You Read It First In Vintage Paparazzi

Observed: Gail Russell and Guy Madison move as one shadow. At a party the other night the brunette Gail and blonde Guy went table hopping from group to group always together and looking divinely happy. Rumor has it producer David Selznick has suggested to his young star that romance is fine but marriage is out—which is why Gail and Guy are not taking the step, not just yet, that is . . . Diana Lynn broke her engagement to producer Henry Willson, as Cal prophesied, remember, but there’s no one else in her life. So says Diana . . . Bob Walker and Mrs. Herbert Marshall have developed into a date-every-night routine which sends a lot of eyebrows skyward . . . Jack Carson, a former solid citizen who has gone completely “big time,” is a studio worry . . . Sue and Alan Ladd are like a couple of kids with a new toy with that new Mayfair Restaurant that they bought down near the beach. They keep making excuses to have parties large and small in their home—just so their restaurant can cater the food. Very cute.

These three: We hung up the phone after chatting with Evie Wynn convinced she was a troubled woman. Evie was off that very next moment to Las Vegas with her two children where she plans to divorce Keenan. “I feel so blue,” she said. “One can’t sever ties of eight years without a certain lost feeling. But both Keenan and I have known for several months our marriage is over and there is no use to go on. He has so many interests—his motors, his little theater work, his picture career—and I feel sure he’ll be happier alone.”

“And what’s all this about Van Johnson?” we asked. “A radio columnist announced you and Van would marry after the divorce.”

“I denied making such a statement in the morning papers,” she said. “You can imagine how shocked I was at such a blunt statement and I’m sure if Van were listening he was too. As a friend, I tell you now there is no such definite arrangement.”

Cal knows that to Van the Wynn home was his only real home in Hollywood.

He loved the two Wynn children, was a staunch friend of both Evie’s and Keenan’s and was welcomed in their home almost as a family member. When Keenan worked evenings, either at the theater or on his motor cars, it was Van who, at Keenan’s request, escorted Evie to the various functions. Usually Peter Lawford or Keenan’s father or a mutual friend accompanied them or dined with them on special occasions. Because he lived alone in a hotel, Van ate many dinners with Keenan and Evie. If he had a date elsewhere, the cook would look about disappointedly and demand to know where Mr. Johnson was. “And I made this special chocolate sauce,” she’d complain.

Van, now on location, cannot be reached for a statement but Cal, who is a friend of Evie’s, Keenan’s and Van’s, has been invited to visit Evie in Las Vegas and we feel sure the final word will be, “We three will always be friends.” And why shouldn’t they be?

Wedding Time: It was a gala wedding and the bride looked beautiful. Groom Bob Hutton, who almost missed the event, was properly nervous and the guests properly happy. In a flower-decked suite of the El Rancho Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, Bob and lovely Cleatus Caldwell took their vows before a small group of friends. Harry Ritz (of all people) openly wept while his own lovely wife consoled him. Jimmy Ritz led the champagne toasts, Bob’s agents Al Malneck (his best man) and Louis Shurr beamed on their protege. Cleatus’s beautiful mother smiled approval, for Bob was her choice, too. Actor Jimmy Lydon (“Life with Father”) beamed on his cute wife who was matron of honor. Bob’s mother, Mrs. Marguerite Hutton, back in Kingston, New York, was deluged with information, via telephone, about the event. Cal found himself trying to describe Cleatus’s beautiful ankle-length gray lace frock and her Kenneth Hopkins gray lace bonnet. But no words could describe the vision she presented.

Dinner in the main dining room with an enormous cake followed with the guests from the hotel dropping by with congratulations. Cal was just plain thankful he got there at all for at 10:30 the night before he and Bob had set out together to drive the 300 odd miles to Nevada. On the freezing cold Cajon Pass, our front right tire blew out and a little later the rear one gave way. After several hours’ delay in Barstow we finally managed to wangle some replacements and at eight in the morning wearily drove into the hotel driveway.

“And to think,” Bob said on the way, “I married Martha Vickers all day on the set with no mishaps at all.”

