Gossip Friday: That Red Dress

From 1945, Hedda Hopper’s memory of the infamous Mayfair Ball in 1936 (my recap of this incident here):

Hollywood first got exclusive at the Little Club in the Ambassador where only the bon ton and the elite could cavort and caper on bathtub gin. But I think Hollywood snootiness flowered much later on at the Mayfair dances. Something happened there I’ll never forget.

The Mayfair numbered Hollywood’s ultra-smart set. A Hollywood copy of the London West-Enders, of course, and oh, my dear, so formal. For a time its balls made news all over the world and I doubt if there was ever a more publicized and flash-bulbed Peacock Alley anywhere. But it was never the same after the “White Mayfair.” They should have called it The Black Mayfair. But the cause of it all was a scarlet dress.

Bette Davis snatched that incident for one of the best scenes in one of her best pictures, “Jezebel.”But Bette wasn’t involved in the original. The stars were Carole Lombard and Norma Shearer. 

They’d dumped this particular Mayfair right in Carole’s lap. She was the gal to plan it, stage it and run it, and whenever Carole took on a job she threw her whole vital being into it. She decided on a white ball–all the ladies to wear white, without a touch of color anywhere. It seemed like a swell idea and everyone promised to rally round. For weeks every Hollywood couturier was wearing his fingers to the bone stitching on while silks and satins. Came the big night and the ball was halfway through and going like a house afire and Carole, although she’d knocked herself out with all the work, was as happy as only Carole could be when she was having fun.

Then in through the foyer and down the steps of the old Victor Hugo restaurant (now Adrian’s swank gown shop) where the ball was held, swept Norma Shearer, smiling her pearlies from ear to ear, dead sure that every eye in the house was on no one but her. Because she had on the reddest red evening gown you ever saw. The only spot of fiery color in the whole place!

There was one mass gasp. People were stunned and shocked. I saw Carole turn whiter than the holy-white dress she wore. Then she turned and walked out of the place. I saw a tall, dark and extremely handsome guy hurry after her. He followed her out the door and he took her home. His name was Clark Gable. That was the night their romance really began.