7 CHAPTER

THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE FAN MAGAZINE

The “golden age” of the fan magazine embraced three decades, the 1920s through the 1940s, an
era when Americans acknowledged the motion picture as their primary source of entertainment
and when interest from the general public in anything movie-related was at its height. In the
1930s, America was suffering through the Great Depression, film companies were faltering,
and Paramount was in receivership, but the fan magazines kept on going.
In May 1933, The Hollywood Reporter noted a slight slump in fan magazine sales the
previous year, aligning it with the inability of both the periodicals and the studios to attract
sufficient fans at a time of fiscal crisis. Photoplay suffered the most, in part because of James
R. Quirk’s death and Kathryn Dougherty’s appointment as editor, but also because its two
major rivals, Modern Screen and Silver Screen, offered more of what the public wanted to
read and at a lower price—ten cents versus twenty-five cents. At this point, newsstand sales
were as follows: Modern Screen 556,421; Silver Screen 471,806; Photoplay 461,842;
Motion Picture 456,002; Picture Play 341,218; Movie Classic 326,852; Screen Book
267,573; Screenland 262,611; Screen Play 211,132; Hollywood 181,694; Screen Romances
137,141; and Film Fun 130,097.1
A little over a year later, on August 15, 1934, The Hollywood Reporter returned to the
subject of fan magazine circulation and pointed out that those periodicals specializing in
sensationalism the previous year had lost circulation, while the opposing group had gained.
Both Photoplay and Screen Play reported increased circulation. Modern Screen lost 100,000
in circulation, while Photoplay gained about the same number. “It looks as if the movie fans
are wearying of sensationalism and salaciousness in their reading matter. After all, why not?”
asked The Hollywood Reporter’s hopeful if somewhat optimistic Frank Pope. “The element
that made fan magazine readers, that increased them to millions a month, was the glamour that
surrounded their favorite stars.”2
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 Paramount production chief Jesse L. Lasky keeps up-to-date on the current fan magazines.
Courtesy of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Aside from the newsstand sales, there was little, in reality, to distinguish one fan magazine
from another. As Clifton Fadiman wrote, “The thinnest ones cost a nickel, the fattest ones cost
a quarter. That’s how you tell them apart.”3 A price war of sorts developed after the first
publication in December 1929 by the Tower group of The New Movie Magazine, distributed at
the five-and-dime stores, most notably Woolworth’s, at ten cents a copy. Time magazine
(October 15, 1934) described Tower’s magazines, its rival publishing house, as the “gum-
chewers” magazines, to which Tower promotion manager Lucile Bab-cock responded, on
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November 12, 1934, “gum chewing is no longer merely a ruminative agitation of the jaws. It
now has purpose, character, and style direction.” By 1933, The New Movie Magazine was
probably the biggest selling of fan magazines, with an estimated circulation of 650,000 copies.
(Exact figures were unavailable because the Tower group reported the sales of its three
periodicals, two of which were unrelated to film, as a group.) Within a short space of time,
eight of the leading fan magazines had followed The New Movie Magazine’s lead and sold
their issues for ten cents.
The editorial director of Tower magazines was Hugh Weir, who obviously fancied himself
as an Americanized version of Noel Coward, managing to look both stolid and effete in
photographs, showing him in profile with his lips clasped around a cigarette holder. According
to the 1931 edition of The Motion Picture Almanac, Weir was a reporter, a newspaper feature
writer, newspaper editor, a scenario writer, a film editor, a writer for and editor of magazines,
and an author of books, who “has kept in touch with the changing times.” He certainly had a
Slide, Anthony. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine : A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers, University Press of Mississippi, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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 magic touch when it came to popular magazines, claiming a record sale of 22,230,706 copies
of Tower magazines purchased by “shopping women” between 1929 and 1931.
The New Movie Magazine disproved suggestions that the fan magazine deteriorated in the
1930s. It certainly contained fewer pages than Photoplay and its other, more expensive rivals,
and the quality of the reproduction of the illustrations was somewhat inferior, but the content
was excellent and on a par with the best that James R. Quirk had to offer. The cover
illustrations for almost all of the first year were by the highly regarded artist Penrhyn Stanlaws,
beginning in December 1929 with Nancy Carroll and including Bebe Daniels in April 1930
and Lila Lee in July 1930. Another prominent illustrator associated with The New Movie
Magazine was McClelland Barclay. Catherine McNelis, president of Tower, deserves credit
for negotiating a wide circulation for the magazine, which by September 1930 announced in
each issue on its contents page, “On sale the 15th of each month in Woolworth stores.” Credit
for the content itself belongs to the first editor, Frederick James Smith, who also reviewed
films to the same high standard and in similar format to the Photoplay approach.
Also from Photoplay, The New Movie Magazine took its two principal writers, Adela
Rogers St. Johns and Herbert Howe, whose name was often featured on the cover. Both
contributed original articles, and Howe also wrote “The Hollywood Boulevardier” column.
There was also a general gossip column, and Walter Winchell was represented for the first few
months by a regular column, initially titled “Snappy Comebacks Untold Stories of the Movies.”
Other regular contributors, familiar to readers of Photoplay, included Ruth Biery, Regina
Cannon, Homer Croy, and Ruth Waterbury. It is not surprising that in November 1930, The New
Movie Magazine proudly proclaimed on the front cover, “The Largest Circulation of Any
Screen Magazine in the World.”
Throughout its short existence—it ceased publication in 1935—The New Movie Magazine
maintained a high standard of writing, inviting many literary figures to contribute pieces and
opinion. At some point, Smith departed as editor and there was no formal replacement,
although the reviews were handled by Frederic F. Van de Water, described as a “noted author
and critic,” whose approach to the films was “from the angle of the audience.” Van de Water
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(1890–1968) was, in fact, a reporter, newspaper editor, book critic, and specialist writer, who
had authored more than thirty-five books, including a biography of General Custer. Herbert
Howe continued his column, but it was now signed “Nemo” (Nobody), described as a man-
about-town.