Too weary to attempt the drive home, Bob, his bride and Cal took off that night in a small private plane for California. The couple have taken a house out in the Valley and after Bob completes two films he’s working on, the popular pair will be at home to their many friends.

Town Notes: Ann Sothern is playing golf on the same links as her estranged husband, Bob Sterling. Once in a while they meet and speak politely. Our guess is both are finding this separation business a bit lonely. So who knows? Those dates Ann has been having with John McClain, the writer, are the result of long-standing friendship.

Hedy Lamarr, who expects her new baby in April, is not as well as she might be. It isn’t known that Hedy was dangerously ill during the birth of her first child and never completely recovered. That new home she and husband John Loder have purchased is a large one with five bedrooms, guest quarters and servants’ rooms. But with three children in the family John and Hedy feel it isn’t a bit too big.

We Predict: There will be a new Vic Mature fan craze after “My Darling Clementine” is released. Vic couldn’t be swoonier . . . Cornel Wilde will permit his wife’s career to take its own natural course rather than attempt to force it by rebellion. After all, Patricia, who is beautiful, must gain experience before the starring status Cornel insists upon . . . Nancy Sinatra will become one of the most popular young matrons in town and one of the smartest looking . . . James Mason’s contemplated year’s residence in Bermuda, for his health’s sake, will be cut down to a much shorter period, if it takes place at all. Mason is just as anxious for Hollywood as the town is to receive him . . . Once fans sight Richard Greene on the screen again, they’ll agree it’s a new Richard. The war has given something to the Englishman that has made him stronger, surer and handsomer.

Quick Takes: It’s obvious whose side the Gary Coopers were on during the Sinatra break-up when they invited Nancy (for the first time, too) to a home party and ignored Frankie. Nancy went with her old friend, Skitch Henderson . . . Those blue eyes of Van Johnson’s were closed for three days on location due to the poison oak he thought was weeds. Was he embarrassed! . . . Once again the Cornel Wildes are on the move just when everyone was certain the day of their endless searching for the ideal home was over when they settled down in their Coldwater Canyon home. But no, the urge for constant change is too strong for the glamorous nomads who are busily looking for another house.

Down Lovers’ Lone: The beauteous Anita Colby and Skitch Henderson are still strolling. Don’t believe those items about Skitch rushing Lina Romay. To read the papers you’d think they’d been all over the place together. ’Tisn’t so. He’s had exactly one date with her! Both Anita and Skitch (isn’t he sensational on the Bing Crosby show?) make occasional outside dates (she with Clark Gable)—but they know that “falling in love is wonderful.” As for Gable, the gorgeous—he’s been leading a very quiet life. He’s restless, lonely—and anxious to get back to work. He keeps leaping off for a few days of fishing in Oregon—or some hunting in Utah—or just hanging around his house and calling pals to tell them he’s restless. Well, Clark, whose chief feminine interest is still Virginia Grey (if any) will be back at work on “The Hucksters”—and soon. And that’s good news to Gable fans.

Sod Cut-up: In a town where overnight transformations are taken for granted, the shock delivered by Rita Hayworth was a honey. Rita has clipped all that beautiful long auburn hair that was so much a part of her personality, at the request (one hears) of her husband Orson Welles. With her hair snipped into a very short boyish cut and bleached a light golden, Rita doesn’t begin to look like herself, which is a shame and a pity.

Orson chartered Errol Flynn’s yacht Zaca, which is still in Mexican waters, and transported to the boat the entire company of “Lady from Shanghai” which he directs, produces and co-stars in with Rita.

Nora Flynn flew home before the Welles unit took over but Errol will stay with the boat and later continue his travels, probably to Tahiti. But Nora says he’ll be home in February when the second Flynn child is due.

William—and Women: The situation that has Hollywood intrigued concerns two girls who were awaiting Bill Eythe’s return from England. Each girl, songstress Margaret Whiting and actress Buff Cobb, was positive Bill was coming home to her. Margaret, whose engagement to Bill was announced recently, says Bill sent his proposal all the way across the Atlantic and she accepted. But Buff, meantime, went to New York to meet Bill upon his arrival from England and to proceed with the romance that was interrupted when the actor went abroad to make “Meet Me at Dawn.” Developments should prove interesting, to say the least.

