Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, December 1924 · page 54 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #67 — page 54: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a gossip column from *Whiz-Bang* (November 1, 1924) chronicling Hollywood scandals. It contains no cartoon—just text reporting on silent film stars' romantic entanglements. The column documents love triangles among actors: Claire Windsor and Bert Lytell's relationship troubles (complicated by Lytell's escort of French dancer "Peaches" Chalfonte); Fritzi Ridgeway's mysterious disappearance with an unnamed Russian lover; and the beginning of an anecdote about actress Pola Negri. The satire targets Hollywood's shallow celebrity culture and the public's appetite for scandalous gossip. References to "joy palaces" and romantic drama emphasize the era's association of Hollywood with moral permissiveness. The gossipy, breathless tone itself mocks both the subjects and readers' fascination with their private lives. This reflects 1920s anxieties about cinema's influence on morality and celebrity worship.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
[Farmyard Fun and Filosofy] Girls, Broadway's No Place For a Lonesome Sweetheart Hollywood, Nov. 1, 1924. CLAIRE WINDSOR, they say, has a hard time choosing between her many suitors. She came out west recently and left Bert Lytell alone and unprotected in big New York. Bert roused Claire's interest anew by escorting "Peaches" Chalfonte, a beautiful French dancer, about among the joy palaces. News of this sort travels pretty fast, so when Bert did go west, he was greeted at the train by the beautiful Claire and one long and affectionate kiss. * * * Nobody knows where Fritzi Ridgeway has gone! She returned to California, completing her Orpheum tour, gathered in a divorce decree, and beat it for parts unknown. A mysterious Russian, with whom Fritzi is enamored, can't be located either. * * * WE heard a funny one up in Santa Barbara the other day. According to the story, Pola Negri was visiting at one of the mansions in that exclusive colony recently and some one gave a beautiful dinner party in her honor. Two gentlemen, who were a trifle late, =[49]=