That’s Hollywood For You

I’m of the opinion that Eddie Fisher would like to be Frank Sinatra . . . Jean Seberg is an olive. I mean some actresses are like olives, an acquired taste. Jean is in this category . . . France’s Brigitte Bardot is proving to be more formidable than Silvana, Sophia and Gina. Brigitte is said to have said: “You are born with sex.” . . . I don’t understand what those two policemen are doing on the “$64,000 Question.” Hal March is going to try to steal the questions and answers . . . When meeting Monty Clift, you realize he isn’t as tall as he appears to be on the screen . . . The day Garbo ceases to be news, that will be news!

“My trouble in Hollywood,” Deborah Kerr told me, “was that in the beginning I gave the impression of being a lady. This is only good in Hollywood after you’ve played prostitutes, nymphs and alcoholics on the screen.” . . . I don’t accept the often-used praise that such and such a performer is so great that he’d be entertaining reading the telephone directory . . . Martha Hyer lives alone “and almost likes it.” . . . Quick Description of Tab Hunter: Type of person who, when awakened early in the morning, gets up smiling . . . Barbara Nichols to Jayne Mansfield: “I can’t believe you at first, and then you become unbelievable.”

John Saxon reminds me more of Bob Wagner than Tony Curtis . . . Now that she’s come out of hiding in a Malibu shack, Valerie French could make it big in pictures . . . How childish must you be to love adult westerns? . . . I enjoyed my sessions at the Las Vegas Desert Inn listening to Paul Whiteman chat about Bing Crosby: “Bing doesn’t like people except when he has to be with them.”

I guess Sal Mineo will always play a delinquent, juvenile or otherwise . . . I always remember Ava Gardner’s closeups in “The Barefoot Contessa” as one of the two most beautiful faces I have seen on celluloid. You guess the other. (Maybe next month I’ll tell.) . . . Anne Baxter hates pillows. She won’t sleep with one . . . I can’t understand why some director hasn’t grabbed Susan Harrison for a role in a picture; especially after her Broadway reviews in William Saroyan’s “The Cave Dwellers.” She’s a new face, with talent too . . . A fellow doesn’t have to like Vikki Dougan to go out with her. He has to be brave enough to be seen with her . . . Barbara Bel Geddes and Kim Stanley are sexier to me than most of the obvious so-called sexpots . . . Gisele MacKenzie does Jack Benny even when she isn’t trying . . . I can’t stand starlets who can’t remember their own telephone numbers, and who say: “I seldom phone myself, you know.” . . . I’m very pleased that movietown now has the Los Angeles Dodgers ’cause hot dogs never taste so good as at a ball game.

Carolyn Jones, a natural blonde, couldn’t get anywhere as an actress until she became a brunette. Dorothy Malone, a natural brunette, couldn’t get anywhere as an actress until she became a blonde. Figure it out while humming, “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” . . . Quick Description of Pat Boone: A pleasant fellow earning more money than any other fellow in the United States working his way through college . . . While in town, Noel Coward, discussing The Method, said: “I’m opposed to any kind of acting which ignores the audience.”

Tony Perkins has a different offstage act for the sidewalks of New York than he had offscreen on the streets of Hollywood . . . I recall Alec Guinness remarking: “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” . . . Our local L.A. TV has Oscar Levant and he should be L.A. to N.Y. . . . When Judy Garland told Levant she couldn’t hurry over and be on his program because her hair was a mess, Oscar replied: “It’s all right. Come over. I’ll introduce you as Anna Magnani.”

I wonder if Elvis Presley is telling the soldiers how lonely he is. Elvis always gave this line to his five-salaried buddies . . . I like “The Night They Invented Champagne” from “Gigi.” Get the Gogi Grant-Tony Martin Album (RCA-Victor), and if you don’t like it you can send it to me . . . Ingrid Bergman is a woman who’s generally in love beyond her means. . . . I always like the Perry Como TV show but I like it more when Judy Holliday is on it . . . Quick Description of Diane Varsi: She is in the process of finding herself . . . It’s been said that Susan Strasberg is the teenage edition of Grace Kelly . . . I’m in favor of Kim Novak . . . Although Frank Sinatra concludes his TV programs saying, “Sleep Warm”—he kicks off the blankets while sleeping. Frankie’s a gasser, isn’t he! . . . Trying to entice Mamie Van Doren to make a p.a. tour with a picture, a producer told her it would be more fun than work. Mamie replied: “I don’t believe in doing for pleasure things I don’t like to do.” That’s Hollywood For You.

—BY SIDNEY SKOLSKY

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE JUNE 1958