Little Me Read online

  True, Hollywood had a couple of Marquises de la Falaise de Coudray and quite a few Princesses Mdivani from time to time, but what was really needed was a real aristocrat to take over the reins of social leadership. And who, pray (with the possible exception of Aileen Pringle), had had more experience in court circles than little me? Therefore, I felt it my duty to take the throne of Hollywood’s Social Queen.

  A DAY WITH BELLE POITRINE Intimate Lives of the Stars by Sell U. Lloyd

  UP WITH THE BIRDS! No lolling abed for glamorous Belle Poitrine, lovely Metronome star. Belle is awake at dawning rarin’ to go.

  ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME! Belle examines her reflection in the specially built lavender portable dressing room on the set.

  READIN’ ’ N ’ ’ RITIN’ Hard at work revising a script. Belle is one of the most literary stars in Movietown.

  FITTINGS! FITTINGS! FITTINGS! One of the lovely and intricate costumes for Paradise Lost. No unsightly wrinkles for our Belle.

  PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Rehearsing with young Metronome leading man, Letch Feeley. Belle says that no one can play love scenes like Letch.

  CATCH AS CATCH CAN No time for a fancy banquet. Belle roughs it at lunch on the set of Paradise Lost.

  NEVER TOO BUSY FOR AN INTERVIEW Gracious Belle grants a newspaper interview right in the midst of her heavy shooting schedule.

  BEST DRESSED?

  HOME WORK A devoted mother, Belle Poitrine writes to her daughter every day—even if it’s only a postcard.

  GOOD NIGHT SWEETHEART! A tender kiss for hubby, Morris Buchsbaum, before our popular star steps out.

  SEEIN’STARS! A star must be seen as well as see in Filmdom. Belle chins and gins with the Al K. Halls (he produced Dr. Damon’s Doings).

  As darling Dudley du Pont said, “There are plenty of queens in Hollywood, pet, but with you as empress—hotcha!”

  Keeping peace among my devoted subjects was not a simple task. There were rivalries and jealousies, constant toadying and jockeying for my favor. The existing friction between such stars as Mary Pickford and Joan Crawford (for a time step-mother and step-daughter-in-law), Marion Davies and Norma Shearer, Gloria Swanson and Pola Negri, Dolores Del Rio and Lupe Velez, the Bennett sisters, Lilyan Tashman and Ina Claire is already public property. The frequency of marriage, divorce and remarriage made the seating of my famous dinner parties more than a little difficult. Transvestism, unnatural practices, nymphomania, excessive drinking and even narcotics addiction were not conducive to a truly smart social milieu. Yet I always tried to remind myself that these gilded boys and girls of the silver screen had not all had my Advantages—my aristocratic lineage, my gentle birth, my careful rearing, my grounding in the arts, my proximity to the Court of St. James’s: all the generations of breeding that go into the makings of a true leader of society.

  But if my parties lacked the decorum that I felt was my due, they certainly lacked nothing in high spirits and gaiety! Casa Torquemada was “GHQ” for the “revels” of Hollywood’s Smart Set. When not working on a picture, I loved nothing better than to entertain casually at cocktails every day beginning at noon. There would be merry “pranks” at the pool, luncheon for anyone who wanted to eat, plenty of extra bedrooms for the siesta period (although no one was ever sleepy at my house!) and, if we didn’t all choose to go on to the Cocoanut Grove or the “Troc” or some other gay boîte de nuit, a buffet supper with more intimate entertainment later on. And, working or not, my Sundays at home were famous. Letch Feeley was always on hand to act as auxiliary host (there is no use trying to disguise the fact, Morris Buchsbaum was not a social asset). Carstairs Bagley would be the first to arrive and the last to leave. Whenever he was in this country Dudley du Pont was always at my Sundays, bringing with him a small army of the extra men who always make a party “go.” Momma, although lacking many of my attributes as a social arbiter, had a certain following of her own and could always be counted on to amuse simple men like “Tex” Lonestar and other cowboy favorites. Stars such as fun-loving Marjorie Josa, Vivi Weaver, Elaine Adam, exotic Bita Dobo, Nan Badian, pert Lucile Sullivan, darling Bessie Otis, Lila Lewis, Pixie Portnoy, Jane Lambert and Baby Betsy Kerr were usually shedding their radiance. Of dashing leading men I could almost always count on Leslie Copeland, Duncan McGregor, “Al” Apatia, Sir Gauntley Pratt, Stuart Harris, Lyons Maine and dozens of others. It was a veritable paradise for an “autograph hound.” The fun started right after church and didn’t stop until time to get to the studio on Monday morning.

