• Mood: nostalgic

Carole 'covered' in 'Boxoffice'

One way to measure Carole Lombard's impact upon Hollywood -- both during her life and posthumously -- is to examine her (generally favorable) treatment in the press. And I've discovered one press outlet that adds an angle most of us outside the "industry" aren't familiar with.

It's Boxoffice magazine, a publication designed for motion picture exhibitors (unlike others in the trade such as the Hollywood Reporter or Variety, which covered a wide variety of entertainment venues). A weekly for many years, it is now a monthly; it originally was named "Box Office," but eventually evolved into a one-word title.

A check of its online index reveals nearly 600 references to Lombard dating back to the early 1930s. (That includes a few dealing with the "Gable And Lombard" film of the mid-1970s.) We'll examine some of them in ensuing weeks, but first, I thought we'd begin with a few Lombard appearances on the magazine's cover.

As is common with many trade publications, for many years the cover of Boxoffice was an advertisement, and Paramount deigned to give Lombard that honor at least twice. First, here she is alongside Fred MacMurray on Oct. 26, 1935, promoting their upcoming "Hands Across The Table":



Lombard and MacMurray returned the following May 23 for their new comedic collaboration, "The Princess Comes Across":



Another Lombard film with MacMurray, "True Confession," was promoted on the cover of the Dec. 4, 1937 issue -- curiously without a picture of Carole:



Lombard's contract with Paramount had expired, and obviously the studio thus believed it was more important to hype the movie and not the star.