“OUR GRACIE”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1940, Page 9

“OUR GRACIE”

VISIT TO HOLLYWOOD. BIGGEST PERSONALITY IN THE WORLD. Along comes Gracie Fields, says a Hollywood writer. She, as Hollywood is told, is Britain's greatest and most successful woman star; she’s a national symbol, in .fact. Yet she does nothing the way any Hollywood star would do it: says nothing any American would, either.

Instead of putting up at the swankiest hotel in town, she hides herself away in a four-roomed apartment. It is one of a block of four, built last year, to rent to middle-class working tenants. She bought the lot for £4OOO. It is not in that part of Beverly Hills where many other stars have mansions, but does Gracie care” Not she.

Her parents have the apartment next to •toers and a third one is “for rent" to any one who wants it at £l5 a month.

The day after Gracie arrived' I drove round to see her; she was busy carrying amfuls of cloths from her mother's apartment, where they had been stored, into her own. Emptying drawers, and tidying up, just as though she were still back in Rochdale. And she's the biggest personality in the world.

Secretary Margaret and personal maid Mary were bobbing here and there, but it was Gracie who was putting things straight. ‘'Gee, but I’m excited,” she told me, “it’s grand in the sunshine.”

Then she started at me and said: “But you know, I feel a bit funny about coming away just now, while everybody’s in such a stew.” Gracie needs the change so badly though; says she will be ready for anything after a couple of months’ rest. “Then maybe I’ll go back to the front .... if they still want me,” she said.