Evening Star Newspaper, June 22, 1930, Page 91

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. TN 25 1oy — s 17 AN — Exposing Hollywood's Racketeers An Inside Story of Movieland Parasites W ho Make Their Living by Preying on Stars and Extras With All Manner of In gen- tous Petty Grafts and Holdups. BY DAN THOM A4S. HOLLYWOOD. HERE are racketeers and racketeers. On the one hand we have the Chi- cago gangsters and on the other our own Hollywood boys. This Hollywood bunch is getting madder and madder, too—you know, the kind of madness incited by jealousy. Can you im- agine one racketeer being jealous of another? Gees, you'd almost think they were proud of being engaged in their respective rackets. Maybe they are. At least our Hollywood crowd is pretty sore about the way their Chicago rivals are grabbing th: spotlight in the newspapers. They point out that “Scarface” Al Capone alone gets more space than their whole group combined. Of course, there is a difference betw:en the two groups. The Chicago gang use their auto- matics so freely that your true Chicagoan ducks for a doorway every time a tiuck backfires, But the Hollywood boys try to k-ep everything quiet on the Western front. Some of them don’t even know how to use a gun. Their weapons are fountain pens and their motto, *“Sign on the dotted line, please.” And it might be said right here that their methods are quite as successful as the harsher ones used by their rivals of the Windy City. Perhaps even more so, as they have acquired the technique of fleecing their victims and making them like it. There are almost as many different rackets in this town as there are stars in the sky. Still the fact that the field already is overcrowded doesn’t make newcomers the least bit pessi- mistic. They are cropping up continually amd some of them have brand-new “gags.” Oh, yes, there is one thing that must be said for the movieland rackete-rs -they DO use their brains. The reason for their existence out here, of course, is perfectly obvious. Being the motion picture capital of the entire world, Hollywood is overrun with movie stars who have a lot more money than brains. Their salaries are far above the conception of an ordinary person. And because they don't know what to with all their money, they fall for a hundr:d and one different schemes proposed to them daily. I{OWEVER, before we go further into the story, it must be admitted that some of our racket-ers give at least partial value for the money received. And nearly all of them man- age somehow or other to stay within the law, thireby eliminating the necessity of looking at the far-famed California sunshine through bars. “GIRLS, BOYS—Do you want to become movie stars? Motion picture producers are cry- ing for more talented players with good speak- ing and singing voices. Our special six-week course of instruction positively will put you in a position to grab the highest screen honors, Our instructors all are experienced motion pic- ture men. DON'T WAIT. ENROLL AT ONCE AND KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO BE A FILM CELEBRITY.” Such an advertisement might be found in a Hollywood is full of stars with more money than brains. Los Angeles or Hollywood newspaper almost any time. Conducting movie schools is one of the oldest rackets in make-believe village. And that business is a racket in the truest sense of the word. Yet scores of unsuspecting girls and boys fall for th'm and the men run- ning these so-called schools reap small fortunes. These schools have absolutely no connection whaicver with the film studios. They cannot get jobs for their graduates and make no att-mpt to do so. Most of them are exceedingly careful about the wording of their advertisements and enroll- ment blanks. They insinuate that big things await their graduates, but the ¥ promis: nothing. ’l‘HE usual procedure when a movie-struck girl, who has read their advertisement, ap- pears at the school is to first find out how much mon-y she has. The enrollment fee ie set accordingly. After that fee has been paid she is sent into another office to be interviewed by a “director,” who probably doesn't know a camera from a microphone. He appraises her talents and outlines her course of instruction accordingly. However, this appraisal generally goes no further than asking her to remove nine-tenths of her garments so that he can have a good look at her figure—“a good figure is highly important in motion pictures.” Then she must buy make-up materials, which the school sells her at exorbitant prices. She also must buy certain costumes and sp:cial shoes for her dancing lessons, usually given by a man or woman who would be razzed off the stage in a fourth-rate vaudeville house. Every week during ths course there is some additional charge, which the girl pays without a murmur simply because her head has been filled with illusions of cinema fame. At the industry. However, their scribblings are in- fluenced largely by the size of advertisements they can sell to various individuals. For ex- ample, we never have known of a trade paper “panning” a picture, no matter how terrible Hollywood's first night showings of 75-cent movies are pretty much of a racker. The stars pay $5 a seat just to be seen, and the other suckers pay ditto, just so they can write home and say they sat next to Clara Bow. completion of the cours: she is handed an impressive-looking diploma and wished much success in her venture into pictures. She then applies at a studio casting office for a job and proudly presents her diploma when asked what experience she has had. That's when the disillusionment comes and she learns that her money has been thrown away in a school that couldn’t possibly do her any good. So much for racket number one. NOW turn to a more honest group of racketeers—but racketeers just the same. They are the press agents. Some of them actually do earn a portion of the money they receive from their clients. There are two classes of press agents, those employed by studio publicity departments and the free- lancers. We are going to deal with the free- lancers. Their game is