Gotham’s Gift to Hollywood
Kay Francis from Broadway Conquers the Film Colony
By John Engstead
Originally appeared in Screenland, September 1929
Right now, one girl has Hollywood in the palm of her hand. Everyone who knows her, women as well as men, immediately falls into her legion of boosters. Everyone who hasn’t met her—well, that’s just his loss. She’s Kay Francis, a lovely New York stage girl, who has crashed Hollywood in a big way. Six months ago, she had seen only two silent pictures in her life and hated them both. She never gave talking pictures a thought until a friend at the Paramount Long Island Studios suggested a screen test for a leading role in “Gentlemen of the Press.” The only difficulty which lay between her and the part was the fact that the executives, the director, the authors and the supervisors of the production had definitely decided to find a blonde for the same role. There was one showing of the Francis test. The result was that this black’ haired, green-eyed girl made her first appearance on the screen in the feminine lead in “Gentlemen of the Press.” Kay’s just that way—instantaneous!
After finishing a role in “The Cocoanuts,” it was only natural that she be sent to Hollywood. As word gets around, the whole Paramount studio learned of Kay Francis the day she arrived. Groups of executives, directors and writers who stopped to talk on the lot, lost all track of conversation when she approached. Office boys delivered packages to the wrong desks when she passed. Other stars watched her out of the corners of their eyes. No one has ever been able to pass this girl without looking at her twice.
She leaves an indelible impression. Her hair is done in a sleek bob revealing her ears. Her eyes are not so enormous as those possessed by some of the cultivated motion picture beauties. Her mouth is not a cupid’s bow nor does it have a bee-stung contour. But men just love to look into the Francis face and talk to her.
Her voice is low, gay and changes with her moods. She uses it beautifully. She doesn’t have one of those baby giggles. Hers is an impressive laugh—yet nothing marvelous. But men have been known to miss prize-fights to listen to the Francis laugh. As for prize-fights — they’re just along Kay’s avenue. She’s had time to see just one of the fights in Hollywood since her arrival. They say, that the night she attended, so far as the women in the audience were concerned, there wasn’t any fight at all. They were busy watching the Francis style—trying to figure out how she managed to put all the people in all the parts of the country, which she touched, under her spell.
No one has yet seen Kay Francis in the same dress twice. She always wears tightfitting hats with modernistic lines and folds around her face. Her gowns fit. She prefers to wear evening clothes. She loves black. She uses just one piece of jewelry with a costume. Leaving most of her wardrobe in New York, she brought three trunks and eleven suitcases of only spring and summer clothes to Hollywood. That’s why Kay Francis has been called “the best dressed woman in America.”
She’s been in the West just about one month. She has given excellent account of herself in Clara Bow’s “Dangerous Curves,” made a trip to San Francisco, appeared in Charles ‘Budy’ Rogers’ starring vehicle, “Illusion,” and now has a featured role in Paramount’s “Behind the Makeup.”
If any of the Hollywood property men object to actresses who ask for drinks of water, food, chairs and stoves every minute, they should be on a Kay Francis picture. She’s regular—Gotham’s gift to the workingman! She’s the only actress ever known to try to help a garage man fix her flat tire in order that she be at the studio on time. She’s heaven to the portrait photographer. She’s the only actress, star or ‘bit’ player, whoever moved a small chair for herself in the portrait gallery of the studio when she knew it was necessary before the next picture could be taken. She’s the only actress who has ever volunteered to adjust one side of a small rug while the photographer managed the other side. She doesn’t mind having her picture taken with new railroad engines, in gag hats or on top of floats.
Around the studio, people always know Kay Francis is approaching before they see her. A definite walk is heard and then her low, rich voice scolding Snifter, her tiny puppy, for biting her hand too hard. Snifter is quite a favorite with his mistress because he is the first and only dog she ever owned. Despite his six weeks’ age, Snifter has also had a career. He was acting in pictures the day Miss Francis passed a dog fancier’s shop in Hollywood. But Snifter’s sister, sitting in the window attracted attention. Before Kay ever saw the tiny Scottie dog, he belonged to her. His name is an original idea from William Powell.
