By Barbara Hayes
Photoplay, September 1937

AM still agape over the revelation of the most daring piece of deception ever perpetrated in Hollywood.

The author of it is Gene Raymond, the last person in the world I would have suspected of any such conniving. Yet for ten months—nearly a year, mind you!—Gene actually lived a double life as the mysterious ” Mr. John Morgan.”

In this audacious masquerade he succeeded not only in duping a town where nobody has ever been able to keep things under cover, but in hoodwinking his bride-to-be.

It was at eight o’clock one night that Gene first donned his disguise and so began the amazing series of events which were to launch him on his precarious Jekyll-Hyde career. That he got away with it, through elaborate lies and deepest subterfuge, gives evidence that he is not only a remarkable actor, but a man of daring and infinite resource.

On this evening, a few hours earlier, Gene had driven his fiancee to her home in Hollywood. Now, as he appeared before a deserted house among the winding hills of Bel-Air, no one would have recognized him. A hat was pulled down over his telltale blond hair, a muffler swathed his chin, and he carried a handkerchief ready to press to his face should any strangers pass. Gene Raymond had become Mr. John Morgan.

He walked briskly across the yard to the dark house. It was a large and rather rambling place, weeds grew along the walk, and a cold wind rustled through the gables.

The murky moonlight faintly revealed three people waiting in the shadows for Mr. Morgan. One of them was a lady who was, for a time, to be known only as “Mrs. Shux.”  She was to become a guiding genius in the conspiracy that was afoot, through all its astonishing ramifications. The other two were men intimately known to Gene Raymond.

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I had part II of this article posted for ages–and I mean over 7 years, possibly more.  It’s taken me this long to actually get part I in my hands.  So, without further ado, but with much fan faire:

Judy Garland’s Gay Life Story

By Judy Garland (as told to Gladys Hall)

Screenland December 1940 – January 1941

PART I

I THINK First Things are the best things. “Wasn’t it Robert Louis Stevenson who said that first sunsets, first loves, all the things we see for the first time, all the first experiences we have, are always best? Anyway, think so. I know I’ll always remember, most clearly and deeply and forever, the first things that have happened to me in my first eighteen years. The things that have happened to me in my first (and only) “Past,” you might say, since now that I am eighteen, I think I can be said to have a Past. So, I got to thinking that maybe I’d write my first Life Story my own self, in my own way. My “own way” probably won’t be the Proper Way, at all. The Proper Way to write an Autobiography, I mean. Because I’m just going to sort of talk out loud, or write out loud, to my mother, to my friends, to my fans. I’m just

going to go on and on, sort of Revealing to them all the Important, First Things (important to me, that is) that have made up my Past.

Like, for instance, my first day on this earth, which is certainly the first, First Thing! Well, Mom, as you may remember, my first day on this earth was the day of June 10, 1922—(I seem to remember that movie girls don’t give the year of their birth—oh, well!)—and you may also recollect, Mom, that I first opened my eyes in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. You’ve got it down in my baby book that I weighed eight pounds when I was born and that my eyes were blue at birth and started to turn to brown when I was about five months old. You’ve also confessed to me that your first feeling about me was one of—terrible Disappointment! Because, having had two small daughters already, Suzanne and Virginia, naturally you and Daddy wanted some novelty in your children and just hoped and prayed that I would be a, boy! You terribly wanted me to be a boy, you’ve said, you planned for me to be a boy, you even named me Francis Gumm, Jr., after Daddy. And then, not only did I turn out to be, NOT the answer to your prayers, but just another little girl, for Pete’s sake. Also I was as red as an Indian, you said, and the reddest, homeliest baby anyone ever saw! You just made the best of it by changing the “i” to “e” and naming me Frances, anyway!

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They’re livingon borrowed money—but Judy isn’t worried. She’s won back her public, there’s a new baby to dream about and all’s right with the world.

Judy Garland’s third husband, Sid Luft, strode into the California Superior Court several weeks ago. He was present to answer charges filed by his former wife, Lynn Bari.

Lynn wanted to know why Sid had violated a court order. He had failed to set up a $10,000 insurance fund for his son John as he had previously promised.