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 The December 1931 issue of The New Movie Magazine; Herbert Howe is important enough to
have his name on the cover.
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Henry Willson began writing a “Junior Hollywood Gossip” column in 1933; he was later to
become infamous for his discovery, naming of, and sometimes relationships with Rock
Hudson, Rory Calhoun, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, and others. Sidney Skolsky, famous for his
tintypes in the New York Daily News, made his first appearance in December 1931 with an
article on Edward G. Robinson titled “Putting Little Caesar on the Spot.” As late as November
1935, Skolsky contributed a piece on Jimmy Durante. (He had contributed to Screen Play in
January 1934 with a series of articles, beginning with a piece on Mae West. In the 1950s, he
fronted a fan magazine–like nostalgia publication titled Sidney Skolsky’s This Was
Hollywood.)

Slide, Anthony. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine : A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers, University Press of Mississippi, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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 Members of the Tower Magazine group wish success to Nelson Eddy (standing) in 1935, just
as their own publication, The New Movie Magazine, is about to cease publication. From left to
right: James Featherstone, executive; Frank McNelis, editor; Miriam Gibson, assistant editor
of Tower Radio; Mrs. James Featherston; and Frederick James Smith, editor of Tower Radio.
Courtesy of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The biggest change to The New Movie Magazine came in February 1935, when the page
size was dramatically increased to a size that was to be adopted a year later for the first and
all future issues of Life magazine. Two years later, in October 1937, Photoplay followed suit,
with a similar page size, as well as a “natural color photograph” by George Hurrell of Joan
Crawford on the cover and major articles by Gilbert Seldes, Lowell Thomas, and novelist
Faith Baldwin.
The New Movie Magazine briefly experimented with a complementary publication, The
New Movie Album: A New Who’s Who of the Screen, first (and probably last) published in
October 1930. Joan Crawford graced the cover, and each page was devoted to an individual
star with a photograph and biography.
If The New Movie Magazine was in the tradition of Photoplay at its best, there were two
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other, short-lived fan magazines in the 1930s that lived up to Photoplay’s editorial standards
but were also artistically and stylishly the most elegant fan magazines ever produced.
The first, titled simply Cinema, was an oversized publication, foreshadowing the
dimensions of Life magazine, which billed itself as “The Magazine of the Photoplay.”
Published for only one year, from January through December 1930, Cinema boasted beautifully
reproduced photographs on the highest quality art paper. The cover art was of an equally high
standard, and the May 1930 issue depicted a youthful Jean Arthur, sketched by Alberto Vargas,
decades before he was to become familiar to Playboy readers.
Some major names from the early years of serious film criticism were represented in the
pages of Cinema. Harry Alan Potamkin wrote on “The Rise and Fall of the German Film”
(April), “The Cinema in Great Britain” (May), “Film Beginnings in Belgium and Holland”
(June), and “Cinema Iberia” (December). Wilton A. Barrett contributed a piece on art cinemas
to the April issue. In June, S. M. Eisenstein and G. V. Alexandrov discussed “Doing without
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 Actors.” Pare Lorentz wrote on “Screen Comedy” in May and on “Good, Bad and Corporate
Test,” being the mix of art and business in the making of motion pictures, in June.
The dramatic reviewer was Creighton Peet, while editor James Shelley Hamilton handled
film reviews. Hamilton was a pioneering screenwriter, supposedly responsible for The Perils
of Pauline, who had been an editor at McClure’s and Romance. A graduate of Amherst
College in 1906, he was responsible for its famed ballad, “Lord Jeffrey Amherst.” From 1934
until 1945, he served as executive director of the National Board of Review. At his death, in
Rutland, Vermont, on June 5, 1953, at the age of sixty-nine, Terry Ramsaye described Hamilton
in Motion Picture Herald (June 13, 1953) as a “scholar and author of quiet distinction,”
adding he was “much a friend of the movies. He was also a good gardener, in retirement up in
Vermont.”
Cinema Arts was certainly the most sumptuous film magazine ever produced in any genre or
type. A prototype edition, “for private circulation and not for sale,” appeared in September
1936 as an oversized, spiral-bound edition. A year later, in June, July, and September 1937,
three additional issues were published. All were oversized with hard covers featuring
caricatures by Jaro Fabry. (The June issue contained some pieces that had earlier appeared in
the prototype edition.) On par with the quality of the artwork was the quality of the articles,
written by critics such as Mordaunt Hall, Frank Nugent, Richard Watts Jr., and Archer Winsten;
filmmakers such as Bella and Samuel Spewack, Kenneth Macgowan, and Rouben Mamoulian;
and socialites such as Helena Rubinstein. Paul F. Husserl was credited as editor of the three
1937 issues.
The 1930s saw the introduction of many other new fan magazines. Typical was Modern
Movies, first published in July 1937 under the editorship of William T. Walsh, who was
succeeded a year later by May C. Kelly. The emphasis here was on gossip with the “It
Happens in Hollywood” column, later retitled “Hollywood Happenings.” Modern Movies had
an initial cover price of fifteen cents, but in April 1939 it lowered the cost to ten cents.
The golden age was very much a good golden age for the consumer, as fan magazines
lowered their prices. For example, a month after Modern Movies’ decision, Screen Romances
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lowered its cover price from twenty-five to ten cents. Good value does not always reflect
honesty and integrity, and while there are many commentators who criticized the ethical
standards of the articles and interviews therein, the film reviews have been subject to little
appraisal. Because of a publication schedule far in advance of the release of many films, it is
obvious that the fan magazines did not necessarily see the films under review. Generally, they
got away with it. Sometimes they were caught out.
On September 8, 1933, Daily Variety published a front-page story concerning ten films
reviewed in the new, October, issue of The New Movie Magazine. It was reported that five of
the films were still being edited, one completed production the previous day, one was still in
production, and another had not even finished shooting. Only Yesterday, which finished
shooting three days earlier, was described by The New Movie Magazine as “slow and
somewhat stodgy.” Of Dancing Lady, still in production, the fan magazine reported, “The story
is the same general type as Dancing Daughters. Robert Z. Leonard has directed a fast moving
Slide, Anthony. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine : A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers, University Press of Mississippi, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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 show.” Of Ann Vickers, still being edited, The New Movie Magazine commented, “From the
moment when she gives in to her first man to the time she stills the unrest of her last man, there
is no moment when Miss [Irene] Dunne is not at her ease.” Lillian Harvey had made two films
for Fox, one of which remained unreleased and the other finished the previous week. The New
Movie Magazine commented, “My Lips Betray was okay... or seemed to me... but My
Weakness is going to put her right on the top. Harry Langdon gets a pretty good break and Lew
Ayres does exceptionally well. I’d like to see someone taller than Lew work opposite Miss
Harvey in her next picture.”
The New Movie Magazine was not the only fan journal caught out. Three years later, a
gossip column in the December 9, 1936, issue of The Hollywood Reporter revealed that
Photoplay routinely reviewed films that had not as yet even been previewed, “Something funny
about the whole thing somewhere!”
Because of the lack of extant complete runs for most fan magazines from this period, it is
virtually impossible to determine just which star dominated the cover art at any one time.
However, thanks to a 1933–1934 survey by The Hollywood Reporter, such information is
available for that period. The results are both surprising and expected. Topping the list with
ten covers were Joan Crawford and Mae West. Tied in second place with nine each were
Katharine Hepburn and Greta Garbo. Surprisingly, next came Ruby Keeler with seven, beating
out Jean Harlow with six covers, and Myrna Loy, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer, and Lillian
Harvey with five each. Fox was trying hard to make Lillian Harvey a Hollywood star, but
failed, and she soon returned to a career in German films. Another Fox star, Janet Gaynor, had
four covers, reminding us that she was a prominent star in the early through mid 1930s. She
tied with Carole Lombard. Astonishingly, Marlene Dietrich had only three, along with
Claudette Colbert and Constance Bennett. Clara Bow, at the end of her career, still managed to
garner two covers, as did Sally Eilers, Helen Hayes, Miriam Hopkins, Jean Parker, Margaret
Sullavan, Sylvia Sidney, and Gloria Stuart. With one each were some big names and some
completely forgotten figures: Lillian Bond, Glenda Farrell, Frances Dee, Mary Pickford
(thanks to her last film, Secrets), Dorothy Jordan, Marion Davies, Adrienne Ames, Ginger
Rogers, Lupe Velez, Bette Davis, Ann Harding, Lona Andre, Loretta Young, Anna Sten, Madge
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Evans, Alice White, Heather Angel, Constance Cummings, Patricia Ellis, and Dolores Del
Rio.

