The Girls of Hollywood

Like A Giant, Mystic Magnet projecting its lines of force over the earth, that sun-kissed strip of California coast known as Hollywood draws unto itself the most beautiful girls in the world. The statement is a cliche1; it has become so because it is simple truth. The resultant concentration of pulchritude is unmatched, anywhere, in terms of quality, variety and sheer number – and in the ratio of girls to men, which is a gratifying three to one.

From the chic bungalows of Malibu to the artfully meandering mansions in the hills above Sunset Strip, from the glass-and-steel apartments of northwest Hollywood to the Spanish stucco hideaways in the lush canyons, from street to street and shop to shop and pool to pool, beauty is basic, beauty is everywhere. The girls of Hollywood – glamorous, vigorous, healthy, young, eager and adventurous – number few who are native born, but the stamp of the place is soon on them after they arrive. This does not refer to their appearance: most of them strive to make the most of their individual best qualities. It does refer to their way of life, for whatever their origins, the odds are ten thousand to one that each of these lovely lasses has come to Hollywood alone, is in hopes of a film or TV career, must compete with her sister aspirants for attention – and must find some way to subsist until the ever-beckoning big break comes along. Inevitably, a pattern of life takes hold.

By day, they work as hat-check girls at Ciro's, or as waitresses at Schwab's (not forgetting that Lana Turner followed her sweater-sheathed bosom from a soda fountain to the champagne fountains of Beverly Hills), or they pose for photographers (remembering that M.M. made the grade in just one calendar year). They are barmaids, manicurists, beauticians, part-time students at UCLA or a drama school, models, extras, hostesses, secretaries, cigarette girls, receptionists, car hops, script girls, you name it. And all are beautiful. Even the pros of the (concluded on page 108) GIRLS of HOLLYWOOD (continued from page 100) city are lovely to look upon by comparison with those of other cities; the amateur competition and the strayings across the line to and from commercial sex by hopefuls in temporary need, ensure that this is so. But the line itself is shadowy to the point of near invisibility. A girl alone in a glamorous city, seeking a career and a good time, too, and susceptible to the aura of sexiness that hovers over Hollywood, may yield to blandishments for a fur coat, or rent money, or the chance of a screen test, or a dinner and a ride out Mulholland Drive in a sports car. It isn't always the legendary (though real enough) casting couch that invites a girl to dalliance with a purpose: with so many beauties about, no great fuss is made over any one of them and, as one would-be starlet put it, "sex isn't the worst way for a girl to attract attention." Yet, by contrast with the more calculating girls of Vegas, for example, Hollywood girls are as likely as not to accept – or invite –advances just because they dig a guy.

The girls of Hollywood are busy: they learn poise – and how to move and pose and pivot –at the Blue Book School; they answer every modeling call with the hope that some agent will spot them; they play bit parts at the Pasadena Playhouse, and as long as the klieg-lighted skies over Hollywood sparkle and glow and explode with new stars year after year, they live in hope.

And meanwhile, they play. They have come to the city on gossamer wings to stalk the studio moguls, but they've also come for the fun and the glamor and the excitement that animate the Hollywood dream – and so they do what they can to make it come true. Ask one of ihein where she lives; she might say the Studio Club, or even the Y, or sharing an apartment with friends. But wherever they live, the girls are out and about, day and night, eager to see and be seen, eager for fun, anxious not to be lonely, not to miss anything that's going on in the golden glitter of day and the silver-sequined night. Hollywood may change, but the atmosphere that envelops each new arrival as she seeks to find her niche remains the same bubbly hedonism of the Twenties –and the girls adapt to it, first, and then joyously keep it alive.

The girls of Hollywood are omnipresent. They scent the breeze and glorify the scene, whether they be the svelte and slinky tall ones in mink, or the bouncy young chicks in leotards, or the Aphrodites in bikinis, or the beatnik babes trying masterfully to subdue the healthy glow of California living. Their god. as of now, is Brando, their credo, Method acting. Their high priests are producers, directors and agents; their bibles are Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter; their apostles are the columnists.

But their ebullient spirits burst the confines of career seeking: life is to be lived to the hilt, dates are an antidote to doldrums, and men are scarce, not only because of that three-to-one ratio, but because a certain number of the male population is married, and another segment isn't especially interested in girls.

