Tom Brown — Nix on Dames (1932) 🇺🇸

Tom Brown is through with all women forever — at nineteen!

by E. R. Moak

His heart still pounding from the crash of his great romance, and his brain in a whirl from the crumbling of the less serious affairs that followed, Universal's youngest star has gone in for an intensive study of geography. He's seeking a distant isle whose shores are unmarked by feminine footprints.

Should Tom survive and become a white-bearded centenarian, he's quite positive he'll never marry. Already he has developed a philosophy that definitely brands him as a hopeless cynic in all matters pertaining to the dangerous sex.

"Love is only a synonym for grief," he will inform you, in case you are interested.

So he's hoarding his earnings against the coming of a day when he can bid adieu to Hollywood, hie himself to the South Seas, and there establish an Eveless Eden.

And things might have been so different for Tom had not Sylvia Sidney given him the well-known runaround!

Blame for Tom's cruel disillusionment does not, however, rest entirely on the frail shoulders of Sylvia. While he learned plenty about girls and their treachery from her, there were other Hollywood beauties to take up his education where she left off, and it was that demure Cecelia Parker who tutored him through his post-graduate course.

Now don't jump at conclusions regarding this serious-minded, blue-eyed, freckle-faced kid who won his cinema spurs in "Tom Brown at Culver." He's not the sort who kisses and tells.

Probably I would never have had the facts from Tom's own lips had not I stumbled across him in his dressing room, his gaze intent upon a map of the Pacific. the morning after that fateful party at the home of his boss, Carl Laemmle, Jr., where- — if you'll take Tom's word for it — Cecelia played him for a sucker. He simply had to confide in some one!

But that's zooming ahead of the story, the story of Tom Brown's disastrous loves.

Lila Lee was Tom's first weakness, but it was Sylvia Sidney who became his first passion.

He was only fifteen when he plunged into his one-sided romance with Lila. After glimpsing her on the screen, he hurried home and labored far into the night penning her a fan letter.

"It's the only time I've ever done such a foolish thing, and I guess it was pretty gooey!" he explained to me.

During the two years that ensued, he stood ready to battle any one who dared to criticize Lila or question her histrionic ability. Then he met Sylvia. Their introduction came about when they started rehearsals for Many a Slip, a Broadway play. Sylvia was twenty, Tom seventeen.

"Gosh, I was walking around in the clouds," Tom declared. "I didn't know any one could fall as hard as I did. Sylvia always came to my dressing room before the opening curtain, we'd be together between acts, and we'd go out to supper after the show — Sylvia, my mother, and myself. We had a swell time for months.

"I realized I was pretty young to begin thinking of marriage, but I dug in and gave the audience everything I had, because I wanted to make good for Sylvia's sake. I was secretly saving my money to buy an engagement ring. Believe me, I was happy!

"But I woke up with a jolt. During the last week of the run, my mother, who had always gone to the theater with me, became ill, and remained at home. And Sylvia didn't come near me. I worried along for a day or two, then I put it up to her. I thought maybe I'd said something that offended her.

"'No, Tommy,' she said, 'but I've missed your mother terribly. I just adore her.'

"'What's that got to do with you coming to see me?' I asked her.

"Heavens, Tommy! Where'd you ever get the idea that I was interested in you?' she shot back.

"Now just imagine my embarrassment!" A less courageous soul than Tom Brown might have taken up life as a hermit then and there. Instead, he vowed he'd some day make Sylvia Sidney regret she had so mercilessly toyed with his affections.

Sylvia signed a picture contract that would take her West. He'd go to Hollywood, too!

When Universal cast him in "Fast Companions," he met Maureen O’Sullivan and proceeded to forget about Sylvia.

"Maureen started in to high-hat me," Tom declared, "but I soon straightened her out. The company was sent to Caliente for race-track shots, and I invited her to have dinner with me at the Casino. She turned up that cute Irish nose of hers, and made it clear to me that she had not gone in for cradle robbery.

"Say, can you beat that? And us the same age exactly! Well, I didn't let her get away with it. I told her just what I thought of her. We were good friends after that, but she dropped me cold when we got back to Hollywood.

"Maureen tries to appear sophisticated, you know, and goes in for older fellows as part of her act."

Tommy, it seems, might have enjoyed some peace of mind for a while had he dodged that benefit performance in a Los Angeles theater. It was there that he made the acquaintance of Arletta Duncan.