  However, one unsettling incident did occur during one of my famous Sundays at Home that gave me pause. Late one afternoon Letch and I were coming out of the Hacienda Méjicana playhouse, after a prolonged game of backgammon, when I noticed a tiny baby girl toddling across the lawn toward the pool. Nobody was paying any attention to her until there was a terrible splash and the poor child fell in fully dressed. There was great laughter (someone was always falling into the pool, and the more elaborately garbed the funnier it was) and Lyons Maine, who happened to be naked anyhow, dived in and pulled the child out.

  “Heavens,” I said, “whose is that little girl? Some child under contract?”

  “It’s yours,” Carstairs said, and, wrapping Baby-dear up in his tea gown, he carried her into the nursery and to Mademoiselle. (He was such a kindly man.)

  The shock was too great for me. I was put to bed under sedatives and allowed to see no visitors except for Letch (we were rehearsing a new film and the schedule could not be broken). But lying there shattered from the terrible experience I had endured, I asked myself this frank question: “Which should you be, a full-time mother or a full-time star?” I pondered the answer for a long time and then I knew what I must do no matter how much heartache my sacrifice would mean. I would have to send Baby-dear off to boarding school. Would it be sporting, I asked myself, to deprive the millions of Belle Poitrine fans the pleasure of seeing their idol just for the sake of one small child? While there were thousands of capable women who could take the place of Baby-dear’s Mommy, who could replace Belle Poitrine on the screen?

  The knowledge of this terrible step nearly crushed the spirit out of me, but I knew what had to be done. Baby-dear was nearly two years old and I wanted her to get an early start—to enjoy the advantages of a classical education which had been denied me in my own girlhood.

  Through the studio I was able to find a splendid Episcopal boarding school in Pennsylvania that would take Baby-dear. Willing to make any sacrifice for the sake of my little girl, I delayed “shooting” the new film for three days while I shopped frantically at Bullock’s for the darling little uniforms and pinafores she would wear at Radclyffe Hall. I put in a night of anguish on the eve of her departure but I managed to “pull myself together” and put on my loveliest peignoir, and all of my jewels, so that Baby-dear’s last memory of her Mommy would be one of a beautiful madonna.

  “Baby-dear,” I said, fighting back the tears, as Mademoiselle lifted her up so that I could kiss that precious little flower of a face, “you’re going to school because Mommy wants you to get an early start. It’s going to be much more fun than just being here with Mommy and Daddy and Gran. And it won’t be forever. You’ll be home for your Christmas holidays and we’ll all have so much fun.” I could endure it no longer. “Hurry now, you don’t want to miss the big choo-choo train.”

  I stood silhouetted in the doorway as Baby-dear toddled after Mademoiselle toward the car. “Wave bye-bye,” Mademoiselle said.

  “Who’s the big blonde?” Baby-dear asked. Then they were gone.

  The wrench nearly killed me but, as we say in the theatre, “The show must go on!” I hurried to dress for the studio and for a tea the George Arlisses were giving for Sir Thomas Lipton that afternoon. Only a mother can know what I felt.

  My hectic life of business and pleasure continued at its usual breakneck pace. As I have said, Casa Torquemada was considered (by simple American standards) a showplace and as the Homes of the Stars have alway
s attracted great throngs of tourists, I felt that I could make Casa Torquemada and its gardens into a force for Good by opening it to the public once a year and turning over the proceeds to my favorite charity. Thus I announced, in discreet newspaper advertisements, that my lovely home would be open to anyone willing to pay fifty cents on a certain day in September.

  How well I remember that gruesome autumn day when the gardeners were preparing Casa Torquemada for the first “onslaught.” Although the morning seemed fine, I recall distinctly that there was “something” in the air—a sense of foreboding—as I chose my prettiest gown in order not to disappoint the many pilgrims who would come to admire me and my lovely belongings that afternoon.

