Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, August 1921 · page 48 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #23 — page 48: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* (a 1920s satirical magazine) discusses Hollywood social scandals, specifically gossiping about an actor named Lloyd and two women—Mildred and Bebe (likely referring to silent film stars, though specific identities aren't confirmed here). The satire mocks: 1. **Hollywood excess**: Wild parties among film industry figures, though the writer notes high society participates equally 2. **Social hypocrisy**: "Fashion and pictures" circles attempting to exclude "plebeian element" (working-class people) from their parties to contain gossip 3. **Loose morality**: References to drunkenness and scandalous behavior among young actresses and socialites 4. **Gossip culture**: The inevitability that indiscretions become public knowledge on "the lot" (film studio grounds) The piece satirizes both Hollywood's reputation for permissiveness and the pretensions of its elite circles trying to maintain exclusivity while engaging in the same wild behavior they fear being gossiped about.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
46 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang naturally those who watch the picture hurdy-gurdy wonder whether Lloyd is stronger for Mildred than for Bebe. Either young lady, so far as appearances are concerned, would go a lot further and not meet up with a more promising gentleman, though marriage may be furthest from the mind of the trio. These youngsters work hard and have to attend pretty much to business. The wild parties still prevail though they are getting a little more exclusive. People are chosen who don't have a reputation for bringing up reminders the next morning of everything that happened. This is a good idea. Every girl who got drunk the night before discovered before noon next day that everyone on the lot had heard about it. In our references to Hollywood and Los Angeles society, we don't wish to be accused of laying everything to the picture people. Far from it. The high society bunch sets a faster pace if anything. One of the wildest orgies ever attempted in this hectic community occurred recently in the vicinity of Elizabeth Lake, a distance of some 80 miles from Los Angeles. It seems that the sacred inner circles of fashion and pictures found that the ground was being trampled upon too much by the plebeian element and that the ensuing gossip often ended