Evening Star Newspaper, July 25, 1937, Page 74

“SWEEP UP THE SAWDUST West Hollywood, California January 9, 1937 Dear Muriel: What in the world is a penniless little mouse of a private secretary doing out in this Garden of Alimony? Hold tight, darling, and listen: About a month ago my employer, Mr. Kinney, called me in and told me that I looked all worn out. Then he blew his nose violently. That gave me a clue. Mr. K. never makes this particular noise unless, down deep in his chubby, kindly little heart, he thinks he is being very smooth and clever. So I waited for developments. They came: what I needed was a trip. The Kinney Refractories could worry along with- out me. By George, that gave him an idea! Adele —Mrs. Kinney — was going to California. She needed companicnship. I needed a vaca- tion. Why not combine the two? The simple, dear little ostrich! What he might have said was: ‘‘Miss Abbott, I want you to keep Adele away from Movements, Urges, Diets (cultural and physical), Silly Seasons and the Bigger Things of Life. You know Holly- wood isn’t like Hilton and, and . . . You see, darling, the employer is like that. He adores his wife, in his shy, hesitant way. He knows she is a nitwit and he doesn’t care. Same as the time she went in for Voice. Mr. K. knew that her voice, when lifted in melody, was more banshee than soprano but he blamed it all on the teachers (and fiercely too). So here I am. The weather is glorious. Mrs. K. has forgotten the nervous exhaustion that brought her out here. She saw Gracie Allen on the street yesterday and today Clark Gable ate lunch in the Wiltshire Brown Derby, with Mrs. K. and the tight-lipped, competent (I hope) little secretary in the booth opposite! Tomorrow Adele is going to a tea. A “girl” from Michigan Mrs. K. used to know is giving it. Mrs. K. is quite nice to me in a languid, patronizing sort of way. Please write and tell me how cold and wet it is in New York. Love from the watchdog, Joan January 12, 1937 Leonard Watson, Wharton Lumber Co., Wharton, Indiana. Dear Len: Sorry that it has taken me a month to get around to answering your last letter but I've been rushed to death almost. Things are com- ing along in great shape, now that I am on the right track. The last time I wrote you I expected to continue my acting career, as you may recall. Well, that is all definitely in the past. I have given up my dramatic school training and have asked that my name be stricken from the records of the casting bureau which furnishes extras to the studios. Of course the time I have spent gaining an insight into acting has not been lost. It will prove a great value to me in my career as a screen writer. Len, you would be surprised at the sort of people out here who are making a thousand or two a week writing screen plays. They have no flair. They have no literary background. The gate is wide open. I have made a lot of swell contacts and am already preparing a story for a screen treat- ment which I am sure will make a terrific impression on MGM for Powell and Loy. I have discussed it with a number of people and they all agree that it is full of punch and production value. It has taken me six or seven months to get the swing of this town. But I'm going to town from -now on. If the boys out here want bluff and bunk along with literary merit, I can hand it out, Len. By that I mean every- body out here puts on the dog one way or the other. Well, the next time you hear from me I'll probably be sending you a check for the small amounts which you so cheerfully have loaned me from time to time. Give my regards to the folks in Wharton. Yours, Carl P.S. Please spell my first name Kyrl when writing in reply. I am changing the spelling, temporarily, to add a touch of literary dis- tinction. Also, could you please send me THIS WEEK twenty-five dollars, along with your immediate reply, Air Mail? How safe this addition is to the advances you have already made, can be judged by the fact that I have decided to ask MGM twenty-five thousand dollars for the Powell-Loy script. 3 G. West Hollywood, California January 14, 1937 Dear, darling Bernard: I know I am a bad girl for not answering your last letter sooner. Please, please forgive your Adele! After this I have decided to have Miss Abbott drop you a line every day giving you all the news. 1 hope you are not overworking. 