Their Little Rages (1932) 🇺🇸

May 25, 2023

Once in the dear, dead days before Constance Bennett and the Marquis were married, I took her to a preview. As we came out of the theater hundreds of people were waiting for her. She shrank back in alarm and clutched my arm. Suddenly she turned and ducked. An hour later I found her in the manager's office. "I'm scared to death of crowds. I hate them!" she said.

by Samuel Richard Mook

"Why?" I asked, thinking that if they ever cut "why" out of the English language I'd be speechless.

"Because," she explained.

When we finally left the theater after nearly another hour I found out why. The crowd was still there and they fell on her with whoops. Her mink coat was ripped in three places. She was jostled this way and that. People kept pushing programs, pictures, scraps of paper into her hands to be autographed.

Before she could finish one, somebody had snatched it out of her hand and shoved another in its place. Fountain pens leaked on her dress and fingers and while she was trying to write, people kept jostling her and crowding each other out of the way for a look.

"You're certainly very gracious about all this," smiled a motherly old lady, calmly placing three books in front of Connie to be autographed.

When the last program had been signed, the last book disposed of, and the last picture autographed, we turned to get into her car. Would you believe me if I told you that, on the running board, in front of the door so it could not be opened, stood a youth? "I've always wanted a good look at you," he stated calmly, "and I knew if I got in your way you'd have to look at me."

It had taken us a little over two hours to get from the theater into the car. I don't wonder she hates crowds.

I wondered later what other players' pet aversions are and I began asking.

Clark Gable detests black cats. "I'm not ordinarily superstitious," he said, "but once I had a job lined up — and that was in the days when I really needed a job. As I was walking down the street to the office to sign the contract, a black cat ran in front of me. When I got there I found they had decided to put some one else into the part — some one with a bigger name. I've never had any use for black cats since then."

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., hates girls who spill things and then cry about it. "I had a new suit once. I really did," he reiterated, seeing my look of polite disbelief, "and it was back in the days when a new suit was something to cheer about. I wore it to a part}' and the girl next me was one of those sweet young things who gurgle and coo and who are so busy trying to make an impression on the man nearest them they never look what they're doing.

"Well, she spilled a bowl of something all over my new suit and ruined it. Then, just to put my nerves a little more on edge, she began to cry. A new suit isn't the red-letter event now that it used to be, but I've never got over the idea of that silly, prattling girl blubbering noisily and her make-up all streaked from crying."

Leila Hyams detests banjo players on the radio. "It was like this," she elucidated. "Once, before I was married" — she paused for a moment, lost in thought, and then continued — "yes, I'm sure it was before I married. I was out with quite an attractive boy. There was a full moon, the radio was playing — soft, dreamy waltzes — and we were getting along famously. All of a sudden, out of that pesky radio came the noise of a banjo player accompanying himself to some hot blues number. The mood was destroyed and I never saw the boy again."

Well, I don't blame you, Leila. A good man is hard to find.

Chester Morris always has pretty good ideas on almost any subject. "What's your pet peeve, Chet?" I queried.

"Sea pictures," he answered promptly and that stopped me. Any one who knows anything about studio upheavals knows what went on behind the scenes during the making of Corsair. and if I were Chester I'd loathe the sight of the ocean.

Joan Bennett has a novel hate, too. "It throws me into a cold fury," she said, "when I see people stuffing handkerchiefs into their mouths. A handkerchief is not a very appetizing article at best, is it? Well, once I was at a dinner party and the girl opposite me was nervous and kept chewing her handkerchief. It made me ill."

Another one whom it's hard to think of as disliking anything, is Mary Brian. But Mary is quite emphatic in her aversion to one thing. "It's limp handshakers," she averred. "It gives me the creeps to offer my hand to some one who makes me feel as if I were holding a piece of liver. I think a handshake is an index to character and I don't like spineless people."

Richard Arlen hove into view. "Hi, Dick," sez I, "what's your pet hate?"

"Redheads," sez Dick promptly. Question: who played opposite him in Wayward? [Transcriber's Note: It was red-headed actress Nancy Carroll, of course]

But I can't be getting mixed up in studio broils, so I came back at him severely. "That's no excuse," I said. "What else?"

"Nothing," said he. "I'm the original 'Sunny Jim.' You never saw me riled, did you?"

"No," I admitted reluctantly.

Just then an assistant director butted into our big business conference. "Hey, Dick," he greeted us, "you'll have to work Sunday."

"The hell I will," Mr. Arlen replied, with a black scowl and a crease an inch deep between his eyes. What about my golf?" "To hell with your golf," said the assistant, equally polite. Words began to fly, so I left. But I think you can get an idea of Dick's pet hate.

Carol Lombard always looks so cool, calm and collected, it's hard to think of anything ever ruffling her. But there's one thing that does — affected people. "They get my goat more than anything else in the world," she confessed. "I always feel like saying, 'Aw, nerts! Be yourself.' Only, of course, I never do. It wouldn't be ladylike. Would it?" she added hopefully.

"No," I yessed her, and Carol's face fell.

To look at tough-guy Jimmie Cagney on the screen you might suppose that almost anything would cause his fingers to twitch and that right of his to start toward your jaw. But it isn't so. He's really quite an easy-going egg and it took the best part of a morning, to say nothing of lunch, before something happened that really upset him. It was while we were at table — and it wasn't the luncheon check, either. The fellow at the next table was making gurgling noises with his food. Jimmie began to fidget and glare, but his neighbor went blissfully on.

"That's it," said Jimmie. "Noisy eaters. I hate 'em," he continued, looking straight at the offender. "I always feel like telling 'em to eat their food and stop kissing it."

John Arledge, the young Texan who made a hit in Daddy Long Legs and who is working now with Novarro, in Huddle, is ready to fight any one who makes fun of his Southern accent. "When they start asking me to talk just so they can hear my accent it makes me feel like something in a museum or zoo," he said.

"More likely the zoo," I answered briefly and ducked the typewriter the fiery Arledge threw at me.

Can you imagine suave Hedda Hopper ever getting wroth? But she does. "What's my pet hate?" she repeated. "I'll tell you: it's having people play me for a sap or a sucker. I can't think of anything that makes me as angry as being taken for a fool."

I don't blame her, for if ever there was a person in Hollywood who's on her toes every minute and who never misses a trick it's this same Hedda. And unless you want the worst of the bargain, don't ever underestimate her intelligence.

Regis Toomey has a good one, too. He is one of the most sincere people I've ever come across, and if there is anything he dislikes it's insincerity in any form.

"I think the thing that gets my goat quicker than anything else is to have some one come gushing up to me and say 'Why, Regis, how are you? I'm so glad to see you again. What have you been doing with yourself?" and then when I answer, either he's turned away to say 'Howdy!' to some one else, or if he's still standing there he's not listening to me, but looking around to see who else is there. It makes you feel that they don't really give a tinker's dam about you after all."

All of which just goes to show that stars are the same as any one else. They're not gods nor even demigods. They have their little rages, even as you and I.