They Have Troubles

I’ll confess it now. When I first came to Hollywood I was quite envious of the movie stars. They had everything, I thought, to make them happy—money, fame, fancy houses, fancy figgers, fabulous furs, jewels, tennis courts and swimming pools which, if they were not exactly ermine-lined, were star-lined, which was better. But, after years of typewriter-scratching beneath the translucent surface, I’ve decided they can have it. There’s nary a one of them whose problems I’d rather have than my own!

Even Elizabeth Taylor. She really does have everything. “Except,” said Lizzie wistfully on her honeymoon in Europe, “a little privacy.” Of course, that’s to be expected. The great pleasure of personal privacy is denied to all movie stars. So be very grateful for your own anonymity—especially when you’re off somewhere with the man you love. You can register as Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But let Clark Gable try it—or Montgomery Clift!

Bing Crosby. Wouldn’t you love to be in his casual, carefree, easy-going shoes? I always thought I would, until I had a heart-to-heart other Larry during that unexpected airing of Bing’s marital problems. The name “Bing Crosby” stands for so much to so many millions of people. Bing can’t, and I’m sure won’t, ever let them down. “But,” Larry told me, “Bing is sometimes desperately unhappy in his personal life. That’s why he’s so restless, always going somewhere.”

Bob Hope has a happy home life but swears there’s a king size gremlin who just hates it when Bob is healthy. Robert has had three major and one minor accidents in the past year. In “The Great Lover” he injured his leg. In “Fancy Pants” he was thrown off a hobby horse and wrecked the small of his back. Driving home from Palm Springs Bob’s car collided with a tree, tossed the comedian for a very bad fall leaving him with a sprained shoulder that may never be completely right again. Oh yes. Bob also burned his hand, when a box of matches caught fire in his pants pocket. So, if you enjoy good luck physically, you have nothing to envy Bob Hope for.

Lucille Ball has desperately hoped for a child. Loving children as she does, she had wanted to adopt a baby. But Desi Arnaz preferred that they wait on the chance they might have a child of their own. For years I’ve wished them luck while I thanked God for allowing me to have my two youngsters. But now, after long waiting, their dearest wish is to come true.

Joan Fontaine is beautiful, bewitching—but bothered by her business partnership with her estranged marriage partner, William Dozier. Their community property, mostly on paper from their, so far, non-profitable picture company, Rampart Productions, is so involved, even the bank experts are baffled. It adds up to an exasperating delay in the divorce.

Robert Mitchum earns $4,000 a week now. But Robert told me it will be another eighteen months “before I’m halfway out of debt.” And one of these days he has to start paying Howard Hughes the $50,000 loaned him for the new home in Mandeville Canyon. “Come up and see us,” Robert told me. “You’ll simply love our lovely unfurnished rooms.” With so much money on Mitchum’s mind, the mere thought of breaking a finger gives him a near nervous breakdown.

Errol Flynn, for all his $200,000 per picture, recently told the judge that he owes $150,000 in income taxes and he screamed for relief—chiefly to cut down the tax he has to pay on the $18,000 a year alimony for his first wife, Lili Damita. It would be awful if his Princess Irene Ghika found herself marrying a pauper.

So you’d like to be Rita Hayworth. You would naturally enjoy reading that you had married one of the richest Princes in the world. Would you also enjoy reading, week in, week out, that your Prince was dallying with a dancer while you were expecting his baby? Well, if Rita is really secure and sure of Aly’s love, she can be happy on that score. But there is going to be a problem if Rita is reluctant to return to her career, as I hear she is. Prince Aly is proud to be the groom of a glamour queen. Rita would rather be a plain princess and forget that five-thirty-in-the-morning career routine. “But, if she’s smart and wants to hold Aly, she’ll work,” said Aly’s pop, the Aga Khan, a very wise old gentleman.

Rosalind Russell has real problems. She gets panned when she makes heavy dramatic movies. She gets pistolled in print for her screwball comedies. Now she’s having the darndest time picking her next picture because she just doesn’t know what the public wants from her. Will you do her a favor and let her know? It’s a question of career life and death. Personally, I hope Roz can find herself something like “The Women.” She was great in that. (P.S. I think she’s great period).

Will happiness catch up with Wanda Hendrix, or Audie Murphy? What a sad ending for such a beautiful beginning! Two young bright people, with ulcers yet—something for each to remember from one of the most miserable matings ever to hit Hollywood. “We were just wrong for each other,” Audie told me recently. “But I guess we had to get married to find out.”

June Haver has been in and out of the hospital ever since I can remember. Worst of her problems was her mistaken marriage to Jimmy Zito, followed by the heartbreaking death of Dr. John Duzik, the man she hoped to marry with the permission of her church. Now her own bad health is troubling her again. Nothing is worth anything if you are ill.

That brings me to William Holden. “I’m afraid to go home,” Bill told me during his recent nonstop spell of sickness in the family. First the children came down with measles, which was followed by chicken pox, then mumps. Sure, every family of children goes through this. But not every mother. Mrs. Holden—Brenda Marshall—was raised in the Philippines where they have such things as malaria, maybe, but not measles, mumps or chicken pox. Poor Brenda caught all three. It was far from a joking matter. She was desperately ill.

“I hear that so and so is out of jail,” I mentioned casually to Linda Darnell, referring to one of her former business associates. I didn’t know I was opening a wound that will never close for Linda. “That man!” the beautiful brunette star shouted. “He not only took every cent of my savings (around $74,000) but he took the $12,000 I gave him to pay for my mink coat. And on top of everything, he had the colossal nerve to borrow $10,000 from me. If he’s really out of jail, I’m going to the district attorney to put him right back.” Linda, in pictures eleven years, had planned to take her career a little easier after twenty-five. She is now twenty-six—“and I’ll have to work very hard for the next ten years to make up for what I’ve lost.”

Are you beginning to love your own troubles? I’m beginning to be glad I never had much money to lose!

Ava Gardner’s not-so-secret sorrow today is a frustrated longing to have a husband and children. People who know her say Ava will always be in love with Artie Shaw. That’s only just a little better than being in love with Frank Sinatra. At least Artie can re-marry her.

Fred MacMurray, like Robert Taylor, is the open air huntin’ and fishin’ type of feller. Both have to play in the great outdoors without their wives. Fred’s wife can’t. Bob’s won’t. Lillian MacMurray has been a semi-invalid for years. It’s wonderful to see Fred’s devotion to her. His outdoor sports are always close to home.

Barbara Stanwyck is strictly an indoors girl. She is also strictly fair so she encourages Robert to live the way he likes to. Makes them both quite lonely people sometimes—a lot of the time.

You don’t hear Spencer Tracy complain. Or his wife. They’re the kind of people who do something about it when things go wrong. Mrs. Tracy taught their son how to overcome the handicap of deafness. Mr. and Mrs. Tracy sponsor the John Tracy Clinic to help other deaf children.

Jennifer Jones, who loves her two sons, is parted from them constantly because her boss and husband, David Selznick, finds it expedient to have her work in Europe. There isn’t enough fame or money in the world to keep me away from my children.

Don’t get me wrong. I have troubles too. I just wouldn’t swap ’em for anyone else’s. It’s taken a long time for me to learn that the grass is not greener in the next field.

THE END

—BY SHEILAH GRAHAM

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 1950