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 On the set of Polly of the Circus (1932), Clark Gable and Marion Davies enjoy the latest issue
of Motion Picture. Courtesy of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
No men made the covers unless accompanied by a female star. Clark Gable was on the
cover of Hollywood Movie Novels, supporting Jean Harlow, and on the cover of Modern
Screen with Mae West, despite their being under contract to different studios. (That same issue,
August 1933, also ran a competition offering cash prizes for the best answer to “Why Not
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Clark Gable as Mae West’s Screen Lover?”) John Gilbert made it onto the cover of Picture
Parade thanks to Garbo, and, of all people, James Dunne was featured on the cover of
Hollywood Movie Novels, alongside Sally Eilers.

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 Shirley Temple on the cover of Screenland.
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Inside the magazines there was little new on offer, but Greta Garbo dominated. Despite an
obvious lack of personal interviews, Screen Book (July 1933) reported on what she ate, said,
and did on a trip from Sweden to San Diego. That same month, Hollywood Movie Novels
reported that her uncle was a taxi-cab driver in Stockholm. In August 1933, Screen Play began
running “The Only True Story of Garbo’s Private Life” by her former private secretary, Sven-
Hugo Borg. An “imaginative” meeting between Garbo and Mae West generated commentary in
a number of fan magazines early in 1933.
Mickey Mouse got more coverage than some stars, with pieces in Screen-land (July 1933),
The New Movie Magazine (August 1933), and Movie Classic (November 1933), along with
an exposé by Walt Disney in Screen Book (January 1934). With so much coverage, it is little
wonder that in May 1934 Photoplay published “Is Walt Disney a Menace to Our Children” by
David Frederick McCord, which worried over the nightmares that the Big Bad Wolf in Three
Little Pigs might cause.

