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After ten o’clock on a weekday night, Podunk would probably look like Broadway compared with Beverly Hills, which is strictly a roll-up-the-sidewalk community. After that witching hour, police in prowl cars stop anyone they see out walking to ask if they’re residents and, if they’re not and have no good reason for being around, escort them to the nearest bus stop.
By ten-thirty virtually every household has gone to bed. Working actors and actresses have to be up by six or six-thirty. Then it’s a cold shower to get the eyes open, a shampoo and a finger wave in the case of actresses. Most women have a shampoo every morning; blondes from necessity because they use gold dust in their hair, brunettes to make their hair shiny. Half a dozen eggs makes the basis of many a brunet shampoo.
Under the dryer, the Beverly Hills workingwoman takes the juice of a lemon and a cup of hot water. Then a look over the script for the day’s shooting while she downs orange juice and black coffee. After leaving instructions for the cook and servants—and nurse, if there are young children—she drives to the studio, where curls are combed out and make-up applied. If she’s wearing an evening gown, she’s whitened to the waist; it’s cold and sticky.
She’s squeezed into her costume, and a stand-by car takes her to the sound stage. Director, crew, and rest of the cast say their good mornings. Because their moods will be affected by hers, she has to set the emotional climate for the day—no headaches, heartaches, or bellyaches for her.
If she knows her lines, some other cast members may not. So the company rehearses until everybody’s letter perfect. Lights are set, sound adjusted, cameras roll. Then somebody fluffs a cue or a move, and that’s contagious. “Dear God, don’t let it happen to me,” she mutters. The same scene may be done over forty times before the director is satisfied. Some of them are sadists, who’ll keep their players sweating just to prove who’s boss.
At noon, lunch is called. Her dress is usually so tight that a cup of hot soup, green salad with cottage cheese, and more black coffee is as much as she can stand. It’s hard to relax after that bit of bunny food.
Maybe there’s a long-distance call waiting from some relative who never did a lick of work, complaining that the allowance will have to be upped because baby Peggy needs braces or the car has to have new tires or Auntie May has set her heart on a Florida vacation.
Then she hurries back to work. If she happens to have a crying scene to do, it will be easy. When she comes out of it, she catches the eye of an extra whose thoughts are as plain as if shouted aloud: “Were you ever rotten in that! I could show them how to handle it.” When our girl’s nose, eyes, and mascara are all running simultaneously, the head of the studio walks on with a banker from New York.
So it goes until six o’clock, when she goes to the projection room to see the previous day’s rushes, then back to the dressing room to remove make-up. If she’s a blonde, the gold dust is brushed out, hot oil applied, and her head’s wrapped up in a bandanna like a Christmas pudding.