No Chums for Stars (1937) 🇺🇸

Few close friendships exist among the women stars, no matter what you may read to the contrary. This article explains why chummy relationships are impossible for the movie great.

by Myrtle Gebhart

This is addressed to girls who would love to be stars, wealthy, popular, and happy. Do you know that they envy you one precious relationship which Hollywood conditions make almost impossible for them? — your confidential chumming!

Men pal around, playing sports and lunching together, but the feminine players seldom have girl chums and often remark how they miss those giggling, gossipy sessions of their pre-movie days: lingering over sodas in the drug store, raiding the ice box at midnight for cold chicken and salad.

Lack of time, principally, is responsible for this sacrifice of a relationship dear to the feminine soul. The women stars must be more alert than the men, as their reign in the spotlight usually is briefer, the competition greater. They must see to many more chores of career, such as beauty care and costuming.

They have no leisure for lunches, no time for teas. A secondary factor preventing many long and close friendships is competition. Each star is busy polishing her own glow.

And Hollywood girls who become actresses lose touch with former chums, meeting them occasionally but under a certain strain, as they no longer have common interests.

“Look!” One day I followed Jeanette MacDonald’s gesture and saw two girls, their arms linked, strolling along the sidewalk and talking excitedly. “I miss that sort of thing so much.” Her voice was underlined with a wistful note.

“I don’t know any girl well enough to drop in unexpectedly and watch her wash her hair, or mend her lingerie, gossiping all the while. I would like some one I could phone and say, ‘I’m coming over.’ But I have no intimate women friends.

“Every minute has its duty. Even between pictures I have singing, French, and tennis lessons every day, give interviews, read stories, fit costumes, preparing for the next film.

“When you become more important in pictures, the others in the company draw away, erect indefinable barriers. If you try to make friends with the chorus girls, many of them think you are ‘putting on a democratic act.’

“There is a silly, but definite, caste in the movies. It is hard to step from one level to another without having your sincerity questioned. Besides, when you rate leads or stellar billing, there are seldom other girls of your age in the company.

“In Hollywood, friendship between women is formal. We meet each other only at dinner parties, always a crowd around. And whenever men are present,” she laughed, “do you see two women getting together in a corner for a chat?”

Her comments so interested me that I thought more about the subject, wondering why we seldom see the frilly Jean Harlow lunching with another girl, why Joan Crawford’s feminine friendships never last long. Joan and Marlene Dietrich were attracted to each other by their mutual interest in art and in dancing. Joan admired Ann Harding’s soldierly, frank attitude toward life tremendously.

But they are all so busy, always. If one has a free day unexpectedly, the other is working. Shopping sprees don’t dovetail. Asking each other’s advice about clothes is impossible, as each has her wardrobe designed to express her individuality.

“Margaret Lindsay and I enjoy talking over books and shows, and we walk or play tennis, on the rare occasions when our brief vacations between pictures coincide,” Janet Gaynor replied to my question. “For weeks ahead, we look forward to our larks together.”

“I have no special friend other than my stand-in,” Rochelle Hudson said. “I don’t know whether or not I miss chumming. It requires time to be lonesome, you know. And I have so little time. Rush, rush, rush, from this appointment to the next one.”

Ruby Keeler is occupied with her husband [Al Jolson], their adopted baby, home, her own career, and her relatives. She has no intimate woman friend. Nor has Bette Davis, who frankly admits a preference for masculine society. Besides her mother and sister, Bette has two girl friends, one a writer and the other a nonprofessional. But their association is casual, limited to lunches now and then. Bette once said to me that she rarely gets much of value from companionship with her own sex.

“Whenever I have admitted a woman to close friendship, it has ended badly,” Joan Blondell was equally honest. “Each time I have felt so let down, so disillusioned, that now when I need advice I go to men, because they are never petty.”

Joan mentioned Glenda Farrell as the only feminine pal for whom she cares very much. However, their visiting is done mostly on the set and at lunch in the studio café.

“Women don’t band together to help each other, in Hollywood,” Myrna Loy once observed to me. “In all of my years in pictures, Natascha Rambova was the only woman who ever gave me sensible, constructive advice and real assistance.

“Actresses probably don’t mean to be critical of each other. Outstanding rôles are scarce, therefore the competition is keen. Youth and charm fade so quickly. It is natural that each makes the most of her opportunities. Each is too preoccupied to give another more than casual suggestions.