  As the time drew near for the great iron gates to be opened, the atmosphere grew heavy, moist, almost suffocating. I don’t know quite how to explain the sense of doom which I felt.

  “Not a very nice day for the public, madam,” the butler said to me. “I don’t expect that we’ll have many visitors.”

  How right he was! A clammy rain began falling. I stood in the doorway all ready to smile and wave cordially as the first visitors appeared, but I needn’t have bothered. I was quite alone. The weather had kept them away. I was just about to retire to my bedroom to read Film Fun when I heard a strangely familiar voice. “Hello, Belle. You’re looking good.”

  I wheeled about and there, at the other end of the terrace, was none other than George Jerome Musgrove!

  “You!” I gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  “The ad here says that anyone with four bits can take the grand tour of this mausoleum. For your favorite charity. What’s that? You?”

  Ignoring his uncalled-for remark, I said, “I’m sorry, but due to the inclement weather my house has been . . .”

  “Ah, that won’t do, Miss Schlumpfert. It says here in the paper ‘rain or shine.’ I came all the way over from Long Beach just to see how the other half live. Here’s my fifty cents. Let’s see the place.”

  “Very well,” I said coldly, snapping the coin from his hand. “Follow me.”

  With great hauteur I led him through the house. He admired everything and was never at a loss for a “wise crack.” But, much as I had suffered at this scoundrel’s hands, I could not quite bring myself to detest him. Say what one would about George Musgrove, he still had a certain urbane wit and charm that had impressed me from the very first. He was no longer young. His hair had turned quite gray—though not unbecomingly so—and his pallor seemed ghastly. But otherwise he was his jovial old self.

  “And this,” I said, finishing off the tour, “is the gun room where my beloved husband Morris and I spend our rare moments alone together.”

  “Where do you and Letch Feeley spend them?” Mr. Musgrove asked rudely.

  “If you have any questions about this room,” I said, “I shall be glad to answer them. This completes the tour.”

  “One question, Belle. Do you mind if I sit down and have a drink? I see some genuine just-off-the-boat scotch over there. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any. Plenty of bootleggers get to Sing Sing, but they don’t deliver.”

  “Sing Sing?” I gasped, my eyes going wide.

  “Yes, Belle,” Mr. Musgrove said sadly, “I’ve just come from there—just been sprung.” Appalled as I was to think that a “jailbird” had forced his way into my home, I felt a certain sympathy for poor Mr. Musgrove. Blackguard that he might be, he had always been able to rekindle a certain spark of affection which I still felt for him. I poured drinks for both of us and he explained that he had been railroaded into prison under a trumped-up charge of possessing obscene photographs. He then told me that he was “broke” and wanted to borrow five hundred dollars. When I replied that I felt it would be wrong to allow money matters to come between two such old friends, Mr. Musgrove turned ugly.

  “Maybe the cops confiscated some of my old pictures—but not all,” he said. “And I’ve got plenty left of you—movies, stills, black and whites and also a few hand-tinted enlargements.”

  “You’re lying,” I said steadily.

  “Oh, yeah? They’re right out in my room at Long Beach. How do you think Morris Buchsbaum or Will Hays or the Belle Poitrine Fan Clubs would like to see the movies I’ve taken of you?”

  “You wouldn’t,” I said. “You couldn’t. No man could be so heartless and cruel. I was tricked into posing for those pictures, but everything is different now. I’m a famous star, the devoted wife of a respectable producer, the mother of his darling little baby daughter.” With a limp hand I gestured toward the beautiful portrait Bradshaw Crandall had painted of Baby-dear on her first birthday.

  “So,” he sneered, “Buchsbaum really believes it’s his kid? Well, I could set him straight on that. And maybe I’ll have to.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, backing away from him in terror.

  “Figure it out for yourself, Belle old girl. Just simple mathematics and then maybe you’ll know who the father of the kid really is—if you can count to nine. Or is that asking too much?”

  I heard a terrible roaring in my ears. The room began to revolve around me. I was revolted to think that this human vulture could suggest anything so low and despicable. And yet it had always occurred to me that Baby-dear’s cunning little face—what I remembered of it—had a certain cast of feature that . . . Stumbling, I clutched out for something to prevent my falling. My hand touched an object hard, cold, metallic.

