reat Photos: Adolphe Menjou

[marcelo]

[marcelo]

[uppercase]

[Daedalus]

[Frederic Leighton]

[quote="In "It Took Nine Tailors" (1948), Menjou"]Mr. Sheer, it seemed, was sending a company of actors to Florida to shoot a picture. They were to leave in a few days. He looked me over carefully. I twirled my mustache and exposed my profile. He wasn't sure, but Miss Collins persisted. I was just the type. Finally Mr. Sheer got down to business. Did I have a wardrobe?

I owned exactly two suits, but I assured Mr. Sheers that I had a complete wardrobe.

"Tails?"
"Naturally."
"Cutaway?"
"But of course."
"Sport clothes?"
"Certainly."
"The salary is seventy-five a week," said Mr Sheer. "Report to my office at ten o'clock on Tuesday morning."

[...] On Monday I arrived in New York with four dollars in cash and no wardrobe. The only thing I had that could be converted into cash was a diamond ring Father had given me on my twenty-first birthday. I went to Simpson's hock shop and pawned my ring for sixty-five dollars.

Next I rented a room opposite the Astor Hotel for four-fifty a week--in advance. Then I went to Monroe's (walk up one flight and save ten dollars) and ordered a full dress and cutaway. They fixed me up in twenty minutes. The collar of the cutaway was too large, so it made me look like a curious turtle, and the sleeves of the dress coat were a little too long; but I had a wardrobe.

I had not only a wardrobe but also a little over six dollars left. In those days six dollars in my pocket always seemed like twice as much as I needed, so I decided to call up a girl with whom I was madly in love to shoot the six dollars. The first one was busy, but the second one was not. I donned my full-dress clothes and took her to "The Birth of a Nation", which had just opened on Broadway. It was a great mistake, because the picture was so terrific that I never once thought of holding hands.[/quote]

See also here.

[Tutumulut]

Dear Frederic

What a wonderful story! I couldn't stop laughing at so many points.

He seems like a great raconteur. I must confess, he would not be a role model, elegant as he may be, but reading this little tale makes me want to read the book.

Thank you very much for sharing.

T

[Frederic Leighton]

About this time I finished A Social Celebrity, which Mai St. Clair had directed. To celebrate the occasion we went to Jaekel's and ordered fur-lined overcoats with fur collars priced at $750 each. This was a sort of wish fulfillment for me. From the time I had been a small boy I had always remembered that the big stars who dined at my father's restaurants in Cleveland had always worn fur-lined overcoats. Now that my name was in lights on Broadway I felt that it was definitely time to blossom forth in a fur-lined overcoat with a big fur collar.

The coats Mai and I purchased were magnificent; they were productions; they must have weighed twenty pounds and would have served for an Arctic expedition. Although we had ordered the coats to face the rigors of New York weather, the day on which they were finally finished was quite warm. Nevertheless, when we stopped at Jaekei's to try on the coats, I decided to wear mine. After all, I had waited quite a number of years to own a
fur-lined overcoat, and now that I had it I wanted to wear it regardless of the weather.

Not to be outdone, Mai wore his, too. As we started up Fifth Avenue we began to perspire freely and to attract attention. First people would turn to see what madmen were wearing fur coats on a day as balmy as spring; then they would recognize me.

"It's Menjou— it's Adolphe Menjou!" we heard them stage-whispering.

"Satisfied customers," I told Mai. "They've just seen Menjou in costume."

We couldn't have attracted more stares if we had walked up the Avenue in bathing suits. In Hollywood, where people were used to queer sights, nobody would have paid much attention to us; but on Fifth Avenue we were a sensation.

We had a date for luncheon at a speak-easy— a place called Moriarity's. By the time we arrived there the coats weighed a ton. We wanted to get rid of them but we hesitated to entrust them to the checkroom, so we went into a huddle to discuss the situation. After all, this place was operating illegally; at any moment it was likely to be raided by prohibition agents. If that happened, our coats might be in serious jeopardy.

"You're an authority on clothes," said Mai. "Is it proper to wear a fur-lined overcoat into a speak-easy dining room?"

" Only," I assured him, " when it is not covered by insurance." So we took our coats with us to the dining room just in case we needed to make a fast getaway.

Clothes have always had a wonderful influence on my physical well-being as well as my self-assurance. All I have to do to make me feel like a new and younger man is to order three new suits of clothes. My fur-lined overcoat gave me such a glow of health that very shortly after acquiring it I was able to enjoy the hazards of a Gargantuan studio cocktail party without a single twinge of pain.

[Luca]

I think I shall order the book...