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When a man and woman fall in love, they ought to get married. That's what everybody excpected movie stars used to say. Now even movie stars are saying it.

The way Hollywood used to operate, stars were allowed to fall in love the same as other people--but half the time they had to do it secretly. The press agents kept throwing a mental hazard at them.

"All the world loves a lover, sure," the publicity men would say, "as long as the romance has glamour. Love anybody you please, but be careful with whom you're seen in public. And don't marry anybody. Not at least till you've consulted us and your public."

You'll never know how many romances that thought has killed. Hollywood's hall of memories is littered from the corpses of marriages-that-might-have-been. Marriages that didn’t happen because they didn't have all the elements of glamour. Marriages that were forbidden by fear of what the public might think.

Now comes the revolution. Stars at the peak of their popularity are daring to fall in love, right out in the open, with people the press agents never would have picked for them. They're suddenly marrying without consulting the public. They're beginning to behave as if love is more important than glamour. And if you don't think that's revolutionary, you don't know Hollywood.

consider the case of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. They're tow bright people. As such, they know what their screen appeal is. Clark has put himself across as a restless he-man, and adventurer who resists until the last reel the idea of a settled life. Carole has put herself across as a fiery glamour girl, hard to get. They know that if they married, large portions of their audiences wouldn't be able to forget that he was Lombard's contented husband and she was Gable's willing wife. Yet the first day they had free after Ria Langham Gable gave Clark a divorce, off they raced to Kingman, Arizona, and a justice of the peace.

The wedding wasn't promoted by press agents. In fact, all through the three years that led up to that elopement, press agents did nothing but insist that, despite appearances, Clark and Carole were not in love; they were merely good pals."

Considering how often they start fake romance rumors to encourage talk about players, you might wonder why publicity departments refused to admit even the possibility of a Gable-Lombard romance. Here was a golden opportunity to link the name of one top-flight star with another. Why didn't they seize the opportunities? Why did they try to discourage columnists and reporters from suggesting that here was a love match?

It wasn't that their respective studios thought that Clark and Carole weren't suited to each other. A blind beggar could see that they were. It wasn't that their studios were afraid the fans didn't want either of them romantically involved with anyone. It was just that the romance lacked the ideal ingredients for glamour.

Clark still had a wife, even though they were living apart. Carole hadn't been the cause of the separation. She and Clark had made a picture together some time before, NO MAN OF HER OWN. They hadn't agreed too well as co-stars. It was at a party months after his separation from his wife, that they had really first become interested in each other. But rumor had it that Mrs. Gable, bitter about the separation, wouldn't give him a divorce, wouldn't set him free to marry anyone else. Not, anyway, until he had made a property settlement that would take him years to accumulate--if his stardom lasted that long. Whether or not that rumor was true, the press agents weren't tailing any chances of a breach of promise suite, even one without any foundation. The headlines might ruin two stars' careers.

That was why their studios tried to discourage the romance. That was why you never read any official confirmation anywhere of a single romance rumor. That was why neither of them ever mentioned the other in an interview.

If ever the Fates frowned on a romance, they frowned on this one. That Clark and Carole are married today is proof that in the new Hollywood, love is more important than glamour.

Then there is the case of Nelson Eddy. Up to the very day that Jeanette MacDonald married Gene Raymond, Nelson's most worshipful fans--and no star's fans are more worshipful than his--didn't see how he could fail to win her off the screen, as he did on. They couldn't believe that Nelson and Jeanette were just interested in each other professionally.

When she married Gene, they were positive that Nelson, underneath his smile, was hiding a broken heart. They commiserated with him. They were happy, for his sake, that he and his mother were such devoted companions. They hastened to assure him of their own imperishable devotion. His unsought sympathizers left no doubt that, deep down i their hearts, they rejoiced that he still was single and would remain single now for the rest of his Hollywood days.

Embarrassed, Mr. Eddy didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. And he looked with deep suspicion upon any interviewers who asked him to talk about love. What were they truing to do--get him in wrong with his fans?

If Nelson had left them, the press agents would have coupled his name with a tasty variety of feminine stars. But he wouldn't let them. His fans heard of that and applauded. And when they read the first rumors linking him with Ann Franklin, ex-wife of Director Sidney Franklin, they branded them as the spiteful spoutings of gossip mongers.

Nelson didn't deny the rumors--but he didn't confirm them either. Perhaps he hadn't fallen in love at that time. The press agents took time out to pooh-pooh them. To inquisitive reporters, they pointed out that while Ann Franklin was a highly intelligent person and as such would be companionable to Nelson, she wasn't a singer and she had a teen-age son. In short, she wasn't the ideal mate for Nelson Eddy, movie star.

Despite what the press agents thought and what his fans might possibly think, Nelson eloped with her last January. Love won out over glamour.

That's the way with Tyrone Power.

When Tyrone entered films, nothing mattered but his career. Anything that would further it was agreeable to him. The press agents recommended a "romance" Sonja Henie, another newcomer for whom they had high hopes. There was definite appeal in the picture of two ambitious youngsters walking arm in arm toward the heights. When the illusion of a pulsating romance became a bit hard to sustain, they had him court Loretta Young--beautiful and gifted at warmly glowing looks of love. The next strategy called for him to alternate between the girlish naivete of Sonja and the glamorous sophistication of Loretta. Triangles always interest headline writers, and headlining readers.