  “As a matter of fact, baby, it might be a swell idea if you and me was to go upstairs to that fancy bedroom of yours and try it all over again. Maybe this time Morris could be the father of . . .”

  I heard a deafening report, saw a flash of light, a cloud of smoke. The old Spanish duelling pistol in my trembling hand dropped to the cold tile floor— right next to the body of George Musgrove.

  “What the hell’s going on, honey?” It was Momma—darling, reliable old Momma—right at her baby’s side when she was needed the most.

  “Oh, Momma,” I sobbed. “I’ve shot Mr. Musgrove.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Momma said.

  Servants began appearing at the doorway. Mustering up all of my dignity, I said to the butler, “There has been a frightful accident. Please telephone a doctor—and the police.”

  Then dear, true blue Momma poured a stiff drink for me and a larger one for herself in the glasses Mr. Musgrove and I had used, thus destroying a bit of evidence, which would have only complicated matters. “Also,” she said, “call Clarence Darrow and Louella Parsons.”

  My trial pushed Libby Holman right off the front pages and was widely considered to be the biggest Hollywood murder story since the mysterious passing of William Desmond Taylor. In as short a time as it takes to pull a trigger I had moved from the amusement section to the headlines! On the following day I was a current event.

  I was questioned mercilessly by the police but I stuck to my story: Mr. Musgrove had entered my home uninvited and unannounced. (Perfectly true.) He had made a menacing sexual advance and, in attempting to escape, I had accidentally shot him while protecting my virtue. (Also perfectly true.) It seemed to me that any mention of photographs would only obscure and complicate the real issue.

  In my favor were the facts that my home had been open to the public that day, which explained how Mr. Musgrove could have been there; that Mr. Musgrove had a known record of offenses and had served two prison terms; and that I was a model wife and mother.

  Damaging evidence was that I had been in the presence of Mr. Musgrove at the time of my London divorce. My fate hung in a delicate balance.

  Schiaparelli did all of my clothes for the trial, and I must say that I looked lovely. My maid brought the entire collection to my cell along with a make-up man, Manny, the Metronome press corps, Metronome Momentous Moments, and three “still” photographers. My meals were catered by the Brown Derby. My lawyer was Jerry Gosling, the absolute “top” trial lawyer in all of “Screenland,” and the studio loyally provid
ed the services of ace director Gregory Ratoff to supervise the delivery of my testimony.

  Thank heavens the weather turned fine in time for the trial! Never before in the history of Los Angeles County Court House have there been such queues of people waiting for seats. The crowds were so dense that the cameramen could hardly get through. After considerable haggling and arguing between Mr. Gosling and the District Attorney, an all-male jury was chosen and the trial began.

  Momma made a splendid and imposing witness in a dear lavender outfit which Adrian had originally designed for Marie Dressler, a lorgnette and my sables. Through the dumb misery which I felt, I recall being quite surprised by the dignity and feeling Momma gave to her testimony. She was every bit as refined as Margaret Dumont and I wondered who had been directing Momma. Her only mistake, I felt, was in trying to swoon. In doing so she toppled off the witness stand, wrenched her knee quite badly and said a very undignified word. However, I could see that the judge, jury and spectators were all very favorably impressed. Darling Momma! What an actress she would have made had she been born at a time when it was considered respectable for a bien élevée young lady to pursue the drama as a career.

  The trial went on for days, so it was fortunate that I had bought up the whole Schiaparelli collection. All the fashion magazines sent correspondents and Lilyan Tashman was furious about the coverage I got. During the trial I fainted five times, collapsed twice, burst into tears on seventeen different occasions and wore a total of thirty different ensembles. Even if I do say so myself, I was sensational on the witness stand and several film critics said that it was my greatest performance. The jury deliberated for less than half an hour. When they came back there was no question as to the verdict. Twelve angry men proclaimed me innocent. I stood up, turned to face the cameras, smiled wanly, swayed and then collapsed for a final time into the arms of my trained nurse. The newspaper reportage was unparalleled and was not even matched in later years by Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn or Lana Turner. I saw to it that Manny’s salary was doubled.