“He was really articulate, and he is really known for his good looks” was probably the most charming situation she told you. At one point, recalling a break up page he’d composed because they was basically courting, she known your as “the latest monster.”
“She are really happy with where she had got that have Freddie,” Alice Lassally tells me, “nevertheless wasn’t a very good wedding. It actually was brand of an arrangement, really. The guy was not pretty good to help you the girl. One-day, before her, he told you, ‘We never had a better housekeeper.’ I wanted to destroy your. However, I believe they desired to visit all Movie industry people, and so they expected one another for those occasions.”
Your believed a tiny stung, as you have been bringing it 1 / 2 of-positively, but he previously the incredible capacity to insult your about kindest fashion and excersice
Freddie was considered an affable charmer throughout the presence of a celebrity otherwise a v.I.P., but with underlings however inevitably get acerbic. “He loved to skirt some body off,” states Zehme. “You don’t feel forgotten from it. It actually was just like a good [Don] Rickles effect.” Janet and additionally had a-sharp language, so when two these were known as the squabbling Bickersons, a reference to men and you will girlfriend when you look at the a good 1940s broadcast reveal, played of the Wear Ameche and Frances Langford. “There can be a greatest Hollywood story on the subject assaulting,” claims Alice Lassally. “Whenever Jack Benny try to the their deathbed, several close friends attained during the household and you can was in fact seated downstairs about living room area, waiting for they to occur. ong him or her, as well as were assaulting the entire go out up until it left. Moments after, brand new Bennys’ de- on the steps and told you, ‘Jack is finished.’ The latest witty playwright Leonard Gershe replied, ‘And you can, thank God, so might be the fresh new de Cordovas.’”
Janet Thomas found its way to Movie industry off Kentucky in the early 1940s. “She had been brand of an orphan, elevated, together with her cousin, of the a cousin, and not well-off, but she is a petite blonde and you may a good knockout that have an excellent southern drawl,” told you Dunne, adding, “a style girl, who sought out in order to Movie industry to make it when you look at the reveal organization however, had a great deal farther just like the a type of highest-driven lady friend and you may wife.” Considering Janet, after a few months when you look at the Los angeles, since the a beneficial-searching 20-year-old, fresh out of Centre College, from inside the Danville, Kentucky, she went on the Fox parcel, generated the woman way to casting manager Thomas Moore’s office, and you may requested a display sample.
“It absolutely was new terrible screen test in the history of Movie industry,” she told me. “It place me personally in the a good Betty Grable outfit which have terrible hair and you can makeup.” Sooner or later, however, it lead to a contract within Vital. Due to the fact an upbeat starlet-whom wound up never ever while making a movie-Janet is observed by the strong hearsay columnist Hedda Hopper. “She lay myself in her own column and you may discussed me personally to the the woman radio tell you,” Janet told you, quoting of thoughts: “ ‘Consensus regarding opinion is that the gorgeous lady within people was more youthful blond Janet Thomas,’ and in the future Hedda constantly referred to myself since the ‘Hollywood’s most breathtaking blonde.’ Which had been little armenia style of a pain on butt for Lana Turner in addition to remainder of them. And never just real, but that is how it went.”
And she had one
Dollar Henry, who was simply students from the Harvard College to possess Males inside Los angeles, and you may who had a summertime work just like the a beneficial gofer at stars Charles Farrell and you can Ralph Bellamy’s Racquet Bar, in the Palm Springs, recalled from inside the a story he wrote to have Interviews mag throughout the Movie industry during The second world war, “The brand new prettiest woman in your community was Janet Thomas, today the fresh partner away from Freddie de- Cordova. … She used a brave black colored you to definitely-part swimsuit cut in a v shape-up the leading, resulting in … gents to gasp and you will nothing boys to remember it forty five many years after.”