Travelers: Ray Milland and his beautiful Mel telephoned goodbyes before taking off for England and a command performance for the King and Queen for sweet charity’s sake. They will visit Ray’s old home in Wales and travel on to Scotland and the Continent. Joan Bennett was accompanied by her husband, producer Walter Wanger. Mrs. O’Brien went along with Pat who will probably try to tell the whole royal family about that new son presented to him by his beloved Eloise. Little Dorothy Malone, who played the girl in love with John Garfield in “Humoresque,” travels with the group and feels so obscure among the stars. But the Millands have promised to look after Dorothy during the event.

Break-up: Upon Tyrone Power’s return from his South American flight he and Annabella announced they were divorcing . . . an announcement that had been imminent ever since 1941 when Ty and Annabella agreed that since they wanted different things from life it was hopeless for them to try to build a future together. However, with the coming of war, they put aside personal difficulties and Ty went overseas. As in so many cases the period apart seemed to emphasize rather than reduce their differences.

Tyrone likes a simple life peopled with friends from the studios. Annabella, a woman of the world, prefers big parties and gaiety and friends from social circles. 

Once the separation announcement was made the rumors that cluttered the Hollywood grapevine were dizzy enough to suggest the vine had drunk of its own grapes. Gene Tierney is the girl in Tyrone’s life . . . This was the first rumor. In a way it was understandable. Gene and Oleg Cassini have, for months, been making a fight for their marriage. Tyrone and Gene were close during the absorbing months they worked on their picture, “The Razor’s Edge.” At this time there were rumors that there was a romance between them but that romance has not been borne out. The next rumor on the program: Lana Turner is the girl in Tyrone’s life . . . Ty and Lana will marry . . . came next. Then Turhan Bey came back from the Pacific. Of course he and Lana weren’t good friends at the time he left . . . But don’t ask us to predict—not on this one!

Sympathetically: Hollywood was shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden death of Mrs. Roy Rogers. At eight o’clock the Sunday morning of November 3 Roy had talked to her on the telephone, saying he’d be down to see her and their newborn son shortly. She had said she was feeling fine and would get herself spruced up for his visit. One hour later the hospital called Roy to say that she was gone; that even before they could get an emergency call to him, an embolism, or blood clot, traveling through the blood stream after the baby had been born by a Caesarian section, had reached the brain and within twenty minutes life was over for Arlene Rogers. Thus Roy could not even be at her side when the end came.

His grief was further tinged by the irony of their having wanted a son so very much. Roy has always been devoted to his two daughters but he’d still take the hand of a youngster in a children’s hospital or on the street of a town where he’d be making a personal appearance and fight back the desire to say, “How’d you like to come home with me and be my little boy?”

He won’t have to do that now. Arlene has left him their own little Roy Rogers Jr.

Cupid Collections: Cupid has certainly had one hectic month around these parts and Cal herewith lists some of his hits, misses and near-misses:

Johnny Payne and Gloria De Haven separated over strictly domestic squabbles—and not just because she wanted to resume her movie career. Gloria moved to a Beverly hotel—but not for long. Only a few days later the two were dining together at various places again—and before you knew it, promises had been made on both sides—and Gloria moved back home. At this writing all is peace . . . That design for marital happiness between Mickey Rooney and his wife that permits Mickey to have free one night a week to do as he pleases is suspended while Mrs. Rooney returns to her home in the East to await the birth of their second child. Now Mickey has every night off . . . After two days of mad misunderstandings with his superior officers in the Army, millionaire Turk Ali Ipar and Virginia Bruce were able to say their “I do’s”—only to have their honeymoon interrupted by his being summoned back to camp after all. But Cal has seen them around at parties a lot in the past few weeks, so he must be conveniently close at hand lately. He is about an inch shorter than the beautiful Virginia — and only twenty-five years old . . . Since the Rita Hayworth – Orson Welles reconciliation, Tony Martin’s torch has been lighting the Hollywood skies. But blonde and pretty Nancy Valentine is doing her best to make it dimmer.

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE JANUARY 1947