nostalgic
Carole Lombard's past as a Mack Sennett girl was known to just about every movie fan; years later, that slapstick experience would pay off when Lombard became a legend of screwball comedy. Not that Carole ever made any attempt to hide it -- being a Sennett bathing beauty was a mark of distinction, even during Lombard's time there in the late 1920s when the silent comedy master was on the decline. For beauty and sex appeal, Sennett alumnae were deemed the movie equivalent of Broadway's fabled Follies girls. (The above pic shows Lombard, third from right, with photographer Luther Cobbs.)
This was the angle Motion Picture sought in its May 1932 issue when it queried the whereabouts of Sennett swim girls of the past. But before you came across that story, you saw this image of Carole:
OK, so we're supposed to compare and contrast that to what we see on page 30. It actually ran on page 31, and it's a portrait of Sennett-era Carole I've never seen before:
Damn.
Now that Lombard has elicited that reaction, let's look at the story:
Some, like Lombard and Gloria Swanson, became stars. Others didn't, but earned comfortable lives by marrying successful men both in and out of the film industry. Still others had far less fortunate fates. One who was mentioned, Marie Prevost, had been a considerable star in the '20s, but her career was already on the wane in 1932. She would land a supporting role in Carole's 1935 comedy "Hands Across The Table"...
...but would be dead less than five years after this piece was written.
