The magic word now is “television.” It used to be “Hollywood,” and there was no end to the miracles it could work. It transformed plowboys into princes, peasant girls into goddesses. The stars were American royalty and revered as such by their subjects. The magic word would bring whole villages out on the street to watch a star go by. It opened palace doors, stopped trains, brought you the keys of a city or an audience with the Pope.
Hollywood set the social style for thirty years of our history, until TV came along. Clara Bow wore a cupid’s-bow lipstick job; fifty million women copied her. Clark Gable shucked off his undershirt; so did fifty million men. The studios stuck to a simple rule and coined fortunes with it: “Show the stars like kings and queens in a glamorous setting, and the crowds will flock to see them.” Today it’s a calculated risk to put a man on the screen in evening dress in case the popcorn-munching customers decide that he’s a square.
They follow television stars just as they used to emulate the motion-picture variety. My reader mail proves that. “Is Dorothy Provine a natural blonde?” “Whatever happened to Edd Byrnes?” “When did Richard Boone get married?” Ben Casey’s surgical gown turns out to be a Seventh Avenue fashion hit. The children switch from coonskin hats to space helmets to Soupy Sales. Some of the biggest names in our town—Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, and all—go on to let Soupy toss a custard pie in their faces. The children love it and the networks want the child audience.
The impact on the audience—and I don’t mean from the custard pies—is astounding to anybody like me who’s been making pictures since World War I. One of the early ones was a thing called Virtuous Wives, in which I sank my entire salary of $5000 on my clothes and got $25,000 worth of the loveliest outfits you ever saw from Lady Duff-Gordon, known professionally as Lucile and one of the greatest dressmakers of them all. The biggest impact I made was on a pudgy little fellow who used to lurk around the set.
When the picture was finished, he sidled up to me. I mistook his intentions. “I don’t want to buy any fur coats,” said I.
“You don’t understand,” said he. “My name’s Louis Mayer. I’m the producer and this is my first picture.”
Making a reputation then was slow going. Producers used to say: “Get what’s-her-name who played the rich bitch in Virtuous Wives—she might be good for this one.” But when you go on television the impact is felt overnight. The following morning a cab driver won’t let you pay your fare, a workman on a construction job offers you his hard hat.
Outside Saks Fifth Avenue, after an Easter Sunday appearance on “What’s My Line?”, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of autograph hunters so big that a disgruntled policeman threatened to turn me in unless we all went around the corner into a side street. “You’ll have to call the paddy wagon,” I warned him, “and a picture of Hopper behind bars is all I need for my collection.”
For another “What’s My Line?” appearance I had some fun with Dorothy Kilgallen, who likes to queen it on the panel. I knew I’d have to do something exciting to knock her in the eye, so I asked Marion Davies to lend me a diamond necklace. “Which one?” asked Marion. “Or would you like them all?”
“Just one,” I said. “The small one with the pear-shaped pearl. That will be showy.”