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 It is surprising how many confessional stories were featured and just how many relatively
forgotten stars were featured in a typical issue. For example, in October 1933 Screenland had
Dixie Lee Crosby writing on “What I Think of Bing,” character comedian Charlie Ruggles with
“My Confessions,” Joe E. Brown’s life story, interviews with Paul Robeson and Ginger
Rogers, Constance Cummings on her marriage to British playwright (and later politician) Benn
Levy, and a joint article on brothers Frank and Ralph Morgan.
Which star had the most cover art from the 1930s through the 1950s? An argument might
certainly be made on behalf of Shirley Temple, who graced 138 covers from that period. She
could be seen on fifteen from Modern Screen (1935–1951), twelve from Photoplay (1935–
1950), and eleven from Screen-land (1934–1958).4 In comparison, Kay Francis, who had
starred in the Warner Bros. film Mandalay (1934), while Temple supported, appeared on the
covers of thirty-eight American fan magazines, beginning with Motion Picture in July 1930
and ending with Picture Play in November 1937.
According to Variety, Shirley Temple was the subject of the most space given to female
stars in the fan magazines in 1935.5 She also beat out Clark Gable, who came first in the male
division. Runners-up in the female field were Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Ginger
Rogers, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn, Mae West, and
Marlene Dietrich. Trailing Gable were Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Dick Powell,
Will Rogers, Franchot Tone, Nelson Eddy, William Powell, and John Boles. Of approximately
2500 established players, only 330 were found on the covers, in full-page and half-page
photographs, and in individual interviews and feature stories in the fan magazines.
In 1935, Variety surveyed twelve publications: Photoplay, Picture Play, Silver Screen,
Screenland, Motion Picture, Classic, Screen Play, Screen Book, Hollywood, Movie Mirror,
and Modern Screen. Of the 132 covers represented by these magazines, Claudette Colbert was
seen on ten; Shirley Temple on nine; Ginger Rogers on eight; Carole Lombard and Jean
Harlow on seven; Janet Gaynor, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, and Ruby Keeler on six; Miriam
Hopkins, Mae West, Greta Garbo, and Katharine Hepburn on four; Kay Francis, Dolores Del
Rio, Alice Faye, Ann Sothern, Marion Davies, Bette Davis, and Loretta Young on three;
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Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Stuart, Virginia Bruce, Merle Oberon, Jeanette MacDonald, Margaret
Sullavan, Joan Bennett, Grace Moore, and Ann Harding on two; and Irene Dunne, Lillian
Harvey, Anna Sten, Madge Evans, Mary Carlisle, and Elizabeth Allen on one. There were no
male stars on any of the covers.
The fan magazines were willing and able to provide moviegoers with everything they
needed to know on the subject despite increasing competition from other published sources.
Popular periodicals devoted increasing space to Hollywood, and by the 1930s, for example,
Ladies’ Home Journal had its own correspondent reporting back from the film studios.
Relatively serious film reviews began to appear. Life, the old humor magazine, had paid scant
attention to films in the 1910s, but a decade later it was publishing on a regular basis reviews
by the distinguished theater critic Robert E. Sherwood (who was to become its editor from
1924–1928). As of 1931, The Motion Picture Almanac reported a total of 181 motion picture
editors at various American newspapers.6 Of that number thirty-five were female.
Slide, Anthony. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine : A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers, University Press of Mississippi, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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 One popular magazine with major coverage of the Hollywood scene, along with film
reviews, was Liberty, which began life on May 10, 1924, as a weekly, five-cent publication. It
became biweekly on February 1, 1947 (the beginning of the end) and monthly from September
1947 through July 1950, when it ceased publication. Adela Rogers St. Johns was its leading
contributor of stories on Hollywood. Other fan magazine writers found in its pages include
Kirtley Baskette (1936–1941), Margaret E. Sangster (1932–1940), Frederick James Smith
(1924–1941), Ruth Waterbury (1926–1942), and Elizabeth Wilson (1944–1949). However,
Liberty used fewer fan magazine writers than might be expected; for example, Adele Whitley
Fletcher was represented in its pages by only one piece, “Does Your Job Fit You,” in July
1942.
As early as March 14, 1927, Liberty had aligned itself strongly with the film industry,
launching a $50,000 competition to find a story from its readers that would be serialized in the
magazine and produced as a feature-length film by Famous Players–Lasky Corporation.
Bernarr Macfadden took over publication of Liberty from its founders, Col. Robert Rutherford
McCormick and Capt. Joseph Medill Patterson, in 1931, after it had lost them $12 million.
Another of Macfadden’s publications, True Confessions, which had commenced publication
in 1922, by the 1930s had the look of one of his fan magazines. Selling for ten cents a copy,
True Confessions provided readers with such unsigned features as “The Cinderella Career of
Barbara Stanwyck” (March 1934) and “The Men in Garbo’s Glamorous Life” (February
1935), with the stars’ faces on the cover very obviously helping to sell the magazine on the
newsstand. Dating back to 1919, True Story Magazine was Macfadden’s most popular
periodical, selling for twenty-five cents in the 1920s and for fifteen cents in the 1930s. Billie
Dove graced the cover of its March 1929 issue and Ginger Rogers was on the cover of the
June 1937 issue, with “Ginger Rogers Own Story” inside. There was even a hint of nostalgia
in April 1934 as Pola Negri wrote on “Rudy Valentino and I.”
Two new magazines came along in the 1930s, both of which would impact the circulation of
the fan magazines. The first, and most important, was Life, first published on November 23,
1936. In cover size it resembled the later issues of The New Movie Magazine, but there the
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resemblance ended. The emphasis at Life was on current news, in which Hollywood was not a
major player. It was not until May 3, 1937, that a Hollywood star, Jean Harlow, made the front
cover, followed by Harpo Marx (September 6, 1937), Nelson Eddy (September 27, 1937), and
Greta Garbo (November 8, 1937). In later years, Life was to average on its covers four or five
