Kathryn McGuire — This Little Star Went to Market (1928) 🇺🇸
There is a younger married set in Hollywood that is tied to the movies more by a salary check than by anything else.
by Betty Standish
And for the most part it lives, markets, plays bridge, economizes and matinees much after the manner of the younger married set in any suburb. These are the younger picture girls married to the junior supervisors, directors, actors, press agents, and the like, of the infant industry. They are of the studios all right, but not in the tinsel, shining way that Gloria Swanson or Jack Gilbert [John Gilbert] belongs. Their professional work is merely the seasoning to the more important business of life, like keeping the maid pacified or getting the laundry out.
Of these younger matrons of Hollywood who get just as much of a kick out of seeing Norma Talmadge as you would, who do their own marketing even as you and I, who wonder if that last summer’s dress can be made to do for this summer, who speak in excited little phrases of their recent honeymoon trip, is Kathryn McGuire, formerly of the Mack Sennett lot and now the wife of George Landy, commander-in-chief of the First National publicity offices.
Kathryn’s face is familiar enough. It ought to be. She has been in the movies ever since her early high school days. In fact, she “gypped” the last three years of high school for the movies. It was not that Kathryn loved the movies more, but she loved the Hollywood High School less. She says she was a timid little kid who was more or less of a washout with her classmates because she refused to cut classes to go out necking on the school grounds. This is probably the first case on record of a girl going into the movies to escape the dangers of school. Will wonders never cease?
Kathryn’s Mild Career
One day a friend of hers had an engagement at the Sennett studio and Kathryn went along. Somebody of importance got a look at Kathryn, and wanted to make a test. And that’s the way she got started. In a delicate, blonde sort of way she galloped around in bathing suits and made eyes at Ben Turpin until her contract expired. Then she started free-lancing in politer comedies at Fox and Universal; and more recently she has alternated her talents between horse-operas and dignified dramas like Lilac Time.
Her biography reads like that of a couple of hundred other girls in pictures. But somehow her background smacks more of “The Ladies’ Home Journal” and inviting another couple over for bridge than it does of spotlights and close-ups. Maybe it is because Kathryn talks and looks that way. At an offhand glance you’d never know she was in the same business that Clara Bow was.
She’s very beautiful after the fashion of a magazine cover, and I think it was James Montgomery Flagg who went so far as to say she was the swellest looking blonde in Hollywood. But she lets it all begin and end with her natural charm.
“I would like awfully to go without stockings if I got my legs nice and brown,” admitted Kathryn, “but I’m sure George wouldn’t like it.”
George figures pretty prominently in Kathryn’s calculations. You bet. He’s the new bridegroom.
“I got real brave the other evening and came into Hollywood bare-legged. I never felt so funny in my life. I imagined that everybody was looking at my legs and laughing. When George started walking just a little bit in front as though he weren’t with me or something, I made up my mind that bare legs weren’t for Mrs. Landy.”
She laughed at her own daring, and went on to say that the new fad was hardly appropriate for married ladies who did their own marketing, anyway.
“If George had his way, I would be billed as Mrs. George Landy in all the pictures I do,” she laughed. “When we were first married, he suggested that I change my name to Kathryn Landy. I told him I didn’t think it was very wise as I had become known as Kathryn McGuire, but he insisted. I tried the new name for a little while, but it didn’t work. So I went back to the old name. George was disappointed but he makes up for it by introducing me socially as Mrs. Landy — never as Miss McGuire.
Carrots for Careers
“A happy marriage makes a lot of difference in a girl’s attitude toward the screen, don’t you think? I’ve known a lot of girls who were terribly ambitious to do bigger and better things in the movies until they got married, and then they lost interest. Do you remember Florence Gilbert who used to be over at Fox? Well, Florence and I started out full of starring ideals and we weren’t going to be satisfied until we had given Gloria Swanson a run for her honors. But the other day I met Florence in the market and we both laughed over our bundles of peas and carrots at the things we were to have accomplished. Our marriages certainly made a big difference in our attitude. We both admitted that we were much more concerned now over getting up a good table of bridge than landing a big part on the screen.
“Of course, I’m not planning to give up my screen work altogether. If you’ve once been on the screen, you can’t help hoping that some day you will get that magic break that will mean stardom. But if it doesn’t come along —”
Well, there’s the marketing to do. And people to call up to come over. And places to go. And doorbells to ring. And George to call her Mrs. Landy. And things to buy for the house.
So, what does it matter?
Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, October 1928