“He was most articulate, and he is really recognized for his appearance” try the most endearing topic she told you. On one point, recalling a break up letter he had authored while they was courting, she described your once the “brand new beast.”
“She was extremely pleased with where she got landed having Freddie,” Alice Lassally tells me, “it wasn’t a good relationship. It had been brand of a plan, most. The guy wasn’t decent to their. Eventually, before this lady, he said, ‘I never had a better housekeeper.’ I needed so you can kill him. However, I believe it desired to go to most of the Movie industry parties, as well as expected one another for these era.”
Freddie is regarded as a keen affable charmer in the presence of a superstar or a v.We.P., but with underlings he’d invariably get acerbic. “He treasured to help you dress someone off,” claims Zehme. “You didn’t feel destroyed by using it. It was almost like good [Don] Rickles impact.” Janet also got a-sharp tongue, so that as one or two these were referred to as squabbling Bickersons, a reference to a person and you can spouse inside a great 1940s broadcast tell you, starred by the Wear Ameche and you will Frances Langford. “Discover a popular Movie industry tale on the subject assaulting,” states Alice Lassally. “When Jack Benny is actually into the their deathbed, a group of close friends attained at the home and you may had been seated downstairs regarding family room, looking forward to it to take place. ong him or her, and additionally they had been assaulting the entire time up until they leftover. Moments later, the fresh Bennys’ de on the staircase and you may told you, ‘Jack is gone.’ The fresh new amusing playwright Leonard Gershe answered, ‘And, give thanks to Jesus, so are brand new de- Cordovas.’”
Janet Thomas found its way to Movie industry from Kentucky in the early 1940s. “She is variety of a keen orphan, raised, along with her brother, from the a brother, and never well off, but she are a petite blonde and you may good knockout having a good southern area drawl,” told you Dunne, adding, “a glamour lady, just who went out so you’re able to Hollywood to really make it inside the inform you business however, had much farther just like the a variety of higher-driven girlfriend and wife.” Predicated on Janet, after a couple of months within the La, because the an excellent-searching 20-year-dated, new out-of Centre University, in Danville, Kentucky, she moved onto the Fox parcel, generated the girl answer to casting movie director Thomas Moore’s workplace, and asked for a display try.
“It had been the worst screen-test about reputation of Hollywood,” she told me. “It set me within the a Betty Grable dress which have dreadful hair and you may make-up.” Eventually, yet not, they contributed to an agreement at the Vital. Due to the fact an upbeat starlet-whom finished up never ever and also make a film-Janet is actually observed from the strong gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. “She set me inside her line and you will chatted about me for the their radio inform you,” Janet said, quoting away from memories: “ ‘Consensus off advice is the fact that the most breathtaking lady during the team try more youthful blonde Janet Thomas,’ and you will from that point on Hedda usually known me just like the ‘Hollywood’s most breathtaking blond.’ That has been form of a soreness on ass getting Lana Turner plus the remainder of him or her. And not precisely real, but that is how it went.”
Buck Henry, who had been a student from the Harvard University for Boys for the Los angeles, and that has a summer time occupations due to the fact good gofer within stars Charles Farrell and Ralph Bellamy’s Racquet Bar, when you look at the Palm Springs, recalled from inside the a story he typed getting Interview magazine about Movie industry menchats through the The second world war, “The new prettiest woman in your neighborhood is Janet Thomas, now the fresh new spouse regarding Freddie de Cordova. … She wore a fearless black you to definitely-part swimwear cut-in a-v shape-up leading, leading to … gents in order to gasp and absolutely nothing guys to consider it 45 many years later.”