Los Angeles, 1932
Gossip
Lucille Carver was the wife of a bank executive and one of Marie’s standing customers, with an appointment every Thursday afternoon at two o’clock. She wore French-cut suits and a mink stole with the animal’s head, tail, and feet hanging on either side of her shoulders, even in the summertime. I had the chair right next to Marie’s, and it was fun to listen in on their conversations when I wasn’t engaged with my own customers. Mrs. Carver loved the movies. She had just seen Bird of Paradise, and now she was chattering like a squirrel in mating season.
“Johnny is so dreamy,” she began. “He’s on a yacht in the South Pacific...all in white, a real sailor, bronzed skin, golden hair.”
“How can you tell?” asked Marie. “Movies only show black and white.”
“But you can imagine. You can see the blue skies, the white tails of the sharks...”
“Sharks?”
“The yacht is sailing close to an island, and a bunch of islanders approach in pontoon boats.”
“What’s a pontoon boat?”
“Kind of like a raft held up by buoys. Anyhow, the point is, they’re friendly people and they’ve come to greet the foreigners. The sailors throw them stuff, and they dive for it.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“My God, Miss Marie, stop asking questions so I can explain this to you! A cap, a pipe, that kind of stuff. Suddenly, sharks come. One of the sailors wants to shoot the closest shark, but the captain tells him not to because he might hit one of the natives. Listen, do you think this color is too dark for me? I usually go for a lighter shade, but they’re showing dark in the magazines...like Hedy Lamarr.”
“I think it’s okay, but look at this one. It’s not so auburn. So what happened with the shark, Mrs. Carver?”
“Well, Johnny tries to catch it by throwing out bait tied to a hook. But then, and this is the really scary part, he gets his foot caught in the loop of a cable.”
“So do you want to go with this color, or do you want something a bit more reddish?”
“This one’s okay. So then, all of a sudden, he goes flying overboard!”
“Right into the shark’s teeth?”
“Well, almost. But then Luana, the chief’s daughter, dives into the water and saves him! She cuts the rope and pulls him to safety. When he opens his eyes, she’s blabbering away, telling him everything that happened.”
“That’s Dolores Del Rio, right?”
“Oh, she’s so gorgeous, Miss Marie...”
I hadn’t seen Bird of Paradise. We had no money to spend on the movies, but Mrs. Carver not only had the quarter for a ticket, but also plenty of time to read Star World and Photoplay. With her small head and closely cropped hair, she didn’t look that different from the dead mink hanging on her shoulder.
I didn’t mention that I knew Dolores Del Rio. Lucille Carver was Marie’s customer, and it would have been improper for me to butt in. Besides, she probably wouldn’t have believed me.
“Anyhow,” she went on, “he doesn’t understand a word she’s saying because she speaks a different language, but she gestures and moves around, so he gets the idea. The way he looks at her, Miss Marie, you know they’re going to...you know! Joel McCrea is so sexy! So chiseled and...manly. In this movie, he wears a sarong. A sarong! He’s bare-chested and, oh, you could just die... Well, pretty soon, he and Luana are meeting under the stars. One night, she swims out to him completely naked. You just catch glimpses of her, but you can see she doesn’t have a stitch on. She’s so slim and gorgeous, with such a tight little behind. He jumps over the side of the boat...”
“Naked?”
“He keeps his briefs on. Too bad. He swims after her and catches her. At first, she doesn’t want him to touch her, but he kisses her on the mouth. It’s clearly a new experience for her. She keeps pointing to her lips and saying some foreign word. She wants him to kiss her again. He’d like to keep her forever, but she can’t go back to the States with him because she’s engaged.”
“Engaged!”
“Her father promised her to the prince of another island, a repulsive guy who drools every time he looks at her. Her father arranged a fancy wedding, where she has to dance in the middle of a circle of fire, and...you won’t believe this, Miss Marie... Dolores Del Rio dances practically naked! I mean, she has a grass skirt on—it doesn’t cover much, to be honest—but nothing on top!”
“And nothing on top?” Marie gasped.
“Well, a lei covers her boobies,” said Mrs. Carver. “You can see from the back that she doesn’t have on a bra, but you don’t actually see her nipples. She looks so exquisite, Miss Marie. Flawless lipstick, smooth eyebrows, high cheekbones. And get this! Perfectly bobbed hair! As though she’d just walked out of this beauty shop!”
“Ha ha, that’s funny! On a South Pacific island?”
“Anyhow, at first, she can’t get into it. But then, she catches sight of Johnny smiling at her through the bushes, and she just goes wild. She gyrates like a stripper!”
Just like Lola, I thought, pushing the limits.
“Well, Johnny runs out and grabs her and carries her away. The prince is furious! He and the other natives run after them, but Luana and Johnny have already escaped to another island.”
“And then they live happily ever after.”
“No, not at all. At first, it looks like everything will be fine, but then, she hears the volcano erupt on her father’s island, and she knows she must go back to her people. They believe that they can only keep the volcano from destroying their village by feeding it a beautiful young woman. Luana runs away and Johnny takes off after her, but the natives attack and wound him in the shoulder with a spear. The natives are prepared to sacrifice both the lovers, but the sailors from the yacht rescue them.”
“Whew! And then they live happily ever after?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Miss Marie. You know a white man can’t marry a dark-skinned woman!”
“But Dolores Del Rio is Spanish! It says so in all the movie magazines.”
“Well, in the movie she’s Polynesian, and she can’t marry Joel McCrea. So she throws herself into the volcano!”
“Don’t cry, Mrs. Carver. You’ll ruin your makeup.”
The following week, Mrs. Carver came in with a copy of Star World. I kept the magazine.
Del Rio Named World’s Most Beautiful Woman!
Dolores Del Rio is the most beautiful woman in the world! Medical experts, artists, and designers all agree: Lola is perfect! Some readers expressed surprise that these men chose a foreigner who, although technically white, exemplifies a sultry, dark kind of beauty. However, most see her as the answer to male Latin lovers such as Ramón Novarro, now gracing the silver screen in A Night in Cairo.
Del Rio, the pert Spanish star of Bird of Paradise, established herself as an erotic icon when she swam naked in the film with the luscious Joel McCrea, then lolled in the grass with him, she apparently wearing nothing and he in the tiniest of white briefs. Indeed, some church groups protested that the scene pushed the limits of decorum. But in today’s Hollywood, anything goes! Viva Hollywood!
Rumor had it that Lola was washed up after her former paramour, Edwin Carewe, remade Resurrection as a sound film and chose Lupe Vélez to star in it. The earlier silent version directed by Carewe had starred Del Rio as the beautiful Katyusha Maslova, and fans widely viewed Carewe’s choice of Vélez as a slap in the face to Del Rio. However, it’s hard to keep a good woman down, especially if that woman is the most gorgeous creature in the world!
Now Del Rio has hired Oliver Hendsell, Hollywood’s top acting coach, to get her ready for her new role as the Brazilian bombshell Belinha de Rezende in Flying Down to Rio, directed by Thorton Freeland and costarring Gene Raymond.
And by the way, if you’ve got a zillion dollars and want to bask in the shadow of beauty, Del Rio’s fabulous house on Outpost Drive is on the market, as Lola is now living in the gorgeous art deco home that her husband, Cedric Gibbons, designed for her. Gibbons had promised to move into the sprawling hacienda-style mansion Del Rio shared with her mother, but in the end, the couple decided it was just too big.