That’s Hollywood For You

I believe Liz Taylor and Mike Wilding are getting divorced so they can be good friends. . . . Nobody ever accused Anita Ekberg of looking like a boy. . . . I admire Audrey Hepburn because she wouldn’t allow the studio to straighten her few crooked teeth. . . . Originally Tony Perkins was a hitchhiker. I bet him that he’d learn to drive a car before I did, and if so he’d have to chauffeur me for a week. . . . Some blonds are obvious imitations of Marilyn Monroe, while others (Edith Adams, Judy Holliday and Joyce Jameson) announce they’re doing an imitation of MM as a feature of their act. . . . Diana Dors doesn’t believe she’s the “English Marilyn Monroe,” but accepts the billing because it’s good business. Diana’s husband, Dennis (The Menace) Hamilton, discarded his last name, which is Gittens. . . . Zsa Zsa Gabor didn’t announce her engagement once during last month. . . . Impossibility: Paddy Chayefsky writing a Noel Coward “Private Lives” and Noel doing a “Marty” Bronx comedy-drama. . . . I’d like to have a dollar for every bald fellow who felt better after seeing Yul Brynner in “The King and I.” . . . By the way, Tom Jenks wants the Duchess of Windsor to title her memoirs, “Almost the King and I.”. . . Ava Gardner can cook, too! What more do you want?

Eddie Fisher has a carbonated grin. This should please his TV sponsor. . . . It is difficult, almost impossible, for a movie to be a sleeper these days. The exploitation men tell you that their offbeat picture is a sleeper from the first day of filming. In a way Barbara Nichols reminds me of Shelley Winters, but more often she is all Barbara Nichols. Barbara is a giggler who is sexy. . . . I’ve never seen an actress wear a loose pair of toreador pants. Cyd Charisse is all legs in them. . . . Kim Novak tells me that the Tucker Music Shop on Sunset Boulevard has this sign in the window: “Teen-Age Spoken Here.”

I wish to report Elvis Presley stood still in Schwab’s while buying a comb and nobody recognized him. . . . All Italian actresses walk with their chests thrown out, regardless of their bosom measurements. . . . Mr. Tony Curtis is a “Somebody Up There Likes Me” character who turned out to be a movie star. . . . Judging by actresses in attendance at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar, horse racing is the only sport where the woman spectators equal or outnumber the men. You can see them all at the track, from Betty Grable to Dana Wynter. . . . If I had been Jeffrey Hunter, I never would have allowed Barbara Rush to be the girl who got away. . . . Tip to starlets: If you want to sound like Marilyn merely run up a flight of stairs before delivering your big speech. . . . Jeff Chandler says that Estes Kefauver looks like a Republican, and he’s right. . Hugo Haas does a quick and funny impersonation of Kim Novak for Greta Thyssen, Cleo Moore and other blonds he likes. Hugo puts his finger to the ti of his nose to tilt it and opens his mouth slightly. Try it. . . . Nobody looks better in Technicolor than Maureen O’Hara. . . . I’m looking forward to seeing “The Spirit of St. Louis” although I realize Jimmy Stewart is no Charles Lindbergh. . . . Harry Kurnitz writes that producers are going as far back as Beowulf and McGuffey’s Reader for subjects to be remade into musicals. . . . Alfred Hitchcock claims a typical movie star is a fellow who’s egotistical about the fact that he’s so modest.

June Allyson doesn’t have to display cleavage to be sexy to men. . . . I believe U-I has a good movie bet in Carol (Miss Universe) Morris. She has the charm of Grace Kelly, more warmth, and you don’t have to be informed she’s beautiful. . . . Tab Hunter is to be applauded because he wants to be a fine actor. Despite the fact Tab has it made, he is taking private acting lessons. . . . I know that Joan Crawford sends her pooches to school to learn how to act on a movie soundstage before she allows them to accompany her to the studio. That’s Hollywood for you.

—BY JOHN MAYNARD

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 1956