That’s Hollywood For You

I’ll bet the works Mamie Van Doren studies Marilyn Monroe even to the still photos . . . Shelley Winters will be a modern Texas Guinan when she does her night-club act in Las Vegas. That is, if she ever does it! . . . Hollywood is a place where when the parking attendant at Chasen’s doesn’t know you by name, you’re slipping . . . I think Jeff Chandler deserves better pictures than he has been getting recently. If they would put Jeff in a prestige picture they would have a prestige actor.

I’d say Victor Mature is as smart as any actor in town. Vic wins if his public goes out for the evening and sees him in a movie. But he also wins if his public stays home to watch TV, because he owns a chain of television stores . . . Lana Turner carries a book as if she had just been awarded a prize . . .“I don’t go to see the rushes of my pictures. I’ve done it the best I know how, and the rest is someone else’s job. And I don’t like to see myself on the screen anyway.” Do you know who said that? Humphrey Bogart!

For a scene in a picture, Terry Moore had to wear extra long artificial eyelashes, which required special trimming and curling. When the make-up man saw Terry sleeping in her portable dressing room between scenes, he rushed in and woke her, saying: “Pardon me, but you’re sleeping on my eyes.” . . . Liz Taylor and Michael Wilding both admit they’re lazy as can be. They will tell you, in fact, that this is what they have in common . . . Deborah Kerr got herself miscast in the right role in “Eternity” and started off on a whole new career in the movies.

I’m amused when Stewart Granger, movie star, turns and gawks like a tourist at movie star Clark Gable . . . Rosemary Clooney’s singing gets better and better, and it was fine to begin with . . . Ever notice how fake most gay party scenes in movies are? . . . Arlene Dahl sleeps in a sheer Arlene Dahl nightgown (manufactured by her) and wears an Arlene Dahl nightcap (also manufactured by her) and could be said to be an ad for Arlene Dahl in bed. I’ll buy. I wonder if Kirk Douglas is anxious to get back to the U.S. now that the eighteen months tax deal isn’t working . . . Roberta Haynes is the only sex bundle I know who photographs better without make-up . . . Cowboys are getting smarter. Monty Hale now prefers Lili St. Cyr to his guitar . . . I wish Lena Horne would record “I Want to be Evil—Because Evil Spelled Backwards Means Live.”

The Beverly Hills cops give out stamped, addressed envelopes in which to mail the fines for overtime parking . . . I’m still baffled by the Jane Powell – Gene Nelson romance. I didn’t think they were each other’s type . . . Kathryn Grayson’s explanation for not rushing into another marriage: “There are some women who will take anything from a man. They say, ‘He’s still my Bill.’ But when a man shoves me around, that’s the end.” . . . Actresses who should know better still talk too loud in beauty parlors. . . . Gloria Graham always sleeps au naturel. She says: “I just retire as I really am. When I go to bed I’m not acting.”

If you liked Montgomery Clift’s trumpet playing in “From Here to Eternity,” you liked Mannie Klein, who’s only the greatest! . . . In the Paramount commissary, Mike Curtiz was gabbing with Irving Berlin when an uninvited table-hopper came along to join them. Said Curtiz, “Please don’t interrupt Mr. Berlin when I’m doing the talking.” . . . Cyd Charisse has the longest, sexiest legs on the screen, and when you look at her face she is a ringer for Ava Gardner . . . I’m always tempted to ask Mary Pickford what she thinks of today’s Hollywood.

Don’t you be fooled. It’s not 3-D that makes Howard Keel appear handsome in “Kiss Me Kate.” They built up and straightened his nose with putty . . . Hollywood is a place where, after all arrangements had been made for Van Heflin to put his footprints in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the whole thing was called off. The man who mixes cement for this function was away on a vacation trip and so fame had to wait. And that’s Hollywood for you!

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 1953