movie stars a year. Similar in format, but more Hollywood-oriented was Look magazine, first
published in January 1937. Its first issue featured Dolores Del Rio and Joan Crawford,
followed in issue no. 2 by Myrna Loy and Greta Garbo, and in issue no. 3 by Marlene Dietrich
and Jean Harlow. The major difference between Look and the fan magazines was that that latter
catered to women, whereas Look was promoted as a magazine for a male readership.
By the 1930s, fan magazines routinely carried advertising from the major studios. For
example, in March 1929 Motion Picture carried one page of advertising each from Fox
Movietone News, Paramount, First National, and Warner Bros. In September 1931, the
magazine had one page of advertising from Paramount and MGM and two pages from Fox.
Modern Screen for October 1932 had one page of advertising each from Fox, Paramount, and
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 Universal and two pages from MGM. A decade later little had changed, with Modern Screen
for September 1949 carrying one page each of advertising from MGM, Paramount, Universal-
International, and Warner Bros., two-thirds of a page of advertising from Walt Disney, all
promoting individual productions and a number of movie star and studio-connected product
advertising.
It had not always been so. Initially, the studios had concentrated on the popular, nonspecific
periodicals. Educational, the first company to consistently advertise short films in national
magazines, began its general advertising with the 1921–1922 season, taking space first of all in
the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies’ Home Journal. It was not until the mid 1920s that
Educational began to advertise in the fan magazines. Pathé took out its first magazine
advertising in the Saturday Evening Post in 1916, but by the late 1920s it was concentrating on
advertising in fan magazines only. The company made no secret that it went out of its way to
provide the fan magazines with whatever they wanted. Writing in 1918, its publicity manager P.
A. Parsons noted, “As they are important and decidedly worth catering to, each of them should
be studied to meet their requirements. Specially taken photographs, clear-cut and snappy,
gossipy interviews of real interest, exclusive articles on subjects worthwhile, ‘personality
stuff’ which is different—one will find these in the fan magazines, and such should be the
character of the material furnished. Truly it is a far cry from the old days when the same old
bunk went to every publication regardless of its nature and requirements.”7
The Saturday Evening Post, along with Ladies Home Journal, Literary Digest, and the old
Life humor magazine, were the periodicals of choice when United Artists embarked on a
$75,000 advertising campaign for Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood in 1922. As late as 1927,
Photoplay was the only fan magazine routinely used for advertising purposes by Universal.
The thrust of its advertising campaigns was directed at the Saturday Evening Post, Boys’ Life,
American Boy, and various farm journals.8
Arguably, during the so-called golden age for both the fan magazines and the Hollywood
film industry, the magazines were more attractive to a female audience and more determinedly
marketed toward such a readership. At least two contemporary writers tried to analyze the
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relationship between the fan magazine and its reader, Margaret Farrand Thorp in 1939 and Leo
A. Handel in the 1950s.
Thorp noted that in Hollywood at the time of her study there are more than 300
correspondents representing the fan magazines, the “quality” periodicals, and the newspaper
syndicates. These writers “make it possible for the worshiper to identify herself with the
glamorous star as she can do with no other character in fiction.”9 “The imitative fan is almost
always feminine,”10 and the writer helped the identification process with information as to
how to dress as the stars do, to color hair and apply makeup as they do, to eat what they eat,
and to furnish their homes in a replicative fashion. “Everything is superlative, surprising,
exciting.”11
Writing a decade later, Handel cited a 1948 Seventeen magazine survey, “Teenage Girls
and Their Motion Picture Habits.” The survey linked the female approach of the fan magazines
with financial considerations. Families always followed their daughters’ choices in the
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 selection of motion picture.12 Thus, what the fan magazines had to say to their female
readership equated to revenue at the box office. A 1948 study by Dr. Paul Lazarsfeld of
Columbia University came up with a similar opinion. His contention was that fan magazine
readers were the “opinion leaders” among moviegoers, and thus, they could make or break a
film at the box office.13
What might a fan expect to read in her magazine of choice during this golden age? As
already noted, there were rules governing content, and Picture Play’s Norbert Lusk identified
some of them:
Enough for a writer to remember he must not bring up the subject of clothes to Kay Francis, must not infer Irene Dunne is
cultivated and well-mannered, even though it is obvious in all she says and does; must not write of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette
MacDonald in the same paragraph. Mention of Mae West’s business acumen is taboo, and Sonia Henie’s enormous earnings
as a skating star of rink and screen must be ignored. Marriage and fatherhood are forbidden topics in interviews with Gary
Cooper and Fred Astaire, nor must the latter’s real name of Austerlitz be given, while Ginger Rogers’ union with Lew Ayres
was a nonexistent fact which the compliant reporter shunned till divorce routed the hobgoblin.
George Raft’s choice of fisticuffs as the quickest means of settling a difference of opinion was a virtue never to be
extolled in the fan magazines; but the remaining catalogue of his good points might be repeated any number of times. Melvyn
Douglas’s friends and outside interests, except for his wife and son, were banished from articles about him. House
furnishings of glazed chintz offended Douglas Fairbanks Jr., whose relationship to his famous father was something else he
would just as like be left out. Attempt was made to safeguard the good behavior of Simone Simon when reporters were
cautioned not to let fall the name of Janet Gaynor in her presence. [Gaynor had starred in the silent version of 7th Heaven
and Simon in the sound remake.] The face of Joe E. Brown was under protection, too. It must never be described as funny.
But he could make funny faces.14

