The Whiz Bang is hearing all sorts of rumors and gossip wheezes from the movie camps surrounding the City of Angels, regarding the antics of Clara Smith Hamon, who recently was freed in the Ardmore, Oklahoma, shooting case and who is now attempting to break into the picture game with her “life-story” to teach young girls to beware of oil kings and others.
According to the consensus of whisperings, Clara is having a difficult time getting studio artists to work for her in the production of the alleged “reform” photoplay. It is reported she is offering fabulous salaries from the fund of $10,000 which Jake Hamon is supposed to have left her, in an endeavor to put over the picture. One camera man said he was offered $500 a week, and Mason Litson, former Goldwyn director, was reported to have turned down an offer of $750 a week.
Los Angeles says that besides the Motion Picture Directors’ association voting to expel any member who aids Clara, the Screen Writers’ Guild has taken action against the Hamon photoplay. If all this dope is true, Clara will have a job on her hands illustrating her adventures to young girls via the screen play. Even after the play is produced, if it ever is, Clara will find it a task to find theatres to exhibit it in.
Pauline Frederick is now on her way west again from a recent trip to New York. They say she whispered to a close friend in the depot in New York as she was leaving, that she and Willard Mack will again wed very soon.
This recalls to mind the gossip that revolved about their previous engagement when Pauline was playing at the Famous studio in New York City several years ago. While she and Mack were engaged—he was waiting to get a divorce from Marjorie Rambeau at the time—it is said he wavered for a time and showed a decided inclination toward returning to the fair and beautiful Marjorie. Pauline became so alarmed over losing her playwright prize that it is said she approached Marjorie.
So Pauline got him, then they separated. Last winter the beautiful Barbara Castleton, former Goldwyn star, went east, joined one of Willard Mack’s vaudeville acts, and it was reported was engaged to wed Mack. They, too, were prevented from carrying out an immediate marriage because of one of those bothersome final decrees.
Barbara, by the way, while at the Goldwyn studio was one day discovered in a refined but tempestuous love scene with a tall, raven-haired English actor. Maybe it was part of a picture, but took place way out on a dark, deserted stage beneath a huge black cloth used to keep the dust off from the furniture! An electrician stumbled upon the romantic scene and when the story was whispered about the studio it is said the poor electrician was cross questioned and put through the third degree by Hollywood’s best gossips.
It seems that the English actor has a wife somewhere in the Empire—Australia or Ireland—so Barbara was daily reported to be infatuated with some other admirer. It seems her romantic passion for Mack “took,” for she allowed the press to announce the fact that they intended to wed when he won his decree from the emotional Pauline, “Polly” as she is known.
Another interesting angle of the case is to the effect that Pauline never rode a horse until last winter. One of the Goldwyn pictures required this feat, so one perfectly handsome cowboy was engaged to teach “Polly” to ride. The riding lessons were frequent all winter and Hollywood expected to hear of one of those “high born lady chauffeurs”—in this case cowboy star—marriages. However, that’s now cold.