This young Francis girl has very definite ideas about living in Hollywood. One thing, she is going to save money. She lives in a bungalow with her colored maid, Ida. The latter, just as all people Kay has around her, has quite a personality. The actress stopped in Chicago and collected Ida on her way to Hollywood. The day Miss Francis arrived she bought a Ford roadster, the first car she ever owned, and named it Rabbit. Five hours after completing work on “Dangerous Curves,” Kay Francis, Caddie Stewart, a school chum, and Snifter left to see the famous Golden Gate in the Rabbit.
Except for a couple of speed cops, several flat tires and dogs not being allowed in three hotels, they had a great time. She knows they would have been asked to pay a fine or leave Fresno if she hadn’t stopped Snifter from scaring all the peacocks in the city park.
Kay says she’s a careful driver but admits that she is still a little bewildered by all the traffic laws. She doesn’t understand how it happened but somewhere in the middle of California the Rabbit was followed through three towns by a speed cop in another Ford. Finally, he overtook the girls and informed the actress that she was traveling 62 miles an hour by schoolhouses, exceeding the speed limit at street crossings, passing at intersections, riding in the middle of the road, was a reckless driver and had passed ten cars in three miles. Both she and Caddie pleaded they’d only been in California three weeks and hadn’t learned every rule yet. But with a ticket checked on several scores, the Rabbit wandered into the county seat of Lexington, California. After several inquiries, they found the judge in his court at the rear of the library. Less lots of energy wasted talking to the judge, $25 and two hours’ time, the girls in the Rabbit leaped on only to be stopped a couple of miles farther by another officer of the law. Not that she was speeding or driving recklessly, but had just passed a boulevard stop with- out stopping. They pleaded and explained and finally, with a black mark against them, this speed cop let the party continue. But not until he cranked their car and pushed it out of some sand.
In San Francisco, three hotels refused to take Snifter into their suites and thereby lost the distinction of housing Kay Francis. After going to Yosemite, circling mountain roads for hours at top speed in order to make a control and then missing it and having two flat tires, the Rabbit turned toward Hollywood and Kay to her career.
Oklahoma City is going to be flooded with newspaper stories when “Behind the Makeup” shows in that city. Not so many years ago, Kay was born in the Oklahoma town. During her early childhood, she lived in Santa Barbara, California, Los Angeles, and Denver. When she was four years old, her mother brought her to New York City. The mother, Katherine Clinton, well-known repertoire player, went back to the stage and Kay was sent to school.
After finishing school, Kay entered a secretarial college in New York City and learned typewriting and shorthand because her mother wasn’t overly anxious for her to become an actress. Instead of getting a job as a stenographer, she took a trip to Europe and spent eight months abroad seeing France, Holland and England. On her return trip she determined to go on the stage. Her mother was not exactly opposed to the move but allowed Kay to make her way on her own merits. Kay engineered the part of a lady-in-waiting for the modern version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” By imagining that she once played in vaudeville, in a Kansas City stock company and in amateur theatricals and by telling the producers of her imagination, Kay was given the role of the queen. A small part, but nevertheless, a starter. The next five months, she spent as a ‘disciple,” the name of a young person starting in the theatrical world, in Stuart Walker’s stock companies in the middle west. In Cincinnati she met David Newell, who is now also under contract to Paramount. They both played ‘bits’ one week and leads the next. They both appeared in “Dangerous Curves” as their first roles in Hollywood.
Returning to New York, Kay appeared in “Venus,” “Crime,” and “Elmer the Great.” Not long after, talking pictures and Hollywood entered her life.
As for her personal self, she’s been in love several times. At present there is no one in New York or Hollywood to whom she is engaged or even knows very well. If she remains in Hollywood, her mother and all of her clothes will be shipped west. She likes Hollywood quite a lot even if she hasn’t had time to find out what’s inside of giant ice cream freezers, windmills, ice’ bergs and freak buildings in Southern California.
She was born on Friday the thirteenth in the thirteenth month of her mother’s marriage. But to Kay Francis, thirteen, black cats, ladders and all that stuff is good luck.
Kay’s just that way—okay!