Hollywood's Crier

Cinemactors with an urge to rough it build their homes and swimming pools amid the rocks and woods of Hollywood Hills, an area just north of Hollywood. There, deer, skunks, possum and even rattlesnakes are often seen. To complete the illusion of country life, almost everybody in Hollywood Hills reads the Canyon Crier (circ. 6,500), a fortnightly tabloid which one admirer calls "a New Yorker with its shoes off." For its pheasant-under-glass audience, the homey Crier dishes up an oatmeal fare. It treats everybody in Hollywood Hills as if they were small-town neighbors. The Crier reports their most trivial doings at home--and treats Reader Charlie Chaplin the same as his postman--and it pointedly ignores their outside accomplishments. When a subscriber wins an Academy Award, it isn't news for the Crier. But when Reader Irene Dunne traps a skunk in her house, it is. The Crier is a success because it is a slick Hollywood make-believe of a country newspaper.

Last week the owner and editor, Norman Rose, 36, celebrated by bringing out his fifth-anniversary edition. An ex-scriptwriter for M.G.M., Rose has a one-man editorial staff: his wife Betsy, once his assistant at M.G.M. Rose, a World War II veteran who didn't want to get back into the Hollywood rat race, bought the Crier for less than $1,800, when it had a mere 1,800 circulation and was losing money. He went out soliciting subscriptions and ads while Betsy did most of the reporting and writing. Now the Crier yields Norman and Betsy Rose a tidy profit of almost $10,000 a year.

Flatlanders & Hillsiders. A Crier touch of satire is its tongue-in-cheek division of the world into "Hillsiders" (the residents of Hollywood Hills) and "Flatlanders" (everybody else). Rose occasionally uses the nicknames to needle racial intolerance. Sample: "Flatlanders are O.K., but how would you like your sister to marry one?"

Like any country editors, the Roses have plenty of problems dumped on their doorstep. One night Editor Rose got routed out of bed by Screenwriter Les River, who wailed that an automobile had killed his cat, leaving her four nursing kittens starving. Rose found a foster mother. Now the cat-loving James Masons oblige in such emergencies. When the noise of gravel trucks disturbed the home rehearsals of Cinemactress Elsa Lanchester (Mrs. Charles Laughton), Rose persuaded the truckers to change their hours. In last week's storm, the Crier sprang into action, helped to set up an aid station complete with registered nurse and hot coffee, organized work crews.

Rattlers & Possums. The Crier reports births ("Who's New") and marriages, but no divorces. It prints no scandal, no matter what troubles Hillsiders get into "outside," but their other troubles are often Page One news. Last week Humphrey Bogart and wife Lauren Bacall talked of a frequent worry of Hillsiders--forest fires ("If there was a fire I'd probably get everybody and jump in the pool"), rattlesnakes ("We find five or six [every] year"), and the high cost of gentleman farming ("Our eggs cost $2 apiece"). And when he talked of possums, Bogey's eyes positively glittered. Snarled he: "I shoot possums. They'd suck eggs."

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