Add Row 
Add 
Job Hunting in Hollywood
BY LOUISE GALLAGHER
FLAWLESS blue and gold sky, the clicking voice of the camera, a dingy Ford edging ahead of a Rolls-Royce, grease selling fast in drugstores, jostling throngs from every quarter of the globe-more tongues than clashed on the Tower of Babel-directors back from New York adorned in the latest and most expensive, a blind man selling pencils. Yvonne Gendrome in the newest Parisian slippers, good citizens scurrying home, pickpockets, Ruth Rowland in a Ford coupe buying at the five and ten, real estate brokers, highbrow, pedigreed dogs carefully chaperoned, an extra girl in a limousine shopping at the most exclusive jeweler’s, a timid aged couple ambling along in the sun, Craig Biddle in the latest model roadster, a vendor of hot tamales in yellow suit and scarlet sash, Rupert Hughes in an old suit and slough hat, odor of lemon and orange blossoms-it is Spring on Hollywood Boulevard.
– —
It is Spring too in the hearts of screen players for all the studios are running full time once again and everyone is busy. It is not necessary to visit the studios to know when productions are underway-the surest barometer to business conditions in the cinema, capital is the boulevard. Gay voices, friendly, swaggering, picturesque natives of every crime, grease paint blotting out their American citizenship for the time being, bustling busy little shops, pretty girls hurrying for an interview with cast directions, real estate agents marking up wonderful bargains on their signboards all unfailing signs that weekly pay checks are plentiful. Let the studios slow down, just a few stock companies working, and the Boulevard takes on an entirely different aspect.
It is Main Street of any small town, colorless, drab, unromantic.
You can afford, when freelancing is profitable, to take your destiny a little into your own hands. If you dislike western sets, and I do very much, especially where the brave heroes all tote guns, you can safely decline to go on them, for any hour may bring a more desirable offer. An independent company gave me a call for a small part as a girl-widow where I didn’t have to shed real tears if it was hard for me, the glycerin kind would do. It sounded interesting until I saw what I was expected to wear. I wouldn’t have had to use glycerin, I could have looked at that dress and wept for myself if not the departed one. The technical director evidently had an economical turn of mind but how he expected any woman to express overwhelming grief in mosquito netting died black, I can’t see. I refused the part.
The next day I had a tryout at First National for a harem set. The salary was attractive and a screen credit would be given, which means that your name goes on as a member of the cast on the screen: this more than the salary was the drawing card for the thirty or forty girls applying, all of them players of some experience and confident that they were just the type to look well in an Eastern setting. The two men casting had ideas of their own on just who was going into that particular harem. They lined us up against the wall and then three at a time were walked down the room, in our bathing suits. The tall girl just ahead of me I knew was hopeless if they went by the Sennett rules, but she did have quite a grand and slender manner from the knees up. The first judge gave her an agonized look, “Your knees are terrible. Go out the side door, please.”
I came next, pretty sure of getting by on size and dancing.
“You are a little small,” but before he had time for further inspection I interrupted, “1924 Sennett,” and held out my studio card. He laughed, “We can afford to pass you then. Check her in Gus,” and I moved on for the next girl to get in line. Phil is homely but has a lovely body and is a marvelous swimmer and dancer. I wanted her to get by for though she is only 19 she has a husband and baby to support and has a tough go of it. “Size good ‘and you have rhythm but I can’t say much for your face,” and then to soften his rather plain remark, he added, “You are badly sunburned.” Phil is too good a trouper not to talk up her good points.
“No, I’m not sunburned at all, that’s my natural color, and I’ll just fit in a harem. Besides, I know the native dances. Lived in Turkey when I was a kid.” “How about her, Gus,” he asked the second man, “she is an ugly little devil but graceful and has snap?” Gus was a little easier “She’ll never make a sheik run a temperature, but she does look the type. We’ll take her. ”
Next came my friend from Atlanta, a lovely blonde, but conscious of her bathing suit and walking wrong. I had coached her for two hours the night before on how to walk when on exhibition, but she forgot it all as soon as she got on the platform. She got one look. “Too fat.” She was so indignant that she snapped into step. “It’s the first time in my life I have ever been told that.” “Then it’s about time you heard it. Side door, please. ”
It was fun watching them for all were small part players and had no hesitancy in contradicting the judges’ decisions. Phil was the only one that succeeded in talking herself into a job. Our costumes are beautiful, lovely bright colored silks and each one different. The set is the prettiest one I have been on. The pillows, rugs and hangings of the harem are worth thousands of dollars, and we have been cautioned to be very careful of them. I have acquired the nickname of “Birmingham” and when the big fat Mammy who stands back of us waving peacock feathers when the cameras are grinding, heard them call me she dropped her fan and hurried over where I sat.
