HOLLYWOOD STARS TEMPT LADY LUCK

From: Telling on Hollywood
By Robert Grandon

March 17, 1932
Keep your eyes peeled the next time you view a Joseph Von Sternberg production. In at least one scene of the film you will observe a black cat. It’s a superstition of Marlene Dietrich’s sponsor to flaunt Lady Luck in every film with this brunette kitty. Name a Hollywood star, and I’ll name a superstition.




Pola Negri has an animal complex, too. She sees to it that a “leetle peeg” is brought on the set before her first scene is shot.




“See a pin and pick it up,” is Helen Twelvetrees’ motto, so she always searches for a new pin on the way to a new production.




When Samuel Colt Barrymore walks on the Paramount set these days he carries on the “red apple” tradition of the Barrymore family, just as Mother Ethel and Uncles Lionel and John did before him… for every member of the Barrymore family in first appearance on the stage has carried a red apple.




Genevieve Tobin refuses absolutely to wear a green dress on the set or off… Tom Keane, you may know him as George Duryea – won’t ride a pinto pony in his westerns… a pinto is as poisonous to him as green is to Genevieve.




Thirteen is as lucky as unlucky as ever… Ralph Bellamy never carries money totaling at that figure either in amount or number of bills, coins, or both…




And Charles Farrell and Virginia Valli postponed their wedding one day when they found it was on Friday, the thirteenth.

Stage superstitions are many and time honored but Hollywood is originating its own.