“The movies tend to make one insular, involved in problems not easily comprehended by the nonprofessional. There isn’t much common ground; we live in different worlds.

“Though I may be glad about Joe’s five-dollar raise, for his sake, I can’t work up a tremendous thrill over it. Sympathetic though I may be over Susie’s pimple, I dare not distress myself unduly, for I have so many problems on my mind. A misstep, accepting a poor rôle, for example, might set back my career seriously.

“It is all a matter of values. It’s not that we are no longer interested in old friends. In proportion, our problems seem bigger, because our decisions so often involve not only ourselves but also other players, the company cost of production, and so on. We have responsibilities that, indirectly, affect so many people.”

“Another thing,” Myrna pointed out, “is that we cease to be just persons, we are regarded as movie stars. Suppose we do live in grander surroundings, with so many activities revolving around ourselves, what of it? But old school friends are apt to be awed, to act embarrassed, which makes us ill at ease. There can be no mutual exchange of confidence unless both feel completely relaxed and ‘at home.’

“And little, individual traits of ours that were considered amusing, perhaps endearing, become ‘eccentricities of ego,’ as we rise in pictures.”

Pondering these thoughts, I realized that Garbo [Greta Garbo] is one of the few stars to maintain a friendship of years with a nonprofessional — in her case, with the wife of a Swedish consul.

Eleanore Whitney’s chum is a débutante from Cleveland who now lives in Los Angeles, but between career and society they haven’t much time to devote to each other.

Each actress must follow some sort of a time budget. Plenty of sleep is stipulated. Between pictures there are lessons and parties. On Sundays crowds gather at some one’s “open house” or at the beach clubs or week-end resorts. Week-day lunches are hurried, conferences with directors or interviewers, or sandwich snacks between fittings and photos.

So even such close friends as Ruth Chatterton and Kay Francis see each other mostly at parties. Marion Davies, Bebe Daniels, and Constance Talmadge manage gab-fests as often as possible. Anne Shirley and June Lang, chums since childhood, occasionally have a “gal evening” of fudge, showing off new clothes, and chatter. Most of their visiting, however, is done over the phone.

Though Jean Muir and her best friend, Linda Leath, a writer, work at the same studio, theirs also is largely a telephone friendship. Each is too rushed during the day for more than a quick “hello.” So they talk every evening over the wire, though their homes are twenty miles apart.

Joan Crawford frequently invites Jean to her home, but both make it a practice to refrain from discussing personalities. As the Muir maiden pointed out, you can’t really chum without a bit of personal gossip.

Writers, like Frances Marion and Dorothy Parker, form friendships with some of the stars. But they can only get together every few weeks for chats.

Marlene Dietrich believes that it is impossible to know and understand another person in five years. Foreigners are more thorough, you know — slower in giving their confidence. Luise Rainer has no close feminine friend in Hollywood.

Curiously, Olivia de Havilland mentioned the same period of time as did the deliberate Dietrich, remarking that it takes her at least five years to make a dear friendship. That, she said, is due to her own reserve when among strangers. She envies the jolly, easy-going type.

Though Carole Lombard entertains in gay and novel ways, her only chum is her secretary, “Fieldsie” [Madalynne Field], who manages her business affairs and her home. They even vacation together.

Claudette Colbert has time only for the friends of her husband, Doctor Joel Pressman, receiving them in the evening.

The young newcomers, many of them still in their teens and vibrantly energetic, manage to keep up friendships zestfully — for a while. Usually they invite the boys to their parties and skating shindigs. But a few twosomes — such as Patricia Ellis and Paula Stone, or Beverly Roberts and Isabel Jewell — find time for occasional lunches.

At Mary Treen’s hen party the girls smeared their faces with cold cream, sat on the floor, and talked excitedly of men, new clothes, and their favorite stars, acting like young girls at sorority parties.

The higher they climb their ladders of career, however, the more numerous their duties and the greater their responsibilities — and sacrifices. While you gossip over your bridge games, or your work at the office, remember that many stars envy you that one thing, at least, Miss Average Girl!

—

Joan Crawford | Marlene Dietrich | Olivia de Havilland | Luise Rainer | Bette Davis

—

Kay Francis | Myrna Loy | Jean Harlow | Rochelle Hudson | Jeanette MacDonald

—

Carole Lombard | Claudette Colbert | Jean Muir | Joan Blondell | Ruby Keeler

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, April 1937