Gossip Friday: Keeping Miss Lombard Waiting

From May 1941:

Chief among the 1941 Academy Award winners whose name does not appear on the official honors list is your present correspondent, who won an Oscar for perpetrating the outstanding bonehead play of the year.

In the interests of her millions of fans he arranged to interview Miss Carole Lombard. A rendezvous was promised in a quiet sitting room on a side street in Beverly Hills for a certain Thursday. The hour, the date and the place were as clear as a blueprint in his mind. He thought.

The momentous day arrived. Your correspondent, methodical as ever, leaped into his motor car well ahead of schedule and went charging along the palm-fringed boulevards at a legal but unremitting pace.

One of the main difficulties arose at this point. Instead of charging off in a southerly direction, toward Beverly Hills, where Miss Lombard was dutifully awaiting him, he went charging off in a northerly direction which led him eventually to Universal City.

Arriaved at this thriving little municipality, he committed the second error of the day, which was to forward a message to Miss Marlene Dietrich (no relation to Miss Lombard) that he would await her in the commissary of Universal Studios for luncheon. Thereupon he went into the commissary, sat down with an air or joint proprietorship and awaited with pleasant expectancy the arrival of The Flame of New Orleans.

Word trickled through from time to time that Miss Dietrich was leaving Stage 9, that Miss Dietrich was momentarily in her dressing room, and that Miss Dietrich was on her way to a sound recording room. The delay was a trifle vexing to your man but he took it with good grace until a flash from the front arrived to the effect that Miss Dietrich did not recall having any engagement with him.

Just as he was working up a good medium-sized huff, Miss Dietrich arrived in a swirl of charm and announced with refreshing bluntness: “Your appointment was not with me. It was with Carole Lombard. She has been waiting for you since 12 o’clock.”

At this point your reporter ws overtaken by a blackout. When he emerged from it he dsicovered that Miss Dietrich had telephoned Miss Lombard and, acting as counsel for the defence, had succeeded in making a satisfactory display of his meatheadedness.

Personal nominees for good sportsmanship Oscars: Marlene Dietrich and Carole Lombard.