largely one of smooth salesmanship and politics. The press agent's job is to convince a rising young player or even an established one that & good publicity campaign would do more than anything else to raise his standing in the in- dustry. After getting the account at a salary ranging anywhere from $25 to $100 a week, the press agent’s job is to keep his client satisfied. This can be done in two ways. One is by actually putting over a good publicity campaign. The other is by doing a great deal of fast talking, in a flattering vein of course, 50 as to make the client think he is receiving a tremendous return on his financial outlay. Both methods are practiced by Hollywood press agents and they seem equally successful, ANO’I‘HER group of our racketeers are publishing film trade papers, supposedly EIVing accurate accounts of what goes on in the it might be, if the director of that picture is a good advertiser. Some even go to the extent of promising a certain amount of editorial praise with each ad, the amount of praise depending upon the size of the ad. The publisher of one local trade paper puts out an annual edition which he openly announces as a “holdup number” and expects every one in the industry to advertise in it. Most of these trade papers can do no one any good or any harm, since they are read only _in the industry, and every one here is familiar with their method of operation. Yet the film suckers—who really are the biggest suckers in the world—fall for them, mainly because they like to read nice things about themselves even though they know that they have paid for them. It is almost impossible to pick up a magazine or newspaper without finding out that some film star prefers a certain brand of soap, a particular cigarette, a new brand of smoking tobacco, a particular brand of coffee, a certain make of swimming suit, a special brand of perfume, a specific kind of chewing gum and dozens of other things. SOLXCITING these testimonials offers a fer- tile field for the racketeering gentlemen of the movie hamlet. As a rule the star receives no compensation outside of a free sample of the article which he or she indorses. How- ever, the gentleman who secure the testimonials are paid good money by the manufacturers of the various commodities. Their job does not end with the mere secur- ing of the testimonials, either. They also must take care 1o deliver to the stars free samples of whatever they have indorsed This is the means used by the manufacturer of making The diploma is just dandy to hang up on a big wall, but otherwise it is a blowous ™M BEGINNING TO BELIEVE These wise press agents keep the hope- ful actor full of gas about how good he is . .. and thus “earn” their dough. sure that the star who indorsed his article actually uses it, because even film folk will use something they get for nothing in preference to an article they must buy. Occasionally, however, a star is handsomely paid for his indorsement of some article. It is said that Lew Cody received quite a sizable check for the use of his name in an advertising campaign for ginger ale. And will Rogers is reported to have received $50,000 for declaring from billboards throughout the country that he prefers one brand of gum to all others, Selling photos of filmdom’s various celebrities is another racket which pays a high dividend. There is one firm which makes a practice of handling stars’ fan mail free of charge. The only expense to the players is postage and the actual cost of photos mailed out. The firm makes its profit by securing the names and addresses of thousands who are interested in film celebrities. Letters are then written to these persons telling them of the firm's very attractive offer of “five beautiful pictures of motion picture stars for $1,” or whatever the price may be. And they sell a tremendous number of pictures which cost them only a few cents each. Then there are those who sell the confidential telephone numbers of the movie colony to automobile salesmen, real estate promoters, in- surance agents and hosts of others at so much per number. - Nearly all persons connected with the film in- dustry have confidential numbers which are not listed in the phone book and which cannot be secured from the telephone company. It is their only means of protecting themselpes against the hordes of parasites who would pes- ter them to death. As a rule these numbers have to be changed three or four times a year because they become so well known. Sometimes the list is turned over for a speci- fied sum of money. Other times the person* furnishing the phone numbers receives a com- mission on all sales to those whose numbers he has furnished. A list of 100 numbers w net its possessor anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending upon the number of places he can sell it and his ability to bargain with those desiring the list. These numbers are secured in many different ways, but the most popular method is through social contact. The racketeers manage in some way to secure invitations to various social functions and then go about their business of making as many friends as possible and thereby secure their phone numbers. RECENT lawsuit against a well known star brings to mind another form of racketeer- ing practiced rather freely. The most common form of lawsuits against individuals, however, charge breach of promise, and the racketeers in these instances usually are girls. Of course, there are also suits for alleged personal assauljsen In about 90 per cent of these cases the victims are absolutely innocent, but the racketeers gen- erally manage to get some kind of a settlement out of court because the stars cannot afford to have their names dragged into scandals even though they know the charges to be unjust. Studios also come in for their share of law- suits, although a good share of these charge plagiarism. Would-be writers from all parts of the country are continually suing various studios for stealing their stories. Not 1 per cent of these persons ever are awarded dam- ages by a court. Neverthcless their practices Continued on Twenly-second Page E