(Column 1 begins here)
Filmland
Facts And
Flickers
_________
By Joe Cotton
Actor for Mercury Productions,
and today’s guest columnist for
Paul Harrison
HOLLYWOOD.--For my first--
and probably last--attempt at Pub-
lic writing. I’ve decided to lead
\with the Cotton chin. So my topic
for today is What’s Wrong With
Hollywood.
This is not to be confused with
the other subject that everyone
picks: What’s Wrong With the Movies. About that I know nothing.
Hollywood is not what it appears
from the magazines. This is a blow
from which few actors ever re-
cover, Cotton included.
For one thing, when I came to
Hollywood, I had a good part safe-
ly snagged. Hundreds of others, I
found, have had an equally easy
time. That wrecked notion No. 1:
that to be successful in the land of
the movie, you had to cadge beans
for months.
Then came the glamor business.
Glamor must be here, because all
the gossip columns say so, but it’s
elusive. Sadly I write that glamor
as a positive quantity can be dis-
covered just as easily in Keokuk
or New Bedford.
# # #
My introduction to this tinseled
land startled me half to death.
I drove from New York and
started out to find the house which
had been rented to me. To reach
same, I must cruise down Sunset
Blvd. On reaching that part of Los
Angles which is Hollywood, my
supposedly sophisticated eye met
nothing but a succession of enor-
mous--and I mean enormous--pho-
to portraits, framed.
These reposed, and still do, on
what seems to be on every front lawn
of every other house for about two
miles along the boulevard. It oc-
cured to me that this was certain-
ly a novel way of attracting atten-
tion to your potential worth as an
actor or actress. It was a week be-
fore I learned they were profes-
sional portrait studios.
# # #
Arriving at the house picked for
me, it was time for bed. So con-
sider the shattering discovery of
the morning: NO swimming pool.
I thought everyone in the movie
business had a swimming pool.
My only solace is that I don’t par-
ticularly want one.
This all happened when Orsen
Wells was producing a number
called Citzen Kane. I was cast as
Jed Leland.
The morning after getting here,
I rushed to the studio full of fire,
ambition, and most of all, curios-
ity.
A studio! Oh boy!
Lush, plush settings, thousands
(Continued Top of next column)
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