The fan magazines presented the stars as approachable when, in reality, they were not. They
were real in that they found love and happiness—often on a monthly basis—and they thought
long and hard before embarking on marriage. Would Barbara Stanwyck marry Robert Taylor or
not? The more she thought about it, the more copy she provided as fan magazine fodder—and
the longer her name and her face would be in public view. In 1937, Motion Picture magazine
managed to publish six pieces relative to Stanwyck and Taylor and their romance, a full two
years before they actually married: “I’m Not Ready for Marriage Yet,” Robert Taylor to Leon
Surmelian (January); “Eleanor Powell Writes a Letter to Your Bob,” Bunny Russell (March);
“What! No Bob Taylor!,” a pictorial feature (April); “The Taylor Harlow ‘Romance,’” Carol
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.

Craig (May); “I’m in No Mood for Marriage,” Barbara Stanwyck to Molly Gardner (May); and
“This Is Their Affair,” a pictorial feature (June).
Perhaps Hollywood stars did right to worry about marriage and take their time, based on the
number of articles the fan magazines were publishing on divorce. In late 1933, there was Eric
L. Ergenbright’s “The Divorce Epidemic Strikes Hollywood” in Motion Picture (September
1933), Harriet Parsons’ “Behind the Scenes of the Divorce Epidemic” in Modern Screen
(October 1933), Dr. Louis E. Bisch’s “Psycho-Analyzing the Hollywood Divorce Epidemic”
in Screen Book (October 1933), and, on a calmer note, “Secrets of Hollywood Happy
Divorces” by Herbert Howe in The New Movie Magazine (November 1933). On a personal
note, Ruth Biery reported “Carole Lombard Admits the Truth about Her Divorce” in Screen
Play (December 1933).
Between June 1933 and June 1934, The Hollywood Reporter published a series titled
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 “Reviewing the Fan Mags.” Not only did it report on the content of each, but it also recorded
the number of square inches devoted to each studio in each issue. An analysis of these findings
reveals little that is unexpected. Eighteen fan magazines were included in the survey:
Hollywood, Hollywood Mirror, Hollywood Movie Novels, Modern Screen, Motion Picture,
Movie Classic, Movie Mirror, Movies, The New Movie Magazine, Photoplay, Picture
Parade, Picture Play, Screen Book, Screen Play, Screen Romances, Screenland, Shadoplay,
and Silver Screen, some probably on a selective basis.
The most important studio in Hollywood, MGM, had the most coverage in the year, a total
of 75,841 square inches. In second place was Paramount, which most would rate as
Hollywood’s second major studio, with 62,696 square inches. Warner Bros. came third with
39,429 square inches; fourth was RKO with 34,447 square inches. United Artists boasted
15,852 square inches, Universal had 11,008 square inches, and Columbia garnered 6134
square inches. Last came Twentieth Century Pictures, which only entered the list halfway
through the process and had yet to merge with the Fox Film Corporation. It had 2182 square
inches.
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 A 1938 theater exhibitor displays a wall of fan magazine covers. Courtesy of Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The amount of space could often be linked to a specific cause and effect. In July 1933,
Screenland featured ten photographs of Katharine Hepburn, primarily from Morning Glory,
which helped move RKO into second place behind MGM. The latter had the largest amount of
space in the August 1933 issue of Movie Mirror thanks to the fictionalized story of Tugboat
Annie and contract star Lee Tracy’s autobiography. Warner Bros. garnered the most space in
the November issue of Movie Mirror thanks to a story on choreographer Busby Berkeley and a
fictionalization of the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle, Ever in My Heart. Paramount easily gained
the top space in the May 1934 issue of Photoplay with pieces on four of its contract players—
Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, Bing Crosby, and Richard Arlen—as well as an article on
showmen Earl Carroll, then associated with the studio. Universal’s coverage was relatively
low because the studio lot was closed during the first part of 1933.
Some claim the 1920s was the decade in which the fan magazines displayed the most
intelligent coverage of the industry, but there was little to differentiate the 1930s and the 1940s.
The advent of World War II and the more realistic films that ensued had little impact on the fan
magazine reader. She still wanted escapist fare, and the magazines were willing and able to
provide it. What the war did accomplish was to reduce still further the male readership of the
fan magazines. The likes of Photoplay and Modern Screen were read at the hairdresser or
beauty salon, not in an army barracks or aboard a battleship.
The fan magazines had taken note of Hitler not in regard to his anti-Semitism or in horror at
his march into Austria and Czechoslovakia, but rather his infatuation with Marlene Dietrich. In
December 1933, Modern Screen ran a piece by Princess Catherine Radziwill on that theme,
titled “The Strange Case of Hitler and Dietrich.” A similar piece by Dorothy Calhoun
appeared in the January 1934 issue of Motion Picture, with the title “Hitler Demands Return
of German Stars.” Dietrich did not return to Germany, and both Hitler and the fan magazines
got over it.
Prior to America’s entry into World War II, at least one fan magazine, Movie-Radio Guide,
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.

took up the issue of the country’s neutrality with its readers in the summer of 1941. First they
were asked to consider Charles A. Lindbergh and his isolationist policy, and then on August 23
whether they approved of President Roosevelt’s foreign policy. Lindberg and Roosevelt and
the politics of the day received less space than articles devoted to Garbo’s glamour and Cesar
Romero picking Hollywood best dancers.
It was Movie-Radio Guide that also published, on April 5, 1941, an article by Norman
Kerry titled “I Saw the Fall of France.” The piece might be dismissed as one of many on this
major catastrophe for the allied cause except that the author had been a silent screen star, the
leading man in the Lon Chaney vehicle The Phantom of the Opera. In 1939, Kerry had joined
the French Foreign Legion after many years of semi-retirement in Europe.
Benito Mussolini’s propaganda activities came to the attention of Photoplay in September
1941, when he addressed a letter to Deanna Durbin, published in the daily press. The Italian
leader wrote that “in the past we always had a soft spot in our heart for you,” but feared that,
Slide, Anthony. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine : A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers, University Press of Mississippi, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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 like the remainder of American youth, she was now controlled by the president. He implored,
“If you only knew how good and beautiful are the children of Rome and Berlin and how much
poetry there is in the youth of Europe, then you wouldn’t listen to your and our enemies.” While
Photoplay was in the process of obtaining a comment from the star, or concocting one of its
own, H. I. Phillips of the New York Sun replied on her behalf, and Photoplay gladly reprinted
the response on its editorial page. It concluded,
Anyhow, Mister Mussolini, you are not half so sorry about me as I am about you. I know you are unhappy with Adolf. I
know you would rather play in somebody else’s yard.
I’ll bet you would like to be a little boy or girl and come right out and give your honest opinion about Nazism, Hitler and
German aggressiveness. I’ll bet that if you could do it without anybody’s knowing it you would love to go into a movie theater
and boo newsreels of Hitler.
You’re sorry for little girls like me, mister! Well, am I sorry for big boys like you!

There are numerous books dealing with the motion picture and World War II, but one will
look in vain in their pages for references to the fan magazines and the situation in Europe and
the Pacific. It was as if America deliberately ignored what the fan magazines might accomplish
for the war effort. The War Activities Committee of the Motion Picture Industry was created
immediately after the outbreak of the war in order that the screen might most effectively serve
the all-out victory program.15 The editors of The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety were
appointed members of the committee, and there was even a Trade Press Division. The fan
magazines were excluded.
The December 1941 issues of the fan magazines had, of course, already appeared prior to
the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it was not until January or February 1942 that the fan magazines
caught up with the war. The initial coverage was primarily devoted to photographs of movie
stars in uniform. For its August 1942 issue, Photoplay published a cover of the Stars and
Stripes, with photographs of various male stars in the armed forces. Efforts were made to
cover all branches of the military. In February 1942, Photoplay reported on a young contract
player named Peter Ashley, training at California’s March Field air corps base. A two-page
spread in Photoplay (April 1943) featured 120 Hollywood players then in the military, from
Hardie Albright to Lewis Howard. Twentieth Century–Fox production head, Col. Darryl F.
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.

