Gossip Friday: Something’s Missing

From December 1940:

I knew something had been wrong with Hollywood these past few months. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. There didn’t seem to be any snap and pep in the place. Why there were days when everythings was as silent as the tomb. And just about as cheery. Now I know what was the matter and I am delighted to report that everything is inder control again. It was Missy Lombard–that charming screwball who has more humor in her little finger than an executive has in his entire writing department. Carole, the dope, went serious on us. No squeals and screams, no “simply out of this world,” no funny wires, no side-splitting gags, no colorful adjectives. Mercy, it was dull.

But it’s all right now. Carole’s a gay girl again. And up to her old tricks, thank goodness. Seems as if the chief cameraman on the picture Carole has just completed–“They Knew What They Wanted”, with Charles Laughton (Carole calls him “Cuddles”)–is a very earnest young man named Harry Stradling, who takes his job, as all jobs should be taken, seriously. Unlike most cameramen, Mr. Stradling is a great stickler for realism. When the scene calls for flowers or fruit, there must be real flowers and fruits, and not something whipped up in the property department. And when Mr. Stradling photographs a tree, by golly, it has to be a real tree. Well, he was simply in seventh heaven when the company was on location in Napa, California, for there were trees, wonderful trees, all over the countryside. But when the company returned to the studio on Gower Street, Mr. Stradling had a little trouble. He walked on the set one morning and found Carole and Laughton all ready to do a big dramatic scene under a tree–but what tree! Like all studio trees it was made of plaster and wires, with paper leaves.

Mr. Stradling demanded a real tree. The studio informed him that real trees drooped under the hot klieg lights, and an artificial tree was more satisfactory. Mr. Stradling, who will doubtless grow up to be Frank Capra, insisted on realism. In the meantime, Miss Lombard was frothing at the mouth. The scene was being held up, and the longer it was held up the less time she would have to go fishing with her old man (Gable to you). First, she bit her nails, then she stamped her foot, then she recited Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” until everybody nearly went crazy.

At long last, a real tree was brought into the studio in a bucket as big as a swimming pool, filled with moist earth, etc., and at a longer last Mr. Stradling, with the soul of an artist, was ready to shoot the scene. Lights had to be dimmed to keep the tree from wilting, little men had to chase around with hose, and such a fuss went on that Miss Lombard confidentally confided in Mr. Laughton that it seemed they were co-starring with a tree. Well, anyway, the day the picture was finished Mr. Stradling was enjoying a late morning sleep, when there was a terrific rapping on his front door. On the street below was a truck almost a block long, and on it, from one of the best nurseries in town, a tree as big as all outdoors. “A present for you,” said the driver, “from Miss Lombard. What’ll I do with it?” Mr. Stradling lives in an apartment. The tree has become a definite problem. Carole is laughing her head off.