Telling on Hollywood

By Robert Grandon

April 23, 1932
Comes a letter this morning asking why in the name of common sense Mary Nolan and her husband, Wallace T. McCreary, Jr., have been given a 30-day sentence because the Mary Nolan Shop failed to sell its gowns… Well, it’s due to a quaint California law whereby one must pay one’s help or go to jail, and Mary didn’t pay… But she’s appealed, and perhaps by the time this appears, she’ll know her fate… Let’s hope it’s a favorable one, for the poor girl has been hounded from pillar to post all her life.



But other movie stars have failed in lots of ventures too… Ethel Clayton failed in her beauty parlor venture, though it paid out at first…

And Mary Pickford is $20,000 poorer but wiser as the result of her experimenting in miniature golf. It cost her that to build her course, and now steam shovels and laborers are wrecking it for other purposes…

And Noah Beery, who allows his friends to fish his streams at so-much-per-trout is suing to collect on fish caught, but not paid for.



However, that doesn’t discourage the colony, oh, dear, no… Bebe Danies and Billie Dove have gone into the cosmetic business with “Hollywood Jim.” They’re back of him to enlarge his place to the tune of $350,000, for manufacturing and distributing.



But the wise boy of the colony is Bill Haines… engagements haven’t been so plentiful for Bill recently, but he’s been taking it out another way…He owns a curio shop and furnishes props for the studios at a good price per prop.