Life, 1926-09-09 · page 24 of 40
Life — September 9, 1926 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"The Gay Nineties" cartoon** depicts a 1890s scene where a man's necktie has slipped upward from its moorings, creating amusement among onlookers. The joke is period-specific: in the 1890s, men wore neckwear attached to the collar differently than modern ties, making such mishaps possible and embarrassing—a sight for mockery. **"The Fan-Magazine Editor Goes Crazy"** satirizes both Hollywood's film industry and the fan magazines that promoted it. The piece parodies breathless publicity copy about starlets, ridiculing the fantastical narratives studios created: a girl claims poverty, works in a chocolate factory, yet somehow becomes a famous actress earning enormous sums. The satire mocks the absurdity of these fabricated success stories and the fan magazines' credulous promotion of them. Robert Lord's byline suggests this is credited commentary on Hollywood's myth-making machinery and the gullibility it exploited.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Gay Nineties “BETTER SELL THAT TIE, NEWT; IT'LL NEVER GET ANY HIGHER!” CHIRPED THE SMART CRACKER OF THE BOD MOORINGS ON THE MOTTY NINE’ BACK COLLAR BUTTON 1ES WHEN SOMEBODY'S NECKWEAR SLIPPED ITS AND STARTED UPWARD ON A TOUR OF ADVENTURE. The Fan-Magazine Editor Goes Crazy “just a simple, unspoiled schoolgirl in spite of her twenty thousand dollars a week during those days of discouragement and poverty when she walked the strects of Hollywood from one studio to another and as she sat before her chocolate-dipping machine in the factory she said to herself, ‘I will become a famous ter!’ and now, although unable to read or write, she sometimes gets as much a hundred thousand dollars . case burnished golden by the light from the elaborate cut-glass chandelier came the great Albanian directorial my advice to all you girls ambitious to succeed in the movies is to practice fa mirror, read Shakespe: al expression before a large nd go to bed early and in y the famous seri villain is never happier than at home with his wife and e children to get that ‘ascinating golden glint in the hair use a saturated solu- tion of strychnine hydrochloride and pork fter the shampoo his favorite relaxations are kelly pool, -jumping and table-tipping while they build a hundred-room house on their cozy estate in Beverly Hills.” Robert Lord. ASUGAR daddy has to give his baby many a lump sum. comicbooks.com