HOUSES OF THE STARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOUSES OF THE STARS.

HOMES IN HOLLYWOOD. MB. AND MBS. FBED THOMSON. THE JOHN McOOEMICKS. (By D. M. MONTGOMERY.)' The homes eome of, these rich stars live in! Low, but 6pacioue, 6ome of them enormous, with terraces and courtyards drenched with sun or shaded by trees, sub-tropical' flowers in riotoue profusion, ancient' wells and fountains; and, in the huge rooms, priceless ruga and tapestries and antique furniture. Most of these, wonderful houses have hu"-e swimming pools, set in pink or white marble, artificially heated and fully-equipped movie theatres. Those of .the sporting set have stables for as many'ae 20 horses. A few have their own golf courses and race tracks. Garages for half a dozen cars and private gymnasiums are common. I,still remember my astonishment at the first one I went up to, the Marion-

Thomson place. Fred Thomson, the movie cowboy, who owns Silver King, the famous "acting horse," me up —not the usual run up a hill road between pepper trees, but a climb of miles up treacherous winding mountain roads. At the end of it; a paradise amid the sun-soaked hills!

We drove under an arch into the mainflagged courtyard. In the centre was an ancient well shaded by an old, tree. Looking back, I eaw far below Hollywood and Los Angeles and Catalina set like a jewel in the sapphire bluo of the Pacific I

The house has all the charm of old Mexico. Sunshine pours on it almost all day long, so that you appreciate the cool shade of the trees, the expanse of the big swimming pool, the cool spaciousness of the beautiful rooms. Fred Thomson and his wife, Francis Marion, the scenario writer, like music, so they have'a wonderful pipe organ and the outlet for it is hammered gold.

Fred took me to visit Silver King's quarters in the rear of the estate. There were stalls for 15 horses, apartments for the grooms and a run as big as a race track.

Some of Fred's most treasured possessions are some photographs of Gene Tunney, affectionately inscribed. Gene was in the,regiment of which Fred was chaplain during the war.

One afternoon I motored over with two or three others to join the John McCormicks for tennis and tea. Mre. John McCormick was all ready for the game, a lithe and business-like, figure in loose white sweater and white flannel trousers, with a big white shade which she slipped over her black bobbed hair when we got on the sun-flooded court. Mrs. McCormick, who on the screen ie Colleen Moore, told me that I must come' out one ' day and see their, new estate in the hills. "It' may be two years before it's finished," she sighed, "but I'm putting in the gardens and shrubs and driveways and I've got the swimming pool under way."

"She wante the swimming pool eo she can give big swimming parties on Sundays," complained her husband. "She doesn't care a cent about the house."

Whereupon Colleen hit him on the ear with a shrewdly-thrown tennis ball.

She is, I suppose, the most consistently effective and lovable person on the ecreen to-day. She has had four separate careers, her husband told me — four different directors have "discovered" her, and used her for different types. But she's eternally sparkling and young. She had been married for quite a while when a director demanded her for "Flaming Youth." "I'm a respectable married woman," she retorted.

"I dont care," retorted the director. "You're the ideal flapper right where you stand, and I want you for my picture."

He got her. Mrs. : McCormiek told me that_ when, ae a youngster, she wore her hair long and curly, she waen't a success. She worked hard, but—"No sex appeal," eaid one director, and, "Plain, plain!" agreed another. "She'll never get anywhere in pictures. Then ehe "bang-tailed" her hair, and the curve they put on her cheek whisker made her look sidewaye out of the corner of her eye, and she made another picture for First National. It had a first run on Broadway. • The people who had fired her went over and beheld a new Colleen —a eaucy look, heaps of. pep, sex appeal and slim flapper line. They went wild about her. But it was too late. She had already been grabbed and locked up in a First National contract.

Colleen is a bit of a tomboy on the films—and off. She likes to chew gum sometimes and has a private locker of delicately-flavoured gum,, specially made for her at home.

One day she and her husband were entertaining a celebrated English author at dinner. The novelist was dicussing American customs. He said he couldn't understand the gum-chewing habit. "Dreadful habit," agreed Colleen, blush-

ing slightly;. while her husband, concealing a grin, privately kicked her under the table. ' ■

But Ben, their Japanese butler, whose Englteh is faulty, heard the word "guru" , and elipped out, raided his mistress , gum, cupboard and returning with a fresh package, presented it respectfully on a silver salver to the celebrated writer. He had caught tho word "gum" and thought it was being asked for by bhe distinguished guest.

"If looks could kill," added John McCorinick, as he told me this stoiy, "Colleen :would be in the electric chair right now."

When 1 asked Mrs. Walter Moroeco. otherwise Corinne Griffith, to name the most crusted bachelor in Hollywood, she thought for a bit, smiling tranquilly under the shade of her big sun hat as we stood together on the rustic bridge —I had been lunching with her and her husband at their home, one of the most charming and picturesque -in all Hollywood—and then eaid: "Ramon Novarro."

. . Ramon Novarro is the .romantic-look-ing young Mexican of "Ben' Hur" fame and keeps very much to his own set, a 6et in which Rex Ingram and Alice Terry are figures—when they're in Hollywood.

I went up several times to see George Fitzmaurice at work directing Vilma Banky and Ronald Colman in a picture for which no title had been found.' Fitzmaurice, an Irishman educated in Paris, handled Vilma beautifully, slipping into a French phrase, to which she would answer with a Boft "o" of understanding. Vilma'e beauty is soothing to the eye.

She has the loveliest corn-coloured hair and eyes as soft as dove's. They told me that there had been a great scene a little while before at the Goldwyn studio, with Vilma in tears and Sam Goldwyn, the magnate, tearing hie hair.

Vilma, who is enamoured of the American boyish type, had wanted to have her hair smartly singled and Goldwyn swore that it would spoil her charm. She implored, raged, wept. He was adamant. Why, she might lose him a million dollars with her silly notion of wanting to turn her glorious type into shingled smartness!. Vilma succumbed. But next day she appeared at the studio in a smart new shingled bob. She put herself blandly, provocatively under Mr. Goldwyn's nose. He- nearly burst a blood vessel. His lovely exotic had Americanised herself. A million dollars seemed to be fading into the mist. . .

Then she made an impudent little face and stripped off the shingle. It was a wig. "I shall wear a wig when I want to, at least," she said defiantly; and she went to lunch in it.

She talks French very well, but her English is very broken —all "ze's" and "zat's." "Happee," she says, in her charming soft voice, and "beeg" and "moneys" and "beau-tee-ful." When she arrived, the only English she knew was "lamb chops and pineapple"—a reducing diet she had been told she must take to acquire the slinky leanness of the typical American flapper , "Keep your feminine curves," growled Mr. Goldwyn. "You're the most beautiful girl in Hollywood"—and lamb, chops and pineapple disappeared from the Banky menu. . „

Evidently, I thought, ' this hair trouble is not over. There is more to come. I wondered immediately if Rod La Rocque, Vilma'e husband, would go aggressively up to' the great Goldwyn and demand the right of every wife to bob her hair.

Ronald Colman, she fold me, :had taught her to smoke a cigarette^—an accomplishment she did noi possess when she came over. Valentino, they eaid, had been very much in love with her. But Vilma said it was friendship only.

"At night in the desert the moon used to shine," she explained, "and we would sit out and talk and talk and talk — of everything in the world. We were making 'Son of the Sheik. , ' I did not eee him to say good-bye. He left for New York before I was awake. But when I did awake I found on my doorstep mases of roses and a note eaying, 'Remember me, sweet friend, and soon we shall meet again.

"Well, we did not meet again. He died. I was very sad."