“Lord, honey, don’t tell me you're from Birmingham? I was born and raised there. I sure thought you looked different from the rest of these gals. Has I been long in pictures, honey? Only seven months, but I’m climbing steady towards the top, and I dotes on my acting.” I asked her how she happened to take up picture work for a living. “I gist naturally got tired washin’ and ironen back there. Work all one day over the tubs, iron the next day and tot ’em home for $2.00. Here I make real money-$7.50 every day I work.”
I was anxious to know if she had much trouble getting in the studios and how she managed it.
“Not me, child. You sees I’m a type and got persunalidy. Of course, I has to work around with a lot of trash. I jest naturally has no use for these western niggers-no manners and no raisen. They don’t know high class folks when they see ’em. The thing that is worrying me most is scared I’ll lose my Southern accent-it’s so ‘tractive.” I assured her that I thought so too, but didn’t think we would either one lose it though most of the girls on the set were from the South and they had very little. Mammy sneered a nice’sneer that she has evidently caught from some vamp. “Texas,” she said scornfully, “and they has the nerve to call themselves Southern.”
I met another friend on the set-a big, good humored fellow who had been my father in one comedy. All the girls like him for he loves sweets and always has some candy close at hand which he is willing to share. He called me over on the side. “I want to tell you that I am in business now, daughter, and you can give me all your work.” He handed me his card, “Why, Kewpie, what are you doing in the dry cleaning business. You just told me you are making $300 a week in this picture?”
“Right. I am. But I figure like this: Somehow picture making ain’t a business. We make our money easy when it comes but it goes easy, too, and I’ve got a boy 10 years old that hasn’t any mother-nobody but me to dook after him. I want him to have something when he grows up-a regular business-so I have gone into the dry cleaning game as a sideline.” I took some of his cards to hand the other girls: they all have large cleaning bills for the whitening that must be put on your neck and arms, rubs off badly on dark dresses, and keeping your clothes looking decent is the big problem in the life of movie girls.
I must tell you more about the girl from Atlanta. She had written The News for my address and when she came here about a month ago, came to see me. She is ever so pretty and has had six months on the legitimate stage but thought she would prefer pictures as a quicker road to fame. I offered to take her out to Sennett’s but she didn’t think she wanted to start there-too much slapstick comedy and one piece suits. I explained that if she got in it would be her best recommendation for work at other studios but she seemed doubtful about it so I didn’t urge it further. A few days later, after trying in vain to get in other studios, she called me and asked me to take her out.
The casting director was nice to her and had some stills made in a bathing sit but she didn’t get by, as the picture showed one knee was a trifle higher than the other. A few days later I was on a set at Warner Brothers and learned that three extra girls would be needed on an exterior scene we were having next day. I asked the assistant director to get my Atlanta friend in on it but didn’t tell him she was inexperienced. He took her phone number and called her for 3:30 next morning. She failed to show up and work was held up until another girl could be gotten out there-we were shooting a street scene in West Hollywood. You can imagine that after what the director said to me, I was not very cordial when Miss Atlanta called me up that night.
“Why didn’t you come to work this morning?”
“I just couldn’t make up my mind to go with that cheap company. Do you know what the director said to me? I asked him what to wear and he said sport clothes. What stage was I to go on? Do you know what he wanted me to do, Louise? Work out in the street. I was so stunned I couldn’t tell him I wouldn’t. Imagine such a thing-a cheap company who puts their extra players out on the street to act-won’t even give them a stage! I just oozed the receiver back on the hook. I didn’t call you because it might embarrass you to know how they were going to treat me. Didn’t I do the right thing?” I didn’t answer-just oozed the receiver back on the hook.
