Annotations On Anne Baxter

Personal history: Born in Michigan City, Indiana; six years later, moved to Westchester County, New York; and five years ago she arrived in Hollywood. P.S. She’s been acting since the age of twelve on the stage and over the radio.

What she hums around the house: “More And More,’’ and “Accentuate The Positive.”

Favorite boudoir trick: Rinsing her hair in a glass of champagne or sauterne after a shampoo, instead of vinegar. She stoutly claims this trick gives hair a new luster and it isn’t as strong as vinegar. “Even if it does sound chi-chi to say you rinse your hair in dead wine—do it!” says she.

What she won’t permit at her parties: Games of any kind—particularly the conversation-killer of Hollywood, gin rummy. Any gin rummy addict would be bludgeoned to death in Anne’s house. She wants good talk among her guests—not the riffle of cards!

Pet passion in color: Chinese red—which she collects in dresses, hats, bags and shoes. She has even done one room in her house in Chinese red!

Pet aversion in color: Blue. Once she had a blue room in her home and she never went into it—it depressed her to the point of tears.

What she cooks the best: Only one thing, and it doesn’t need a stove. It’s mixed green salad, with a vinegar-and-oil dressing pepped up by parmesan cheese and Worcestershire sauce.

People whose feet can always be found on her rugs: William Eythe, Walter Cregar, Henry Morgan and his wife—and Richard Derr, who is now in uniform so his feet are among the missing. So are John Hodiak’s, until lately the most popular of all.

What she wants in a husband: When she gets good and ready—he’ll be intelligent, tall, good-natured, humorous and fascinated by books and music. He’ll also like to walk!

What she’d be like as a wife: Every man she knows sighs the same thing: “She’d be wonderful!” She’d run a house like clockwork; supervise the tastiest menus in the West; and fill the house with music, flowers and books—and interesting young people.

What she does after her evening’s swain has gone home: Even if it’s two in the ayem, she’s likely to build a fire in the living room, make herself toast and coffee and sit nibbling and sipping for hours while the music of Sibelius, Beethoven and Debussy pours over her.

Favorite item in her closet: Hats, hats, hats! But not crazy ones: Becoming ones, in every known color. She collects them as rapidly and casually as you and I collect our daily meals; and she gathers dark clothes to set them off. After hats come gloves and bags in her clothes list.

How she’d open the door to you of a Sunday afternoon: In lounging pajamas, trim and tailored, probably in black; and on her feet, high-built slack shoes in Chinese red. And in her hair, a bow—Chinese red, of course!

Vital statistics for men: She’s twenty-two years old, five feet four inches tall, 112 pounds in weight, her eyes are hazel and her hair curly chestnut. You’re already well aware that she has that je ne sais quoi that attracts men the way honey gets flies!

Favorite form of entertaining: At Sunday brunch—so her actor-friends can stay for hours, and still get to bed around nine P.M.! Everyone invited shows up like homing pigeons; for where Anne is, there’s sure to be good talk and delicious, exotic food—like lobster Newburg on waffles!

While you’re reading “Dick Tracy,” she’s reading: “Dick Tracy” too, but only after “Napoleon.” Her pet of all comic strips just went out of existence in the Hollywood papers—“Smokey Stover.” Every morning she marveled happily over all his puns!

What she wants to be doing twenty years from now: She wants to be on her way to Europe with her husband and two children—having just finished a stage play!

Favorite between-meal snack: Coffee, by the dozens of cups. Friends (and waiters) threaten to pipe it into her dressing room if she doesn’t figure out a better way of getting it than the usual fashion, via tray!

How she bought her home: In a package—by which we mean completely furnished down to the last keg of nails and set of tools in the garage. And including the piano in the living room!

Who lives under the same roof with her: A colored cook named Nell; and Anne’s mother, Mrs. Kenneth Stuart Baxter. Father Baxter has to live in San Francisco for his business, which is liquor, under the title of Frankfort Distilleries, Inc.

What she loves more than anything but good talk: Good food, which she sleuths down in rare restaurants and pins down at home on recipes . . . and good music, from Tchaikovsky to Louis Armstrong and Joe Turner—she has a huge record collection . . . and good books which line the walls of her house, with accent on John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe and Thornton Wilder.

What she likes to do on sunny days, alone: Take long, long hikes over the hills back of her house. She’s hunting for a dog to hike with her.

What she likes to do on rainy days, alone: Play the piano, which she does beautifully. Right now she’s learning “The Fire Dance.”

What she likes to do at night, alone: Put on her suit and swim in the pool under her bedroom windows with nothing but the stars to watch her.

Where she’ll live after the war: In a special functional house built by her famous grandfather, architect Frank Lloyd Wright—undoubtedly on a cliff overlooking Hollywood.

What she does on the spur of the moment: Anything at all that suits her fancy—like: Some time ago a young Army officer and his wife who were driving to Arizona to live stopped in to say goodbye to Anne, for fifteen minutes. Within that fifteen minutes Anne rushed upstairs, packed a grip—and left with them for the trip! A few days later she came back by train, happy as a lark.

What she abhors: Big, formal, stuffy parties; the color blue; and people who ask prying questions that are none of their business.

Most amusing experience while acting: The time, during the shooting of “The Magnificent Ambersons,” when she was supposed to fall out of a sled onto a street. She was so afraid of the fall that she kept tensing up and “helping” herself out of the sled—until Director Orson Welles, at his wits’ end, called a halt for dinner. He then escorted Miss Baxter to dinner personally, ordered her as her director to drink a couple of glasses of wine—and once back at work, Anne fell out of the sled like a bundle of limp and happy rags, with her head giddy with wine. It was a beautiful performance at last!

Favorite outdoor inanimate object: A Western saddle—on a horse—with her on the saddle!

Only time she loses her temper: It’s whenever the public press tries to find out about her private romantic life—and Anne always wins the battle! Her private life stays that way!

What she doesn’t suspect about herself: That she’s the kind of a girl whose talent in pictures and success with beaus outside of pictures makes enemies out of other Hollywood women—until they’ve met her personally. Then they like her as well as the ticket-buyers and all the men she knows!

THE END

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE JULY 1945