That’s Hollywood For You

I wish Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher don’t make a picture together for quite a while. Don’t think it will be good for Debbie and Eddie personally, even if the movie is a giant hit. . . . Ava Gardner likes to walk barefooted around the house. Did it long before she was the Contessa. . . . Even in the movies you never see an actress putting on lipstick without looking into the mirror. They do many impossible things in pictures, but they wouldn’t attempt to make an audience believe this! . . . Piper Laurie still seems a bit bewildered by the fact she is a movie star. . . .

When Terry Moore was asked why she keeps working, studying, rushing from place to place, dating, etc., she replied: “A long time ago I was given the advice that it’s better to wear out than rust out.” People I never thought were interested in Academy Awards tell me that Marlon Brando should win the Oscar for “On the Waterfront.” I’ll be pulling for him all the way. . . . Even on CinemaScope they can’t make a football game look real in the movies. It just can’t be staged. . . . There’s Rock and Tab and Race, but I appreciate Wayne because he manages to remain popular with such an ordinary first name as John. . . . I’ve watched Joan Crawford knit while watching a movie. Joan is a frantic knitter and does it while doing everything. . . . Monty Clift doesn’t object to appearing in a movie that is about something. “I believe,” says Monty, “there is an audience that wants to escape from the escapes.”

Marilyn Monroe’s favorite singer, bar none, is Ella Fitzgerald. The Monroe has Fitzgerald records on tap at home and in her dressing room. . . . I like Tony Curtis’ eagerness because it has sincerity. . . . At M-G-M I heard Elizabeth Taylor say to her poodle: “Listen, you’re going to walk there—even if I have to carry you.”

I don’t think Grace Kelly is as difficult to understand as most people would have you believe. She’s a smart chick—pardon me, lady! . . . Wonder whose records Vic Damone played when he was romancing his bride, Pier Angeli? . . . I don’t know of an actress who looks sexier dancing on celluloid than Cyd Charisse. She comes on strong! M-G-M should come on stronger with her! . . . I like the way June Allyson and Dick Powell smile at each other at parties. . . . Lauren Bacall told me: “When I first started going with Bogey, I couldn’t last as long at parties as he did. Now he often goes home before I do. Progress, Buster, progress.” . . .

Jean Simmons shouldn’t be so bright, she’s too beautiful. . . . It’s difficult for me to realize that Doris Day is being Ruth Etting and Susan Hayward is being Lillian Roth. Yet it shouldn’t be difficult for me, who welcomed Larry Parks as Al Jolson and Keefe Brasselle as Eddie Cantor. . . . Any movie star giving a sustained performance in a stage play still surprises me. . . . I’d love to be listening, unobserved, to one of the Audrey Hepburn-Mel Ferrer discussions about the theatre, the movies and acting. . . . I’m told that after Mitzi Gaynor gave new husband Jack Bean a TV set for the bedroom, she attached a note reading: “I guess there’ll be no sleeping with you now.” . . . I liked it when Burt Lancaster mentioned it during a conversation: “A pessimist is a fellow who is worried that the optimist may be right.”

Bob Mitchum consistently is the most outspoken, and honestly so, actor. . . . This Janet Leigh is becoming a character. A girl friend phoned and asked if she’d sing at her wedding. “I’d love to,” answered Janet, “but I’m working so hard; I’m so busy, maybe next time.” And that’s Hollywood for you.

—BY SIDNEY SKOLSKY

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 1955