldsie
and one or two other couples were there . . . then Carole must retaliate
and give a small, intimate party in return . . . the couple of hundred
must return the compliment . . .
They have plenty of money, large and lavish homes, opulent cars, polo
ponies, yachts, friends, rivals, competitors . . . they must entertain
and be seen and play polo and golf and tennis and dance, dance, dance
. . . . . they must live as the other Romans live in a phantasmagoria
of
work and fun, of flurry and fever, of hilarity and high blood pressure.
. .
They
dare not let down. Ginger Rogers goes about town clad in slacks
and overalls, her face as guiltless of make-up as on the day she was born
. . . but she worries about it. She says, "I know I am letting my
Public down looking like this . . I should keep dolled up, made up, dressed
up. . . " Even when they do relax, they worry about it.
Take an average day in the day of Carole Lombard - and let any
self-pitying little housewife with one husband, two children, six dishes
and one vacuum cleaner to manage, read it and weep - if she dares!
Carole rises at 6 a.m. She is in the studio at 7 for a 9 o'clock call.
Between the hours of 8 and 9 she is in the hands of the make-up
man and hairdresser. She works from 9 until 12:15, with three interruptions
for newspaper interviews and stills. At 12:15 she lunches, talks to Clark
on the phone. The luncheon hour is half an hour. It is complicated
either by an interviewer with a face like a question mark or by her director,
When Carole is not working - and what's the difference, you tell me - she rises at 10:30 in the mornings if the telephone gives her that much respite . . . it doesn't, of course. You know, Mister Bell, "may his soul rest in pieces," says Carole. . . . She rises and dashes over to Claudette's for two sets of tennis. . . . she dashes back home, dresses, lunches at the Vendome with friends she has not been able to see during production . . . at 2:30 on almost every 'non-working' day she had an appointment at the studio for story conferences on her next picture . . . she then spends an hour in the gallery for portrait sittings for her Art which must 'do' throughout the next production . . . she dashes home for dinner . . . she gives a few small, informal parties at home . . .for her director and the cast of her last picture (continue)