Free Hollywood by Garson Kanin

And when they’ve got what they want, they stop. That’s how I learned to do it. When I was about seven, I watched Ethel do it, and Lionel, and that gave me the idea. I went off into the bathroom for an hour or so every day and practiced. When you’ve been doing something for fifty years, you’re bound to get pretty good at it. But it isn’t acting. It’s crying. Doesn’t mean a damn thing. When I was in India, I saw some of those yogis do things involving physical and mental control that you wouldn’t believe. I didn’t believe what I saw. Staying under water for half an hour. Remaining absolutely motionless in dreamlike meditation for hours, and some people, you know, can fart at will.” He looked troubled. “I’ve never been able to learn to do that. I’m very disappointed in myself.” He laughed his booming laugh. “Did you ever hear of Le Pétomane? The great French cabaret performer? That was his act. Farting. He was a tremendous hit. I saw him once when I was a kid. He’d come on and give asort of dissertation on the subject and illustrate the different kinds. I remember that for a finish, he farted La Marseillaise. How could I forget it? But I mean to say, I wouldn’t call that acting, would you?”
    Actors, by and large, especially stars, do not often acknowledge their director’s contribution. In my case at least, John Barrymore overdid it. From the time we finished our film, until his death, he remained kind and generous and helped to propel my career.
    The truth is that I had directed him hardly at all. Most experienced directors learn finally that the best direction is the least direction. But I was not an experienced director at that time, and was given to overdirecting, except in the case of John Barrymore. My principal contribution was casting him. After that, I left him pretty much alone. I think it is fair to say that he directed me more than I directed him.
    A year or so before his death in 1942, John Barrymore was clowning away the last of his days in some foolishness in Chicago when he collapsed on the stage shortly after a performance began.
    The news reached Hollywood quickly. There were rumors of a stroke, a few claimed to have heard that he was dead. I tried to reach him by phone, first at the Hotel Blackstone, where I knew he was staying, next at the Passavant Hospital where he had been taken. Unable to do so, I sent a telegram of enquiry. The next morning, I had a message from him. It read: DON’T WORRY. FOR A MAN WHO HAS BEEN DEAD FOR FIFTEEN YEARS I AM IN REMARKABLE HEALTH. LOVE, MR. BARRYMORE.

3
    Ever since I can remember, the girls of America have shared a dream: To be a movie star. To be in the movies.
    “You ought to be in pictures.”
    “Anybody can be in the movies. It’s how they photograph you.”
    “You think Bette Davis is better looking than me?”
    “My legs are as good as Elizabeth Taylor’s.”
    “All you need is one good break. Look at Lana. Just happened to be sitting at the right soda fountain, the right time. If not, where’d she be today?”
    By what other means of magic can you be a nobody one day; but rich, admired, adored, famous, and having a good time the next? The only question is, does the slipper fit? If not the slipper, how about the sweater? Consider the Lana Turner story. There are various versions. Here is one.
    Billy Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter , walked into Currie’s Ice Cream Parlor one day. Sitting at the fountain was a seventeen-year-old blonde, wearing a sweater that outlined a miraculous bosom. Wilkerson walked up to her and said, “I’m Billy Wilkerson.”
    “Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner,” she said.
    “How would you like to be a movie star?” he asked.
    She sucked up the last of her soda, noisily, and looked up. “Okay.”
    “Come with me.” He took her to see Mervyn LeRoy, who was looking for a certain sort of girl to play a part in They Won’t Forget . It was a tough picture, an indictment of