1 feel quite important writers in Hollywood. He is very superior, very, very hungry, good-looking (if you have a pea-sized mind) and, to top it off, very tony. His accent is so English you miss every third word. His conversation is so elegant that you sometimes forget his grammar. From the foregoing (as Mr. K. would say) you may get a faint impression of what I think of the person. To say I simply loathe him would be sheer understatement. Of course he doesn't love Adele. I think he came first because the tea was hot and the sandwiches plentiful. Then, before he knew it, Adele was blandly assuming that he was madly in love with her and that she was the source of his literary inspiration. How do I know that? Because the gentleman told me Magazine Section Leonard Watson, Wharton Lumber Co., Wharton, Indiana. Dear Len: I am sending this Air Mail, Special Delivery, | because I am in a jam. Please wire me fifty dollars as soon as you get this letter. And listen, Len, you won'’t get it back out of any twenty-five thousand dollar screen plays. If you can still get me that job in your uncle’s lumber company in Spokane, I'll February 14, 1937 éuilty about having Miss Abbott here with me. After all, she knows your affairs so in- **AS WE WERE PASSING so himself. He had the nerve (so PRl easy to acquire here) to tell me ¥ timately and there is no need for her to stay on here. As a matter of fact, darling, I don’t think she is really enjoying herself. Perhaps that is because, with her background, she is finding it difficult to enjoy and understand the viewpoint of cultured people. I must stop now, darling. I have some people coming to tea. How different Holly- wood is from Hilton! Toseecreativeartinthe making. For instance, one of the foremost writers for MGM is dropping in this after- noon. I met him at Nettie Chapman'’s tea the other afternoon. It is just too thrill- ing to sit in one’s own drawing room and listen to a story that shortly will be vitalized on the screen. The young man —he is really a genius and his name is Kyrl Franklin — has dropped in several times and it is most amusing to see him become so en- grossed in the themes of his brain children that he consumes a plate of sandwiches before he knows it. But I must really stop now, darling. As ever, your own Adele West Hollywood, California February 14, 1937 Dear Muriel: St. Valentine’s day! The day people think of love and candy and flowers! And here am I with hate in my heart, toying lovingly with the thoughts of arsenic. Of course this Edgar Allan Poe complex didn’t just pop up overnight. It’s been creeping up on me for a month. And the arsenic isn't for me personally. I'm a failure, darling. Mr. Bernard Kinney sent me out here to do a job and I've fallen down with a sickening thud. Adele has dis- covered the Deeper Meanings of Life. Gazing against the purple hills, her eyes have been bruised by the tragic aspects of lives lived by narrow Hilton standards. Her soul is all set to soar! Right now she is sitting in her bedroom (boudoir to her, darling) composing a letter to Mr. K. that will push that dear man’s heart right down through the cellar. I can imagine every cheap bromide in it. Every trite piece of tripe she has read or seen: “Every woman has only one life to live . . . We must be fair to each other . . . I know you will understand . .. "’ But she won’t mail it! I don’'t know what to do to stop her making a fool out of herself (completely) but Mr. K. is dependingonme . . . I forgot. You don’t know what all the shooting is about, do you? Well, get a grip on your chair, darling, and listen! Mrs. K. has gone in for the Eternal Triangle. It is much more thrilling than Voice and much more romantic than a chicory and banana diet. It started about a month ago. Adele met him at a tea. He is twenty years younger than she is. His name is Kyrl Franklin. His coat and trousers are of different materials and colors. He wears a foulard handkerchief around his shapely neck. He admits he is going to be one of the most that he really came to see me! Of course Adele doesn't care for this gigolo. He is merely a temporary phase of the nitwit life. Have you any idea of the tenacity of pur- pose often possessed by selfish, pampered women? The grim relentlessness for the big moment — beneath the prattle. It really frightens me and I don’t frighten easily, as you know. It would all be very simple if I could forget Mr. K. But when I think of that swell little person wandering about Hilton, his pride shattered, his life torm to bits, I know what they mean by justifiable homicide. What is going to happen when she finishes that silly letter, I don’t know. But I do know I'm going to save dear Mr. K. Grimly yours, Joan SOME SHRUB- BERY A MAN LEAPED OUT™ » pay you back so much per week, every week.- And I'll be ready to start next Monday, if it only means sweeping out the old special order mill. Len, maybe you've guessed it! I'm a flop here. 1 won’t bother you with the details now but I'm through sponging and lying and being a cheap Hollywood heel. It's hard to write, Len, because it sounds so impossible. But you don’t know Hollywood. 1 met a woman at a tea. A married woman. Fair, fleshy and silly, like Aimee Jardine in Wharton. Not vicious. Believes in the Bigger Things. Talks, coyly, about “trade last”! I went to her house to tea because I needed the R A