Evening Star Newspaper, January 25, 1931, Page 80

"Without Benefit Ot Publicity BY MARY CHACE Lllustrations by Gladys Parker. When an Aviator Falls for a Movie Actress, That’s Romance . ... And Here You Have It in a Racy Little Love Story of Hollywood. would actually run out of publicity stunts, wouldn't you? When the papers would be so sick of this star’s " fifth marniage, and that one’s ideal home life, and this one’s special $11,000 automobile, and that one’s sweet domestic preference for getting Sunday night suppers with her own white, white hands, that they would refuse to print the stuff any more? Well, if you did, you'd be right. : Geoffrey Gates, Super Pictures super publicity man, had been in one of these desperate slumps five months before. How to put over something mew and novel and big for Zarie Haines? which would be a grand forerunner the early Winter release of her new picturé? new picture was Super’s biggest 1931 effort. Super intended that Zarie should be their brightest star. She had it in her teen, she had had wistful, poign- a child actress in the dark ages . And now she was beautiful, dark grace which the poorest can’t spoil. Zarfe had a voice. A which the mike picked up and magnified into thrilling, moving sound. ) 7OU'D think there would come a time ( when the publicity man in Hollywood then Geoffrey had his big idea. A sort that would be new—not to have publicity! Keep her away. Make her a . « « Geoffrey pounded furiously on his . He had it! next day Zarie had it, too. Plenty uch of it that now, after five and at the next exactly like an airplane. might not have given it a second glance hadn’t been so bored. She frowned up crossly. And then it began to act very It came straight toward the f i i 80 close that she felt the rush of wind propeller. What was the fool trying Kill himself? Show off to her? 4 4 L : swooped low, lower—and landed d white sand with a roar. 1 young man in an oil-stained aviator's swung himself from the cockpit and took off his helmet in an elaborate bow. He grinned an impudent grin. “You don’t mind my dropping in, I hope?” “Who are you?” Zarie registered cold dis- approval. “A reporter, I suppose?” “A reporter?” he repeated it blankly. “Why suppose that? What have you done? Or maybe,” with another of those grins, “you’re Judge Crater? How you've changed, judge!” The look he gave her was comprehensively admiring, and Zarie, who hadn't been amused for months, gave an involuntary giggle. “Well, as long as you're here you might as well sit down and explain yourself,” she said. 8s £ i 2, g -7J ARIE dropped down in her bright canvas chair, and he, folding up his long legs, sank ‘on the sand beside her. “Who,” he began in a pompous, Shakespear- ean voice, “can explain himself? Here today and gone tomorrow. At one moment in the ‘clouds, and the next—— No——" he broke off, ‘don’t suppose I can explain myself. You know that bathing suit of yours has a very high visi- bility. And here you've sat, all alone, afternoon after afternoon. It began to intrigue me.” © “Hmmmm. Maybe. You didn’t think it ‘was a bright stunt for your Bugle, or whatever the rag may be?” He regarded her with the frankest wonder. rised Zarie. A movie picture star gets It surp: idea that her fAee couldn't go unrecognized. But plainly enough here was some one who was quite unimpressed. Gravely he inspected the pretty dark. face. “Let me see. Turn the head a trifie to the left, please. No. It isn’t Charley Ross. Nor Lindbergh. Nor any of the King of Rumania’s lady friends. I give up. Who is it?” That was the point at which she might have told him. But she didn’t. She laughed instead. Suddenly, for the first time since “A Thousand Years Ago” went into rehearsal, she was having fun. So she took his own cue and rushed off into a fantastic story of how she was really Anastasia, pretender t0 the Russian throne, hidden away from the Bolsheviki. The man had a positive talent for easy non- sense. Where she left off the Anastasia tale he took it up, and made it better and funnier. They both laughed a good deal. ABUDD!N shiver of cold made Zarie real- ize that the sun was about to drop behind the horizon in the general direction of Japan. They had just finished planning that the same strange thing should happen right over again, the next afternoon. Luckily, it was a time of year when cameras couldn’t get any effect except in the morning; Zarie had a lot of idle afternoons on her hands. The tent rocked with applause. It was extremely good—too good. Behind Jim- my was an excited conversation. “It’s Haines, all right. You can’t fool papa!” The next afternoon was a good deal like the one before. They sat on the beach and laughed a good deal, and ate sandwiches. The third day the tall young man took Zarie up. She had never flown before and she slipped a coat over her bathing suit and hummed for an hour or more above the intense blue which is the Pacific, and the green dot which is Cata- lina, and the ragged shore line which is Cali- fornia. They landed neatly on the beach. “Want to try a little trick stuff tomorrow? Loops and such?” Of course she did! But—just as a form— maybe it would be a good idea if she knew his name? In case—well, in case. “Jimmy Gould. Twenty-five. Sound in wind and limb. Pilot’s license. And——" he caught a small hand for a moment in his hard brown one, “at your service.” She didn’t think to ask more about him. His being just Jimmy Gould was, at the moment, very satisfactory, indeed. They talked things over and decided that flying, though pleasant in THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGYON, D. C, JANUARY 25, 1031, He grinned an impudent grin. “You don’t mind my dropping in, I suppose?” “Who are you?” Zarie registered cold disapproval. “Well, any one you say. Who are you expecting?” He grinned again. H!'DTAnBIRupmthephnemdhnd somewhere and have a picnic. “But,” she suddenly remembered the publicity which was not to have publicity. “I—I can’t 80 where any one