“Your Honor,” Sid said. ” I just don’t have the money. In fact we’re living on $30,000 I’ve borrowed.”

The judge listened attentively as Sid described his depleted finances. Presently he said, ” I see no point in sending this man to jail. He’s paying for the support of his son each month. I’m satisfied that when his financial condition improves he will meet his obligations.”

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With Game Conductor Ralph Edwards
Photoplay, April 1948

Q: This is quite an honor, Bing, having you opposite our Photoplay microphone. If my wire could only see me now! Tell me . . . how does one go ahout acquiring the gentle art of crooning such as yours?
A: Nothing to it. Just open your mouth to the letter “B” and begin. If you can’t remember the lyrics or the tune… just whistle.

Q: I’ve tried that . . . and what do I get? Three Beverly Hills St. Bernards, a dachshund, two French poodles . . . even Lassie comes home. Tell me, Bing, who’s your favorite leading lady?
A: Joan Fontaine, Dorothy Lamour, Joan Caulfield, Rhonda Fleming, Joan Fontaine—need I go on?

You’ve gone much too far already so take the consequence. Show how you’d register nerves on the screen.

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By Dick Haymes
Photoplay, June 1947

It was really Skipper who changed everything —though, of course, there wouldn’t have been any Skipper if first there hadn’t been Joanne.

I was playing a double date on Broadway in 1940—singing with the band at the Lincoln Hotel, then rushing around the corner from there, over to the Paramount Theater, for a fast half hour.

One evening as I stood up on the bandstand at the Lincoln I saw a pal, Larry Shayne, sitting at a ringstand table with a beautiful doll. Today Larry is my partner in my music publishing business—but my mind was not on commerce as I looked across the room that evening.

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Motion Picture, April 1948
By Keith Monroe

Up, up, up goes Dick Powell’s stock, followed closely by Dick Powell’s plane—followed by loud wails from Junie Allyson

Harry Cohn, the all-powerful boss of Columbia pictures, turned maroon. “What?” he roared. “You mean you’re flying planes on Sundays?”

Dick Powell’s face hardened into the blank, tough-guy expression his movie audiences know so well. “Right,” he said in a flat voice. “I am flying on Sundays.”

“You gotta quit! I won’t have you taking chances while you’re working in a Columbia picture!”

“Then you’ll have to get yourself another boy,” murmured Powell nonchalantly. “Because I am going to keep on flying.”

The movie magnate choked and sputtered. Finally he barked, “Well, dammit all, will you fly me over to Palm Springs next week end?”

Powell’s calm defiance of the Columbia chieftain wasn’t quite so reckless as it looked. He was in the midst of making To the Ends of the Earth, and both he and Cohn knew he couldn’t be suspended while the picture was in production. He had no other commitments at Columbia afterward, so there was nothing Cohn could do.

The incident was characteristic. Dick Powell has a habit of doing reckless things in a safe way. He has been a motorcycle racer, a speedboat pilot, a poloist, an ocean-race sailor and above all an airplane pilot since 1927. But he has never been hurt.

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Movie Stars Parade
February 1941

JUST LIKE A MOVIE has been the real life of Virginia Katherine McMath—our own Ginger Rogers. While her father, Eddins McMath, found holding a job difficult her mother,” Lela Owens McMath, earned a scanty living as piano player in a nickelodeon. Lela left McMath, and shortly thereafter, he kidnapped the year-old Ginger and fled with her to a Texas swamp. There Lela traced them and brought her baby home—only to have her kidnapped again. When Ginger was three the McMaths were divorced; Ginger’s father died a few years later.

Although Ginger first came to world-wide fame as a dancing star, she was one of those babies whose anxious parents wonder whether they’ll never learn to walk. The tiny redhead (her hair is still really a sandy red) could talk well enough to call her mother “Mommy Mac” at the age of ten months, she wasn’t able to navigate under her own power until she had reached the ripe old age of a year and a quarter.

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Though these are not technically added to Irene’s site yet, they are here–and therefore I make my personal deadline.

Many more ecard selections to be added and can be viewed and sent from here: http://post.reeljewels.com