Zanuck, wrote in Photoplay’s June 1943 issue of the war on the North African battle front.
Movie Stars Parade ran a regular “Stars ’n’ Stripes” column, featuring photographs of movie
stars in uniform on furlough. In December 1943, Modern Screen honored a group of young
actors who had joined the Army Air Force, including George Reeves, Edmond O’Brien, and
Ray Middleton, and who had then returned to Hollywood to appear in a screen adaptation of
Moss Hart’s salute to the Force, Winged Victory.
It was not an easy life for a Hollywood actor in the military, as a lengthy article titled “The
Truth about the Stars in Service,” written by “Fearless,” explained in the May 1944 issue of
Photoplay. It was reported that Tony Martin, while in the Navy, was the subject of innuendo
that he had accepted presents from young Navy men whose careers he might influence. Victor
Mature, in the Coast Guard, was assigned to carry the ship’s garbage ashore each day for
disposition. Glenn Ford found it hard to be “one of the guys” after one of his movies was
shown while he was in boot camp. The piece provided a fascinating record of the far-from-
Slide, Anthony. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine : A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers, University Press of Mississippi, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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 easy life in the military for a Hollywood star. “Fearless” lived up to his reputation, as
promised in a January 1941 editorial, of “a writer who disproves the suspicion, which I have
often heard, that motion-picture magazines don’t really print the truth about Hollywood.”

The April 5, 1941, issue of Movie-Radio Guide features a piece by former silent leading man
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.

Norman Kerry on the fall of France.

Hollywood’s most famous conscientious objector, Lew Ayres, was the subject of a critical
but not openly hostile piece in the July 1942 issue of Photoplay by Adele Whitely Fletcher,
titled “The Strange Case of Lew Ayres.” The magazine tried to restore Ayres’ credibility in
June 1945, with a “Letter from Lew Ayres,” writing from the South Pacific to Adela Rogers St.
Johns, discussing his incredible bravery under fire with the medical corps, and asking “only
that you read with an open heart.”
To explain away why many in Hollywood were not in the military, as early as May 1942
Photoplay published a piece by Walter Winchell, titled “Keep ’em Rolling, Hollywood,” in
which the gossip columnist and lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve explained that it
was more important to have the stars making movies to boost morale than donning uniforms.
He wrote of the three days of devastating bombing suffered by the British city of Coventry:

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 The people of Coventry were ripe for any rabble-rouser or government over-thrower. They had buried their dead. They had
gone without milk for their children—without food and without shelter. To them life seemed at an end.
A few days after the bombings, someone dug up a movie from Hollywood. It was shown to the people of Coventry and
other near-by towns night and day for a week, twenty-four hours a day.
It was so funny it made them laugh for ninety minutes, or at least took their minds from their personal misery.
The star was Bob Hope. The picture was The Ghost Busters.

In a similar vein, another newspaper columnist, Ed Sullivan, wrote of “Bob Hope, Hero
without Uniform” in the December 1943 issue of Photoplay. Asked why some stars were not
drafted, in January 1944 Movie Stars Parade explained that many, including Spencer Tracy,
Humphrey Bogart, Walter Pidgeon, and Cary Grant, were over the age limit. Some, including
Don Ameche and Bing Crosby, had Class A dependents. And then there was the 4F brigade:
Mickey Rooney, Orson Welles, Errol Flynn, Laird Cregar, and Sonny Tufts, among others.
Sadly, Movie Stars Parade did not reveal the individual reasons for the 4F label, signifying
their unacceptability for the military.
At least one fan magazine writer did her bit for the armed forces. Myrtle Gebhart
maintained a wartime correspondence with Corporal William Leonard Eury of the Army Air
Force, routinely sending him and his fellow soldiers copies of fan magazines and pin-up
photographs supplied by the studios. Eury, in response, gave his opinion as to some of the
Hollywood stars contributing to the war effort. “John Payne is still a private in the air corps,
and that’s the rarest thing in the army,” he wrote on September 19, 1944. Eury was also highly
critical, noting, in that same letter, “Photoplay spoke of Major James Stewart as being a
‘veteran of 17 combat missions.’ That seems such a small number to be bragging about when
compared to the 50 or more missions which all our boys have to do before they can even hope
to go back home. I do think that some of the writers should be a little more reticent in roof-
topping the awards of the film great, for it really stirs up resentment in the boys.”16
The fan magazines did not ignore those on the home front. As early as September 1940,
Photoplay published a “Code for American Girls,” written by Bette Davis. Based on the
sincere and unpretentious writing style, it seems reasonable to assume that the actress did
indeed author or at the least closely oversee its writing. Davis urged an end to such foolishness
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.

as concern over the length of one’s skirt or the color of one’s lipstick: “I think girls and young
women should be reminded that the world is not coming to an end, that the values that really
count in the long run will not be fundamentally changed. I have little patience with convention
for convention’s sake, but until a better code is generally accepted, the conventional values are
a good guide post to the young.”
The September 1943 cover of Modern Screen pointed out to its readers that “Women at
Work Will Win the War,” with a photograph of Deanna Durbin in nurse’s uniform. In January
1944, Movie Life reminded readers that “Uncle Sam Needs Women in War Work” and featured
a photograph of Judy Garland selling war bonds. Garland was back on the cover of the
December 1944 issue, urging readers to buy Sixth War Loan Bonds at their favorite movie
theater. The July 1944 cover of Photoplay featured just one item, a $100 U.S. savings bond.
Novelist James Hilton, active in Hollywood as a screenwriter, wrote a “Salute to the
Hollywood Canteen” in the November 1943 issue of Photoplay, and the October 1944 issue of
Slide, Anthony. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine : A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers, University Press of Mississippi, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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 Movie Life contained a photo spread of Private Joe Miller, a paratrooper convalescing at
Birmingham Hospital, being entertained by Ellen Drew and Rochelle Hudson.
With the men away, an editorial in the July 1942 issue of Photoplay promised that
Hollywood producers would be casting all- women films. Joan Crawford had persuaded
MGM to allow her to direct a short subject that would be followed by a feature-length
production. Photoplay reported, “Eventually her contract will have her working one-third as
actress and two-thirds as director.” Soon, Lana Turner, Joan Bennett, and Hedy Lamarr would
be starring in parts calling for them to do men’s jobs. “There will be no turning back,”
Photoplay promised. “When the war is won—and there can be no alternative no matter what
the agony—women must go on from this new position. They will bring forth the new
generation, and will share equally in its destinies.” The article read like wonderful feminist
propaganda, and there was not a word of truth to it, although the fault lay more with the film
industry than with Photoplay.
“Are American Women Good Wartime Wives?” asked Kathryn Grayson in Photoplay
(March 1944). A few months later, Ann Sothern wondered “What Kind of Woman Will Your
Man Come Home to?” in Photoplay (November 1944). There was no need for anxiety, the
wives of the Hollywood stars in uniform and their Hollywood fans were ready to welcome
back their loved ones once the conflict was over.
Clark Gable was welcomed back in the December 1945 issue of Modern Screen, “a major
in memory only,” with “his temples a little greyer” and “his appeal very much the same.” That
same month, Clark Gable was also featured by May Mann and Glenn Ford by Richard Steele in
Screen Stars.
Where the fan magazines failed in World War II was in providing the troops with
photographs of pin-up girls. The cover photographs were incredibly austere, lacking in sex
appeal and the leg shots associated with Betty Grable. In Photoplay in 1942 there were head-
and-shoulder shots only, with no skin visible below the neckline. The April 1943 cover
featured an actress with major sex appeal, Veronica Lake, but she shared equal space with a
large black dog, with whom she appeared, if possible, both emotionless and loving. It was not
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.

