Inside Stuff — Cal York's Gossip of Hollywood (Part 2)

Inside Stuff

Cal York’s Gossip of Hollywood

Cheer for Rita: People were talking about how hard it must have been for Rita Hayworth to keep all of a certain week’s troubles to herself —

but she managed it. She is a very quiet gal anyway, but there was one week of shooting on “Tonight and Every Night” when nobody would have been surprised if she had unburdened herself — in fact, they would have welcomed her confidence. But she didn’t open her mouth about the fact that she had received word that her brother Vernon Cansino had been wounded on the Italian front. She didn’t want to say a word until she found out how badly — and after a few days she was notified that he wasn’t too terribly injured and had won a Purple Heart. And during these same few days, she had been notified that her husband Orson Welles had collapsed (during a Bond Tour) from overwork and exhaustion and that he was a very sick man again. But Ritadidn’t open her mouth to anyone about this either until it was all over and Orson was well again.

Private War Fronts: Paulette Goddard and her bridegroom of only a few weeks had a slight tiff one Sunday night in the Clover Club — and you should have heard the gab that went all over Hollywood the next day. You’d have thought that Buzz Meredith had hauled off and hit her over the head — to hear people talk. And all the time it was probably no more than the kind of argument that any two people are liable to have whether they’re married or not. Anyway, Buzz quieted a lot of rumors by saying that if their romance were any hotter they’re “both go up in smoke.”

Another pair who are being gabbed (and worried) about are Jane Wyman and Capt. Ronnie Reagan. This, old Cal knows, may come as a bit of a shock to you — but it looks like a different kind of “smoke” here. A case of “where there’s smoke — there must be fire” — sort of thing. Hope it isn’t true — but even their close friends suspect that all is not hunky-dory in the Reagan household at this writing.

How Do They Do It: Where they get the energy, heavens knows — because Joan Crawford (besides working hard in “Hollywood Canteen”) and Phil Terry have been doing all their housework and some of the laundry for months. To the point where you’d think both of ‘em would be having housemaid’s knee. But there they were at Mocambo, on the dance floor for so long at a time people wondered if they were going to try for a Marathon contest.

June Romance: Dick Powell is getting plenty of consolation (if he needs any) from June Allyson — and even though the studio keeps sending out reams of publicity linking June romantically with this and that beau you can take our word that it’s the Dick Powell dating that counts. Dick is a very domestic type too and it wouldn’t surprise us if he has such a yen to get back in harness that he up and proposes any minute. And neither would we be surprised if she said “Yes.”

Pretty Thoughts: Must tell you about Betty Hutton’s new dressing room — a gift from Paramount, where the blonde bombshell is rapidly making herself one of their biggest box-office bets. The room was done by Raoul du Bois (who did a great deal of the designing for “Lady in The Dark”) and it’s mostly shell-pink and antiqued silver. It’s walls are shell-pink and there are two quilted pink satin Victorian chairs and a large high-backed satin couch. It has an antiqued mirrored fireplace and a small grand piano that is pale green and silver, rubbed down to a smoky hue. And there’s a perfume bar, gals, that is something to drool over!

What a place to lounge around in and greet your friends! Isn’t it too bad that movie stars almost never have any time to lounge around???