Marion Leonard was playing the beautiful Spanish señorita in this movie and Frank Grandin the handsome young lover who afterwards became the governor of California. As we came out of the hotel in our make up and Spanish finery and quietly drove off into the foothills, guests were lolling on the broad front porch. With a start they came to. Whatever in the world was happening! “Did you see those people? What is it? What’s going on? Let’s get our motor and follow them and see,” said they.
We had selected what we thought a remote and secluded spot in the foothills, but soon in ones and twos and threes the guests appeared. For a time they seemed well-behaved spectators; they kept quiet and in the background. But Miss Leonard’s dramatic scenes proved too much for them. They resented the love-making and began making derogatory comments about movie actors, and one “lady” becoming particularly incensed, shouted loudly, “Well, I wouldn’t dress up like a fool like that woman and act like her, no, not for all the money in the world.” That off her chest, she turned on her heel, and left us flat.
Paul de Longpré, the famous flower artist, lived only a few blocks from the Inn on Hollywood Boulevard. Many years ago he had left his native France and built a lovely château in the broad stretches of young Hollywood. In his gardens he had planted every variety of rose. A tangled profusion of them covered even the walls of his house. We offered fifty dollars a day for the use of the gardens. M. de Longpré went us one better. He offered to let us work if we’d buy a corner lot for three hundred dollars. But what could we do with a corner lot? We had no idea we would work six days and pay the three hundred dollars just in rental. But that we did. What we didn’t do, was, take title to the corner lot. Had we done so we would have laid a foundation for fortune.
I recall M. de Longpré as the first person we met on location in California who seemed to appreciate that we were at least striving for something in an art line. To him we were not mere buffoons as we were to the ladies of the Hollywood Inn.
“Love Among the Roses” we aptly called the picture in which Marion Leonard played a great lady residing in the Kingdom of Never-never Land.
Monsieur de Longpré’s lovely house and gardens—a show place for tourists some twelve years ago—has long since been cut up into building lots on which have been erected rows of California bungalows. For when motion picture studios began to spring up like mushrooms in this quiet residential district, actors had to be domiciled and the boulevard was no longer desirable as a restful home locality. Also, the financial return on property thus manipulated was not to be lightly regarded. The town council voted a memorial to the kindly French artist. So Hollywood has a de Longpré Avenue.
The day we lunched at the Hollywood Inn marked an event for Hollywood. Few motion picture actors had desecrated the Inn’s conservative grounds until that day. A few years later only motion picture actors lived there, and they live there now, though the old-maid régime is coming along rapidly. Aside from the movie intrusion, Mr. Anderson foresaw the changes that were to come. In due time he built the now famous Beverly Hills Hotel. But the movie actor, who has now achieved a social and financial standing that equals that of other professions, he still has with him.
* * * * *
Goodness gracious, how could we ever get all the scenic beauty on the screen! It was too distracting, what with Missions, desert, mountains, ocean, beaches, cliffs, and flowers. We wanted to send enough of it back in our pictures to ensure our coming again next winter.
We had a scenario that called for a wealthy gentleman’s winter home. We hied ourselves out to Pasadena, to Orange Grove Avenue, Hillside Avenue, Busch’s sunken gardens, Doheny’s, and other famous show places. We found a place with gardens and pergolas, just the thing. Asked permission to use the house and grounds, from very charming ladies wintering within, possibly a bit bored, for they seemed delighted with the idea.