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Job Hunting in Hollywood
Renting Your Great Toe BY LOUISE GALLAGHER
How much will you rent out your big toe for?”
“You mean just the big toe on one foot with none of the others playing?” “How many shots?”
“It would be $25 a shot.”
“O.K. Report at —— Studio at 11 o’clock and ask for the Art Director.”
You get so accustomed to all sorts of telephone messages if you are in the business of helping the movies get by, that no unusual request calls for an explanation. If you have been misled into thinking you are a coming moving star, all of your concentrated attention is so fixed upon that as an objective that if you have to mix your tragedienne complex with apple sauce as you . attempt the climb upward, you console yourself by thinking what a human interest story your press agents you hope they will be legend-can make of it in the days to come.
Of course, renting out your toes sound a bit chiropody and it is a trifle hard to get up any romantic interest in a big toe especially. It would be so much more artistic to say that my cunning pink toes first brought me to the attention of a big director. It is better to be artistically than to offend the sensitive, so I think I will have them put in all my pink tipped toes.
If anyone had told me when I left Birmingham a year ago that my best salary in a year for an hour’s work would come from loaning out my toe, it would have been a great insult to my then much thought of ability. The worst of it was that toe didn’t do one single bit of acting. I didn’t dare show even one emotional quiver by which I might have convinced any intelligent producer on the lookout for eccentricities of genius, just what can be done by toe-wiggles.
No such luck. All my closeups just showed my big toe creeping out from back of a velvet curtain that was odorour with the perfume of many mothballs. Most humiliating of all is to think that you will never know when the mystery story is released that the toe didn’t belong to the leading lady, so there was no reason in the world why it should have caused all the trouble it did.
Rounding ‘Em Up.
Studio scouts have many different ways of rounding up any special requirements that may be overlooked when the picture is being cast for. In this instance, at the end of a day’s rushes, it was found that the star’s big toe just did not have photographic qualities. She promptly had hysterics and declared either her foot showed up as a credit to her or she would walk off.
The scouts were called in and told to locate a Hollywood big toe that would meet her requirements sufficiently to be allowed to go down in cinema history as belonging to the celebrated one. Photographers at the different studios were called and a line-up gotten on those suggested.
When I reached the studio, I was shown into the dressing room of the star. The director, the art director ‘and the cameraman were sent for after her maid had removed my shoe and placed a cushion for my bare foot. As frequently as I have had to go on parade in one piece Annette’s, you would think that such a little thing as a barefoot would not upset my acquired public poise but it did. I felt decided embarrassment for the poor little foot subject to such critical eyes and longed to jerk it back to safety behind my skirts.
The art director passed judgment at the first look. “Good nails that will show up well and all toes in perfect proportion: the foot with make up well if we decide to use more of it.” The star yawned behind her painted fan. “Isn’t it a scream how conceited the newcomers are. Her foot is made up now. That natural looking pink around the edges is rough and I bet she manicures her toes as often as she does her fingers.”
Experience has taught me not to flare up at catty remarks from women about one’s personal appearance. I didn’t even take the trouble to deny that my foot was painted. The director thought was a peach and told me I would be paid $25 for every close-up made and they would probably need me for an hour two or three days but that it need not interfere with my other work. The close-ups could be taken any evening just as well as when the company was working. He also suggested that I leave my phone number with his secretary as he could probably use me for other work.
I was polite but quite definite in saying that I did not care to do any doubling and that I was interested in acting, not in renting out an arm, leg or back to a screen star. The woman shook her yellow transformation. “They all think they are young Duse’s, and you can’t’ tell them anything. She would make more money modelling in a month than she would in three months acting in pictures and the work would be nothing but she wouldn’t consider it.”
“Bert, what do you say to changing the story a little and showing the leg from the knee down stealing from behind the curtain? She has good knees and you could throw a high light on the knees and the foot?” Before the director could answer I broke in to say that my knees were not for rent. “I think we will leave it just the way the script calls for it-just the toe through the curtain. Thank you, Miss Gallagher. Report at 2 o’clock please on Stage Two.”
That afternoon a stunt man told me that I was very foolish to let them use my big toe for $25 a shot-that good toes are hard to find and I could have gotten $50 just as easily. One thing I have made up my mind definitely on. Never, never will I rent my knees and in fact, unless when work is slack and I need money, I shall never double and let someone get the credit for what I do.
The Writers’ Revue.
We have been rehearsing now for three weeks for the Writers’ Revue, which is the annual takeoff of the Writers’ Club, on the local big screen success of the year. The first performance given at the Philharmonic drew a crowded house. Charlie Chaplin was there looking his best in full dress. Another box was occupied by Pola Negri and her party, while Mary and Doug had as guests several titled visitors from across the water. From the first curtain, rising upon a “Dawn in Hollywood” to the last clashing of the cymbals in “The Sea Hawk” the show was a riot.
Hollywood boasts many celebrated writers, musicians and stage directors of years of experience and they all combined in making the revue a snappy one. One song was especially tuneful, in the take-off on “Monsieur Beaucaire,” “When I Kiss Them They Stay Kissed,” but with Ben Turpin instead of Valentino as the great’ lover of the screen. I am sure everyone enjoyed it but those taking part.
Working all day on the lot and having to go to rehearsals lasting frequently until 12 or later, is no fun and when the two performances were over with, I for one, was very thankful.
Thursday night was dress rehearsal and a lot of visitors were present. Thought it was after 12 before they got around to the Sennett number, it must be confessed that the masculine members of the audience sat up to take notice. We came on, tired, sleepy and without a bit of pep and I hate to say it but it was true, that the Sennett girls put on perhaps the one bad dance number in the whole revue. Last night, though we went over good, our wraps, covering our one piece suits, were imported models loaned by the most exclusive shop here to be shown off, and the girls all looked lovely. Mine was modestly priced at $3,000. After half through our number I heard a voice from down front say, “They may be dumb, but they sure can strut.” The chorus to our song was snappy and the music good.
“We are Sennett Bathing Girls. But don’t let it give you the notion, Because we look cute in a scant one-piece suit, We spend any time in the ocean.”
