More MGM Discoveries
April 1942
The truth is, folks, even though all I have to do in this movie-making place is walk on the set and hide in a crowd of extras, I am terrified. But I've discovered someone with a special something.
The prop man.
He has everything that might be needed inn a film scene, and I mean everything. Including all kinds of drinks: coffee, tea, soda, and the real thing. All I have to do is sidle up and raise my eyebrows (the real ones, not those pencil ones), and something is handed to me in a paper cup. I don't know what it is, and I don't care. I don't like its taste either. All I know is that with two big chugalugs inside me, I can calm the rising panic.
Now that I'm used to things, I just love working with the extras, especially the dress extras. Oh boy, they are quite a superior class of folks. They provide their own evening clothes, which means tuxedo or white tie and tails for the men, a variety of evening gowns for the ladies. And no matter how old or crippled or gay they get, they are always buoyed up by enormous hopes. One of these days, with just the right bit of luck, being in the right place at the right time, the right word from the right director, they would emerge like Cinderella, ready for stardom and all its perks.
My ambitions are nowhere near as high. I spend an awful lot of my time in what is called the Picture Gallery, run by a great portrait artist, Clarence Bull, and his team. But great portraits aren't what they have in mind for me. My specialty is what is called "leg art," publicity stills of the cheesecake variety intended for use and reuse in newspapers and magazines around the country. It is not my favorite activity.
Often the idea is to get pictures to match the holiday seasons: this month I'm a smiling Easter bunny, in December I was a roguish lady Father Christmas or at least one of his reindeer. With other starlets, I've begun to load hay, round up chickens. "And Ava! You mean if we got a cow uou could actually milk it? Come on. I don't believe it. Ava, I bet you don't know one end from the other..." I think some of these guys working for Clarence Bull think milk comes from some underground spring and is packed into cartons at the source.
They produced a cow. Fortunately, someone knows the difference between a cow and a bull. It was a milking cow and I milked her. MGM is overjoyed. They actually have a starlet who can milk a cow. (They get excited easily around here...)
With Gloria DeHaven and some confused chickens.
The truth is, folks, even though all I have to do in this movie-making place is walk on the set and hide in a crowd of extras, I am terrified. But I've discovered someone with a special something.
The prop man.
He has everything that might be needed inn a film scene, and I mean everything. Including all kinds of drinks: coffee, tea, soda, and the real thing. All I have to do is sidle up and raise my eyebrows (the real ones, not those pencil ones), and something is handed to me in a paper cup. I don't know what it is, and I don't care. I don't like its taste either. All I know is that with two big chugalugs inside me, I can calm the rising panic.
Now that I'm used to things, I just love working with the extras, especially the dress extras. Oh boy, they are quite a superior class of folks. They provide their own evening clothes, which means tuxedo or white tie and tails for the men, a variety of evening gowns for the ladies. And no matter how old or crippled or gay they get, they are always buoyed up by enormous hopes. One of these days, with just the right bit of luck, being in the right place at the right time, the right word from the right director, they would emerge like Cinderella, ready for stardom and all its perks.
My ambitions are nowhere near as high. I spend an awful lot of my time in what is called the Picture Gallery, run by a great portrait artist, Clarence Bull, and his team. But great portraits aren't what they have in mind for me. My specialty is what is called "leg art," publicity stills of the cheesecake variety intended for use and reuse in newspapers and magazines around the country. It is not my favorite activity.
Often the idea is to get pictures to match the holiday seasons: this month I'm a smiling Easter bunny, in December I was a roguish lady Father Christmas or at least one of his reindeer. With other starlets, I've begun to load hay, round up chickens. "And Ava! You mean if we got a cow uou could actually milk it? Come on. I don't believe it. Ava, I bet you don't know one end from the other..." I think some of these guys working for Clarence Bull think milk comes from some underground spring and is packed into cartons at the source.
They produced a cow. Fortunately, someone knows the difference between a cow and a bull. It was a milking cow and I milked her. MGM is overjoyed. They actually have a starlet who can milk a cow. (They get excited easily around here...)
With Gloria DeHaven and some confused chickens.