In the Flesh

Far from Hollywood, two dozen movie stars were hard at work last week at a booming cinema sideline: the personal-appearance tour. Braving the clothes-tugging of fans and the baying of autograph hounds, seven- stars had journeyed to London to show themselves at this week's Royal Film Performance. O'nce disdained as a last resort of the screen's has-beens, personal appearances have grown into a multi-million-dollar studio campaign to pep up a sluggish box office. Hollywood has learned that a star in the flesh can fatten a cinemansion's receipts by as much as 40%.

Vaudeville & Rodeo. Setting the touring pace is Bob Hope, whose travels combine good will with handsome personal profit. In the last year, carrying along a band and a bill of vaudeville acts, Comedian Hope has covered 50,000 air miles, 65 cities, collected $1,000,000 from more than 750,000 wide-eyed fans. Cowboy Star Gene Autry spends almost six months a year on money-making one-night stands and rodeo appearances. Recently Jane Russell proved in a 30,000-mile trip that Britain and the Continent will also pay well for a close look at the real thing. (Said the London Times: "She is not shy . . . about her publicity's remarkable claims, knowing full well that none of them is false.")

But most personal-appearance tours are sponsored by the studios, who pay the stars their regular salaries, plus expenses, to plug their latest pictures. In New York, to tout Pinky and Everybody Does It, Jeanne Grain, William Lundigan, Ethel Waters and Paul Douglas were whisked onto the stages of 23 neighborhood theaters in three evenings. Al Jolson, who only two years ago turned down $40,000 for a week's engagement in Manhattan, has been appearing without pay for months as a living trailer for Jolson Sings Again. (His incentive: 40% of the film's profits.)

Horseback & Hospital. When a star combines high sex appeal with low resistance to the demands of press-agents, she works all the harder. For The Girl from Jones Beach, Virginia Mayo put in appearances at ten towns on Long Island's south shore, with receptions by civic dignitaries at every stop. For the opening of Colorado Territory in Denver, she had to ride horseback to the theater through a heavy downpour. ("How," pleaded Virginia, "do you put the top up on a horse?") On the way to Denver, press-agents stopped her train so that she could leave the comfort of her compartment to act as "guest engineer" in the cab.

Sometimes the hazards are greater. Lucille Ball once had to walk off a Chicago stage when hooligans shouting in the balcony began to get too personal. On his way to make a movie in England, Robert Taylor found two bobby-soxers under his stateroom bed on the Mauretania. As a fledgling of 21, making his first tour, William Holden suffered hotel-room invasions by voracious women. In 1946, at London's first Royal Film Performance, a Hollywood contingent headed by Ray Milland touched off a mob scene that sent three fans to the hospital and 100 to first-aid stations.

But despite the risks, the expense and the wear & tear on its most precious commodities, Hollywood is convinced that the personal-appearance tour is here to stay--at least until the box office flourishes again. Explained a press-agent last week: -"You can't just let your product go into a theater casually any more."

-Greer Garson, Rosalind Russell, Ann Sothern, Errol Flynn, George Murphy, Gregory Peck, Walter Pidgeon.

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