Actress Bites Press by Carole Lombard

We’ve covered Carole’s week as a press agent on this site before but here is another article she wrote describing the wacky week to Picturegoer Magazine for their August 20, 1938 issue:

FOR the life of me, I can’t see why my week as a press agent should have stirred up any unusual comment.

Motion picture star turns press agent! Lombard dishes out publicity! Actress bites press!

That gives you an idea of the reaction. It is all a trifle deflating. I got more attention as a press agent than I did in a year as an actress.

Yet, who ever heard of a headline, “Star attends story conference!” or “Actress sold on pink party-dress, wardrobe conference discloses!” or “Lombard make-up conference brings demand for new face cream!” Well, then why “Star turns press agent!”?

The answer, I suppose, is that it hadn’t ever been done before, or so I’m told. No reason why it shouldn’t have been. Publicity and exploitation are just as important to a star as any other department, and, having always believed that, I took the time to do a little bit of press work myself.

I had a desk, four telephones, two secretaries, a fire-bell and a siren there in my office at the Selznick International news bureau. The fire-bell was for the secretaries- they’re such sound sleepers. The siren was for Selznick- draw your own conclusions.

All kidding aside, however, it was a full week’s work, not a gag. On my first day I did my best to locate by telephone the Duke of Windsor, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, Margaret Mitchell, Maude Adams, and H.G. Wells. I wanted to ask them what they thought of the casting of Norma Shearer and Clark Gable for Gone With The Wind.

Their reactions would have made a swell feature story- if I could have found them.

I got calls from London newspapers, and fortunately had a story for them. I slaved all week on my own picture, Made For Each Other, and on the Janet Gaynor-Douglas Faribanks, Paulette Goddard picture The Young At Heart.

Gene Fowler, as a re-write man, came up with a couple good ideas, and James Stewart, whom I drafted into the position of “leg man” did as well as could be expected for his first journey into the realm of publicity.

He was rapidly becoming headline-conscious by the time our week was up. Fowler came through with the week’s top idea, not a publicity story at that, but for a picture.

He is writing a story about a go-getting a woman press agent, a film that will be to publicity what The Front Page was to journalism and is calling it Life Kicks Up It’s Heels.

They made me mayor of Culver City in honour of the week, which gave me a chance to declare last Saturday a holiday for all Selznick International employees.

The main idea was to get a day off, and it nearly worked.

The week is ended, and I’ve turned the reins back to Russell Birdwell at Selznick’s news bureau. He carries on from here, while I go back to where I belong. Whether Lombard, the press agent, was a success is for others to say.

All I know is this; an offer came from another studio by wire. “Come to work for us and we’ll top by 15 dollars a week anything you’re getting there. Your copy is better than Birdwell’s.”

If you’d like to learn more about Carole’s week as a press agent you can read the letter she wrote to Walter Winchell by clicking here >>