until June 1943, when Betty Grable was featured, actually showing a hint of cleavage, that the
covers got a little sexier. Modern Screen was somewhat more adventuresome than Photoplay,
and as early as May 1942 it featured a cover of Ann Sheridan in a low-cut evening gown.
During the war years, for the first time some male members of the film community got to
appear on the covers. Frank Sinatra was on the August 1944 cover of Movie Stars Parade.
Movieland featured several male stars: Sonny Tufts (August 1944), Van Johnson (December
1944), Gregory Peck (March 1945), John Hodiak (June 1945), Helmut Dantine (October
1945), and Cornel Wilde (December 1945). What was even more remarkable was that the
covers were not dedicated to the stars in uniform but primarily feature players designated 4F.
One of the most amazing pieces from World War II to be found in the pages of Photoplay
was a January 1945 article by Humphrey Bogart, buried in the middle of the magazine and not
even given a full page to itself, titled “Medal from Hitler.” Here the star wrote, in part,
There are no “superior races.” There are only people who for a time happen to be luckier or better situated than other
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 people.
There are no “inferior races.” There are only people who’ve had bad luck, or poor education, or maybe live in a tough
climate.
For example, there’s no such thing as a “Jewish Race.” There are Negro Jews, there are Chinese Jews. If you believe in
the Jewish religion, you’re a Jew. That’s all there is to it—although the Germans want you to believe differently. . . .
So—if you want to be a German or a Jap stooge, you know how to go about it. Just get out in the street or talk to your
neighbor and preach race prejudice.
Hitler will bless you. Hirohito will applaud you.
In fact, you’ll be a mighty good Jap, a mighty good German.
There’s only one thing you won’t be.
You won’t be a good American.17

With a return to normality after World War II, the fan magazines settled back into what might
be described as the same old regime. There seem to be more photographs than a decade
earlier, with illustrations often intruding into text, which was, of necessity, shortened. Authors
were at times as much writers of photo captions as they were chroniclers of the industry. It has
been claimed, without substantiation, that fan magazine sales rose four hundred percent
between 1931 (which was, of course, the height of the Depression) and 1946, when America
was returning to normalcy. Certainly, verified sales remained high a year after the end of World
War II, with two boasting circulation above a million copies: Modern Screen 1,328,051;
Photoplay 1,002,929; Motion Picture 830,878; Movie Story Magazine 612,176; Movieland
589,191; Screen Guide 587,067; Screen Star 566,942; Screen Romances 519,661; Movie Life
381,097; Movies 370,297; Movie Stars Parade 353,055; and Movie Show 209,751.18
The post-war years were dominated by a new realism in Hollywood filmmaking and the
rise of film noir. Such trends had little if any relevance to the fan magazines that marketed
glamour to a female audience. The new genres in Hollywood were male dominated both on
screen and in the audience. They might be, and were, safely ignored by fan magazine writers
and editors.
One male player who was regularly featured on fan magazine covers in the 1940s and early
1950s was Van Johnson, an MGM studio-manufactured star. He was the idealized, youthful
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.

heartthrob to whom the female readership might relate. Johnson scored twenty-four feature
articles in Photoplay between 1944 and 1954 and six in Movieland between 1944 and 1956,
as well as pieces in Screen Album, Screen Guide, Screenland, and Silver Screen. The two
female stars competing with Van Johnson for coverage in the mid through late 1940s were also
from MGM: June Allyson and Esther Williams. It was even claimed that Motion Picture
would rotate these two on its covers, issue after issue. This is probably an exaggeration, just as
is a claim by June Allyson that she appeared on 2000 covers between 1943 and 1959.19 She
may have posed for as many as fifty-five photographs at one sitting, but that does not
necessarily equate to fifty-five covers.
While discussing the 1940s with Ruth Waterbury in 1972, I described them—to my shame—
as the dead years, the years of Victor Mature. She responded, “Up in the [Louella] Parsons
office, Dorothy Manners, Louella, and myself, we all hated Victor Mature. They’d call up and
say, could we print something on Victor Mature, and Louella said to me, ‘Ruthie?’ And I said,
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 ‘To Hell. Fire me. I’m not going to interview Victor Mature.’ He never could get in the paper. .
. . I think physical beauty has an awful lot to do with it. The Marilyn Monroe era. Here was
this chick came along, and, wow, you got something going for her.”20 For the fan magazines, the
1950s was Marilyn Monroe, and it was much else besides.
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.

Slide, Anthony. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine : A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers, University Press of Mississippi, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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