Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, October 1921 · page 28 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #25 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains **gossip and satirical commentary about 1920s Hollywood figures**, not a cartoon. The content targets: **Hope Hampton**: A silent film actress criticized for demanding formal address ("Miss Hampton") from studio workers—satirizing emerging star ego and celebrity entitlement during early Hollywood's rapid growth. **Governor Miller reference**: Appears to mock newspaper editors' defiance of censorship attempts, suggesting they challenge authority figures to censor them too. **Theda Bara**: The famous "vamp" actress whose screen persona (seductress) contrasted sharply with her intelligent, charming real personality—the satire notes she "wrote like a fool and talked like an angel" (inverting the Goldsmith quip), highlighting the gap between Hollywood image and reality. The piece satirizes **celebrity pretension, early film industry power dynamics, and the constructed nature of movie star personas** during Hollywood's silent era. The tone is gossipy but relatively affectionate toward Bara while mocking Hampton's newfound dignity.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
26 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang It is practically a defi on the part of the Metropolitan daily papers, who say in effect to Governor Miller, "Why don't you try censor-ing us, too?" And now we are on the subject of Hope Hampton, they tell me that, although a really nice little girl, Hope has begun to feel her dig-nity. Not long ago, at her picture studio two electricians were fixing an overhead light. One of them, looking down upon the set, said, "Now we've got it right. It's right above her head." Whereupon the lovely young star stared up-ward with a cold and terrible stare: "Where do you get that stuff, 'her'?" she demanded. "When you are talking about me, say 'Miss Hampton.' " There are alarming rumors that Hope is go-ing onto the stage along with the other movie stars who are headed furiously in that direc-tion. On the other hand, Theda Bara, to counter-balance the exodus, is going back to the screen again. Personally I quiver with excitement waiting to find out if T'eda is going to be a vamp on the screen again. She's a queer girl—T'eda. It used to be said of Oliver Goldsmith that he wrote like an angel and talked like a fool. Just the other way with T'eda. Personally she is one of the most charming women I ever met. She has brains, wit, phi-losophy, humor and concentration. She is a bril-liant conversationalist. I once heard her talk with a dramatist, renowned for his brilliant conversation, and the silver-tongued genius had