"She knocked me off my feet," Tom went on. "She's a swell looker, and I tried to date her every night for two weeks. I might have succeeded, eventually, if I hadn't seen Anita Louise. She's a dream. But I had too much competition, so I began going out with Rochelle Hudson."

But here the fates again intervened. Warner Brothers borrowed Tom for "The Famous Ferguson Case," with Joan Blondell.

It was his first half hour in the studio. He was seated before a mirror, applying his make-up, when a door swung open and in walked a vision of loveliness who bent over him and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Congratulations on your birthday, Tommy Brown," she remarked as she fled from the room.

"Gee, I was stunned for a minute, then I pulled myself together, and rushed out into the hall after her. I found out that it was Loretta Young and that it was her birthday. also, so I ran to her dressing room and returned the kiss.

"I could have tumbled for her in a big way, but I'd read in the papers that she was engaged to one of Gloria Swanson's ex-husbands."

Loretta, too, was forgotten when Tom's eyes lighted on Joan Blondell.

"I fell with a bang," he told me. 'and she didn't exactly hate me. But she sure took me for a row of ash cans. I thought I was going great with her, then suddenly she gave me the air. George Barnes — he's her husband now — had come back to town, and I was through.

"At that, Joan did me a huge favor. She convinced me of the folly of mixing pleasure and business. From that time on, I became just another actor to the girls working on the same sets with me."

Vivienne Osborne and Adrienne Doré appeared in "The Famous Ferguson Case" with Joan and Tom, but he had given them the go-by. He's sorry about that.

But Tom's luck took a turn for the better for a while after his sad experience with the blond vamp.

He spent some enjoyable hours with Sidney Fox, Barbara Weeks, Mary Carlisle, Betty Furness, Sally Blane, and Dorothy Dix, but as they were very partial to premieres and the Coconut Grove, stepping out put a severe dent in Tom's bank balance. He developed quite a yen for Dorothy Lee until he discovered that he was sharing her attentions with Marshall Duffield, the gridiron hero, and Jimmy Fidler, her former mate.

So it was that a more or less heartfree Tom Brown departed for Culver, Indiana, where they were to film "Tom Brown at Culver." As the train sped across desert and plain, he decided to banish the fair sex completely from his thoughts.

And he never once swerved from his purpose — until he landed in Culver.

The ravishing beauty of seventeen-year-old Betty Gignilliat, daughter of the Culver commandant, overwhelmed Tom Brown. He was lost! So was Richard Cromwell.

Friendship gave way to rivalry. The race for Betty Gignilliat became a bitter one. The one-time buddies met and fought it out. A Brown fist contacted a Cromwell chin. Cromwell's knuckles contacted the Brown beezer.

"I'm not licked, but no dame is worth this." volunteered Tom. "You can have her, Dick!"

Returning to California, Tom buried himself in new interests. He set out to write a novel, Troupers to the Last, a tale of three generations of show folks. He rented a typewriter and was making rapid progress on his book when Junior Laemmle decided to give a party.

He was strolling across the studio lot, Junior's invitation in his hand, when he bumped into Cecelia. It was only natural that he should mention the party.

"Who's taking you?" he inquired.

"Guess I'll have to go alone," responded Cecelia, with wheedling despair.

Tom's gallantry surged to the fore.

"I'll pick you up in my car," he offered.

Cecelia was most appreciative.

But get this:

"Say, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I delivered her at that party and she danced off with the boss! That was the dirtiest trick I ever had put over on me. She didn't tell me she was Mr. Laemmle's girl. How was I to know?

"Gee, a thing like that might cost a fellow his contract!"

The narrative was ended. Tom lapsed into thoughtful silence.

Then, "You can buy a whole island down there in the South Seas for $500, they tell me," he resumed, "and climb onto a throne. That's my dish. The first thing I'll do will be to sign an edict, or whatever you call it, barring all women from my empire.

"Love. Bah!"

Tom knows about a bargain island — throne tossed in — whose shores are unmarked by feminine footprints.

Photo by: Roman Freulich (1898–1974)

Poor Tom Brown! According to his story, opposite, he's cynical about girls and he offers his experience with them to prove it. Sylvia Sidney, Rochelle Hudson, Anita Louise, Maureen O’Sullivan, Loretta Young and others have failed to take his nineteen years seriously and he can't understand it. So he's through with women forever!

Photo by: Ray Jones (1892–1967)

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, December 1932