Cal York's Gossip of Hollywood: November 1938

GINGER AND BITTERS

via gfycat

They call her the out-of-step, instep girl and they mean Ginger Rogers who can trip the light fantastic like no one’s business but just can’t seem to catch the rhythmic beat out of Hollywood.

A group of people were discussing Ginger one day, trying to discover why she played the Hollywood game so poorly. “And she’s so good at tennis,” as one lady added, apropos of nothing.

A writer told of having an appointment with Ginger in the RKO dining room. Presently, in came Ginger with a group of studio friends and proceeded to have lunch. An hour later, she nonchalantly walked over to the writer’s table and said, “I have only about five minutes. What was it you wanted to know?”

And with a jolly, friendly mother like Lela, Hollywood can’t get it all straightened out in its mind. And wishes it could.

WEIGH BELOW PAR

There’s a fine old gag that if you work hard enough you won’t have to diet to get thin—and that’s true of several stars this summer. This is no sob thing, asking you to feel sorry for people who are being paid fortunes for their exertions, still—

We were sitting in Claudette Colbert’s garden, chatting with a house guest the other early afternoon when Claudette staggered in weakly from the garage. She’d left the set because she couldn’t stand up any longer after ten days of doing the cancan for Zaza—and because she hadn’t any stockings to wear for the scene.

They’d been ordered three weeks in advance and, after the long practice and rehearsal, Claudette’s shapely pins (still the most beautiful legs in Hollywood) were an inch thinner.

Cukor, sending her home, remarked to an aide: “Please announce that to be fashionable Milady’s legs must be an inch thinner this season.

And the male leads of Gunga Din are having weight troubles, too. It’s a blasting 118 degrees F at the location site and they must rush around attired in heavy woolen uniforms. Cary Grant lost twelve pounds the first two weeks. It’s a field day for tailors, anyway.

TEMPLE’S GOT TRADE SECRETS

If you need any final indication that Wonder Child Shirley has really grown up at last, you should sit next to her some evening at one of her previews. Time was when she viewed her shadow on the screen detachedly, chortling with glee over the funny scenes and looking very sad when her film image displayed grief.

Now, like any one of the other Hollywood veterans, she shifts nervously about in her seat, watching critically.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she whispers to her mother. “I could have read those lines faster. It drags.” A moment later: “That routine needs one more break before George (Murphy) gets on the table.”

Don’t be sad, though. The evolution was necessary. With or without obvious technique, Shirley’s still a trouper.

WILL BETTE DAVIS AND HARMON NELSON SPLIT UP? WHEN BETTE LEFT FOR NEVADA SOME WEEKS AGO, THAT BECAME A MUCH-DISCUSSED QUESTION IN HOLLYWOOD. IT IS TOO EARLY FOR ANNOUNCEMENT AS WE GO TO PRESS, BUT CAL YORK’S GIVING ODDS THAT THE ANSWER IS ‘YES.’