Then, quite on his own, Tyrone discovered Janet Gaynor who combined girlishness with agents. Or rather, his independence did. They tried to tell him that he should be going with someone nearer his own age. He redoubled his attentions to Janet. She couldn't reciprocate in kind, not being goaded by rebellion as he was. Which of them called the whole thing off, no one seems to know. Perhaps they both did.

Anyway, making SUEZ, he was free again to go through the motions of falling in love. Only this time he really fell. Annabella was another girlish sophisticate, but animated. The studio tried immediately to break it up. She was older than he was ; she had a child 8 or 9 years old by her first husband and she was married now to a French actor.

He wouldn't stop being seen with her. What he did want to mask his emotions when they were together. No one suspected how true the few romance rumors were until Annabella, who had gone abroad "for a holiday," suited for divorce in Paris. But Tyrone made no move to join her abroad. He started for South America on vacation trip. Secretly, of course, he was heading for a rendezvous with Annabella in Rio de Janeiro.

Tyrone came back form the meeting to a stormy session with his bosses. They were determined to marry Annabella. He won the first skirmish. She wasn't sent over to the British studio as they had planned. She stayed in Hollywood. The studio hoped that would be enough to make him happy. It wasn't. He couldn't be happy until he had bought a house and married the girl.

Marriage probably doesn't add to his glamour. But what does glamour matter, compared with love?

That's the question that Robert Taylor also has been asking himself, and answering just one way--for almost three years. He has been marriage minded that long. He isn't the one who has postponed his wedding with Barbara Stanwyck. She's the one.

When Barbara came into his life, all the other romance rumors had to go out of it. He was emphatic about that. The press agents all but wept. The more varied the romance rumors were, the more romantic is reputation became. Fans wanted to think of him as someone girls were fighting over. They didn't want to think of him as promised to any one girl, especially one older than he was.

Early in the romance, Bob convinced himself that he would be happy for keeps with Barbara as his wife. He has spent all this time convincing her. She wanted to see his popularity secure; something based on performances, not just romantic appeal ; something marriage wouldn't drastically affect. She knew how sensitive he was about having won fame on looks and she was afraid of what might happen to him inside if he lost his career--perhaps by marrying--before he had proved himself an actor. She wanted him to give his interest in her lengthy time-test before taking such a monumental step as marriage. She wanted to give him time to find someone else if he would be happier with someone else.

With a girl like that on his mind, you can't blame Bob for wanting marriage--no matter what it cost in glamour.

Hedy Lamarr basks in the title of Glamour Girl No. 1--but she wasn't thinking of how to hang on to her title when she eloped to Mexicali last March with Gene Markey.

After ALGIERS, she became, in public consciousness, Hollywood's supreme personification of a dream girl: beautiful, exotic, elusive. According to all the rules Hollywood used to follow, her cue was to create an impression of being just as beautiful off-screen, just as exotic and--just as elusive. For a while, it looked as if nothing could keep her from abiding by the rules. No one could complain that she wasn't beautiful or exotic. By ditching Reginald Gardiner, she ditched the public impression that any one man could fascinate her. She started going out with such glamorous men about town as Robert Ritchie and Willis Goldbeck. Then Gene Markey, who had become a man about town again since his divorce from Joan Bennett, asked for a date. And what happened? All of Hedy's intentions to be the super glamour girl went up the flue.

No one man could fascinate her? Well, Gene fascinated her--even though he was 19 years older than she was. And whereas it had taken her 23 years to become "the most glamorous girl in the world," it didn't take her much more than five weeks to become Mrs. Gene Markey.

When love came along, glamour got the go-by.

Ronald Colman spent years building up a reputation as a hermit--a man who fascinated women on the screen, yet made no attempt to do so off the screen. He was disinterested. Writers by the gross tried to find the explanation and when they couldn't dig it out of Ronnie, they offered some possible (and fanciful) explanation all their own. Now it would seem that the most logical explanation is that Ronnie was concentrating on building up his own particular brand of glamour. He forgot all about it when Benita Hume met his eye. You should see him now. Not only is he a genial husband; he's a playful one. Among other things, he rumbas.

And consider the years that Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. spent it established a reputation as a gay young cosmopolite who loved lightly or not at all. After the failure of his early marriage to Joan Crawford, he seemed intent on building up a defense mechanism against romantic entanglements.

Then along came Mary Lee Epling Hartford, pretty young socialite divorcee. She didn't pretend to be a glamour girl. Perhaps that was what put him off his guard. Anyway, if his guard he went--and the next thing anybody knew, he was a married man. Not so glamorous as when he was blithe bachelor. But ten times happier.

Who ever would have thought, Hollywood being Hollywood, that love could ever take the place of glamour? But that, believe it or not, is what's happening. Hollywood is beginning to share the rest of the world's sentiment: When a man and woman fall in love, they ought to get married.

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