And so, though these girls probably despise Togetherness more than any others on earth, they do seem to congregate in predictable places. At high noon it may be a strip of beach at the end of San Vicente Boulevard, where bikinis are as numerous as sea shells, though the place bears the name of Will Rogers State Park. Later, it may be the somewhat seedy sanctuary of James Dean's old hangout, the Unicorn, or the Borgia elegance of a newer colfee house, Cyrano's.

Despite their love of the sun, most Hollywood girls are night people; come full dark and many will be strolling "Mascara Mile," that area of Sunset Strip bordered by La Cienega and Doheny Drive. A gaggle of gorgeous girls samples the delicatessen goodies of the Beverly Wilshire Drugstore – when they haven't a date to dine them out in style. The beats and bohemians take their after-dinner coffee – and enjoy the camaraderie and jazz – at the Bit; the so-called Mort Sahl Set prefers Chez Paillette; Ash Grove, Cosmo Alley, Rondelay, or the Regency cater to somewhat similar tastes, while more organized goings on are enjoyed at Club Renaissance, which features West Coast jazz –and wailing gospel singers, or a performance of Sartre's The Respectful Prostitute, from time to time. Nights with a full moon the girls may hope for an invitation to go to Malibu's Positano to hear twelve-string folk blues. But though the Hollywood way is free and easy, girls must be over twenty-one to order a drink in its bars and bistros, and nighteries close at two –after which it's a party-at-home scene, in beat pad or hilltop haven complete with barbecue-bar, palms and jacaranda trees, fragrant tropical blooms, hi-fi and free-form pool.

Before two a.m. the girls of Hollywood may be found digging the pastry at Poopy's, the dalliance at Dino's, the eat-it-and-beat-it atmosphere of Topps1. And by dawn's early light, or just before, a lot of them will be completing the Strip circuit at the Gaiety, a "must" stopover because most of the show folk and all of the hopefuls who can make the scene forgather there for a final bite to eat. From cocktail time through dinner, though, a new man in town might do well to take his Hollywood date to the Zoo Parade, La Scala, or Au Petit Jean in Beverly Hills – where the stars dine when they don't feel like dressing for Chasen's or Romanoff's –for the girls have a notion that there's always the chance that a columnist may spot a coiner there, though as one of Tinseltown's scribes said, not many of the chicks "have the yeast it takes to rise into the big dough."

Daydreams are part of a Hollywood girl's daily life, dreams of a Spanish mansion with Algerian ivy and a Regency roof: of leopard-skin jackets from Teitel-baum's and orange capri pants from Jax: of Thunderbirds and thunderclaps of applause when they alight from limousines for a premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre; dreams of pools, patios, parties and poodles; dreams of cooing into microphones, finessing chattering ni.c.s, blowing a kiss to Louella, nodding to Jerry Wald, smiling at John Huston, giving Jule Styne an affectionate pat on the cheek.

The realities (posing at supermarket openings, flower shows, rodeos; being Miss 8-Ball for the L.A. Press Club; cobbling up a near-nude shocker of a costume to go to the Hollywood Publicists Association Ballyhoo Ball) don't impinge on the dream too much. Besides, each day promises new adventure, a closer approach to fulfilling the dream – and a chance to make at least a part of it come true. "Sugar and sex and stardom next, that's what little girls are made for" is their motto as they sally forth with the standard prop of the Hollywood girl in hand: a bikini in a hatbox –which comes in handy at a floodlit pool on some posh Beverly Hills estate (until someone douses the lights and all dunk in the altogether). The perennial bikini helps, too, for romps through motel pools during one of those peripatetic Hollywood parties which grow in numbers as the convivial celebrants move from house to house.

Parts of the dream can, indeed, be fulfilled by a confident and fun-loving Hollywood girl who – chest high – launches herself into the glittering whirl, and the higher the chest and the more pronounced the cleavage, the better (though a few seasons ago Vikki Dougan backed her way into the limelight with her dimpled derriere).

For the most part it's a fun life the Hollywood girls lead, in spite of the chilling weekly visit some pay to "The Club," as they call the Unemployment Insurance Office. But that's soon forgotten. With their healthy tanned look, their penchant for mixing the casual with the elegant (leotards and mink), their extreme decolletages, their readiness to reap the rewards of hours a day spent grooming and pampering their young bodies, the girls of Hollywood – uniquely – come very close to fulfilling another dream not their own: the dream of all the frisky and romantic men who have made the Hollywood girl an amorous, glamorous ideal.