Dorothy Kilgallen Defines 'Hollywood' as...

So I came across one of the funniest Photoplay articles I’ve ever read this week, and I can’t not share it. It’s from the February 1943 issue, entitled ‘My Hollywood Dictionary’ by columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, and it’s a marvel.

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The premise is this: Hollywood is so big, its culture so all-encompassing, that you need a dictionary to understand all the terms that come out of it. As Kilgallen explains: “I am not running down Webster. After all, he never attended a double feature or a dish night and to him celluloid was just something kewpie dolls were made of; you can’t expect a fellow to define ‘sweater’ correctly if he never saw Lana Turner.

“But I do think it’s time someone whipped up a brief, sweatshirt-pocket version of Mr. W’s opus, amended to apply to the land of sequins and sunshine. So here it is.”

So without further ado, here are some of my favourite entries from Dorothy Kilgallen’s Hollywood Dictionary:

Artist: An actor or actress who draws—a salary of $1,500 a week or over, usually over.

Billing: Advertising matters. Or, what the great lovers and their screen sweethearts start to battle over as soon as they stop billing and cooing in the picture’s love scenes.

Calories: What Hollywood chickens have to count before they’re hatched into stars.

Candle: What every glamour girl privately believes no other glamour girl can hold to her; also what you can’t burn at both ends if you have to report to the studio early in the morning looking radiant.

Close-Up: Something no star ever thinks she’s gotten quite enough of.

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Ecstasy: An old European movie, never hazed by Will Hays, which Hedy Lamarr wishes exhibitors would stop reviving.

Epic: A Grade B story with a Cecil B. De Mille-yun dollar touch.

Famous: What you are when they want your footprints in the lobby of Grauman’s Chinese, when people you don’t even know slightly call you by your first name, and when envelopes with a photograph of you instead of your name and address are delivered to you promptly.

Fog: The way to identify a John Ford picture.

Genius: A producer whose last picture is going to gross $6,000,000.

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Handkerchiefs: Squares of material used to tie around a female’s head to keep her hair from blowing; also used prominently by Bette Davis and her audiences.

Jail: Indispensable screen setting for the Warner Brothers pictures.

Knees: Joints which Betty Grable didn’t invent, but did perfect and popularize.

Mature: Past adolescence. (Unless preceded by ‘Victor’—whereupon it becomes past, Martha Kemp; present, Rita Hayworth.)

Mugging: Acting, in the opinion of Mickey Rooney and Wallace Beery.

Newlyweds: A Hollywood couple whose divorce decree hasn’t come through yet.

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Oscar: What Joan Fontaine got for being good in Suspicion and Bette Davis got for being bad in Jezebel.

Patriotism: Jimmy Stewart.

Republic: The studio that has more horses than Bing Crobsy.

Ruby: A girl from Brooklyn, last name Stevens, who became a big star under the nom de plume of Barbara Stanwyck.

Saraong: A close-fitting garment worn in the tropics, which keeps Dorothy Lamour from working in the five-and-ten-cent stores.

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Sweater: A girl’s best friend. Article of clothing worn by the screen’s finest emotional actresses.

Veteran: Somebody who has been around for years. (Shirley Temple was one on her tenth birthday.)

“And now, if Mr. Webster will please stop turning in his grave, I will conclude by recommending that you have this little list bound suitably in red Moroccan leather and keep it with you at all times. It contains every word you will ever need in Hollywood, except possibly ‘terrific!’”

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Isn’t it great? If you could add any words to the Hollywood Dictionary, what would they be? Let me know in the comments!