will see me.” “Oh, let's go!” When the plane had slipped to a neat land- ing she had a moment’s qualm. But only a moment’s. This was so far from Hollywood. Of course no one would know her. ., ., , It would be such fun. . . . They found seats at the back of the dim, stuffy tent. An absurd, shopworn melodrama. “Alone in the City, or Luck Through Pluck.” All about the innocent little country girl who goes to that wicked New York, resists tempta- tion and makes good as a singer. A frail girl with a cough played the heroine. Bad scenery and ridiculous lines. And Jimmy and Zarie loved every word of it. They laughed at the Jjokes and hissed the villain, and ate peanuts out of a bag, and stole glances at each other now and then to reassure themselves that they were actually there together and having such fun. The play was in two parts, the second to follow the next day. “We’ll have to go back and see the second part, won't we, Jimmy?” shé said as she left him on her own beach. / “We’ll have to if you say so—Anastasia.” HE paused just enough over that name to let her substitute another one. But she only laughed and ran off up her path. What fun it was! Never till now had she been Just & pretty girl having a secret, exciting interlude with a handsome boy. She tore through her part the next morning with the speed and snap of lightning. He took both her hands in his when he met her, standing tall and laughing by the plane. “You know, Anastasia, the Bolsheviki have nothing on me. I've been looking for you all my life.” She laughed back, but somehow her heart was still going at rather a trot when they strolled for the second time up to the little tent show ‘The performance had not begun. Zarie propvsed that they poke around in the little group of tents a while. The four forlorn little tents behind the big one were obviously serving the double purpose of sleeping and dressing rooms. Suddenly a quick burst of angry talk, the flap of the nearest tent pushed open, and a girl, running out, bumped full tilt inde Larie. “Oh!” The thin girl w.sn <he tear-stained face drew back. It was the disheveled figure of yesterday's leading lady. She coughed, and murmured “I'm sorry” in a hoarse whisper. Never was such a woebegone figure. “What's the matter?” asked Zarie, on a quick impulse of pity. “I—I've lost my voice. I can't——" The hoarse rasp ended on another fit of coughing, and the coughing brought more tears. “I know. You've lost your voice, and you can’t play this afternoon, and it’s general hell.” The girl looked up amazed. “Are you a trooper, too?” " “Yes,” sald Zarie. A BRIEF enough story. The girl to keep her job. She had come way from Ohio with the troup just to Los Angkles. And now when she was almost there and didn’t have a cent, she had tonsilitis. The manager was a hard-boiled guy. He'd let her go—she knew he would. She could have managed this afternoon if it'd just been = talking part. But she had to sing. “Oh, pull yourself together,” said Zarie briskly. “You'll be as good as new tomorrow, You talk as if you had smallpox.” “You! the curtain goes up?” The girl had to cry in her incredulous surprise. couldn't!” “Oh, couldn’t I? Watch me. I'll fake what I don’t remember. Come, let's get at it.” Her sense of drama had carried Zarie away. She whisked Jimmy off to a lonely seat in the tent show, and disappeared into the dingy dressing tent, a whirlwind of determination. to the motley audience of farmers, wives and field workers that a substitute had had to be found for the leading lady. He apologized. He needn’'t have. Not for Zarie. She flickered onto the stage, throwing in lines which were outrageously and plainly not in the story, but with it all managing to let the other actors catch and give enough cues to carry the thing through. The audience stirred, leaned forward in their seats, laughed and whistled with ene joyment. A TRANSFORMED Zarie met Jimmy's eyes, a Zarie who flirted with shameless self- possession through the part, obviously faking with every stage trick in the bag. He couldn’t know she was doing the whole thing for him— it was what she could do best, and it was more to show him than to help out the forlorn little actress that she had rushed into the silly business. Just before the last curtain came the climax, Zarie stopped the show. She stepped miles out of the part, and sang with sure, easy reach “Bonjour Susanne.” The tent rocked with ape plause—and then Zarie made her mistake. She gave them “Bonjour Susanne” again—but this time as Maurice Chevalier would have done it. It was extremely good. Too good. Behind Jimmy was a quick, excited conversation, a scramble as the two men left their seats and tore down the aisle. He caught their words.. “It’s Haines all right. You can’t fool papa. What a story this is going to be!” ; Jimmy was on their heels. But outside the dressing tent they had already cornered Zarie, He was surprised to see how scared she looked, “But you must!” he heard one of the men saying as he came up. “Make some statement, Miss Haines. Aren't you under contract to Super any more?” She looked at Jimmy in absolute paniec. “Oh Jimmy, what'll I do?” v He gave her a little push in the general “You _direction of the airplane. “Nothing. Il do it. . . . Get along.” He had a few words with the reporters and caught her just as she reached the plane. The tragedy on the face of the little actress an hour ago was nothing to the gloom on Zarie's now, “WELL, that's that! I've broken my cone tract, I suppose. Will Hays or somebody will tell Zoller to suspend me.” Not being a movie personage Jimmy was a trifie waspmpathetic about Zarie’s gloom. But being a young man of sense, and, seeing that his friends, the reporters, were rapidly ap= proaching the plane, he only said: “Come on. We'd better get ouv of Sere™ No exhibition flyer ever made a quicker get away. They were both silent till they landed once more on her beach. And then she'd gotten over being scared, and Continued on Seventeenth Page