Hollywood Comes to Lawrence - 1940

     Much to the delight of Mary Grace, Hollywood came to Kansas in the spring of her junior year of high school, April 1940 to be precise. She was 16 and talked her mother into letting her skip school for the day and go to Lawrence with her for the festivities. In Lawrence they hoped to see Walter Pidgeon, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Gabby Hayes, etc.


From her scrapbook about her visit to the Hotel Eldridge:

My mother and I talked with the National Guard at the elevator for several minutes. I expressed my desire to see one movie star up close and he let us go upstairs at the Hotel Eldridge at Lawrence, Kans. He turned to my mother and said, “Which floor?”

Mother stammered around that she didn't know.

He said “they’re on second, third and fourth,” out of the corner of his mouth.

Then “third floor.”

We didn't hesitate and were on the elevator in a minute. We got so pushed around that we couldn't get off till the fourth floor We rode up feeling like something somewhere between the Queen of England and Shirley Temple. Alighting on the fourth floor, we looked around for a movie star and seeing nothing but ordinary mortals like ourselves inquired of a waitress and found they were resting.

We walked around the corner and bingo into a fat man we ran, just a trifle drunk.

“What floor am I on?” he asked.

“Fourth,” we answered.

“Wrong floor,” and he ran down the stairs.

Finding no one that looked important, we followed our friend to the third floor.

Walter Pidgeon in the parade
at Lawrence.

As soon as we reached the third floor, our friend came up and inquired what floor he was on. We replied third. He said wrong floor and went to second. We found third to be quite a floor.

Around the corner we go and bingo again we almost ran into Gabby Hayes. He was pacing the floor looking very depressed, smoking a cigarette. I was very much afraid he would put his beard on fire. He paced up and down about ten times then went into his rooms. We felt now we had seen one star we must see another so asked another waitress and she told us to go down as far as we could down in the hall and we would find Gene Autry’s and Walter Pidgeon’s rooms.

So we go. The waitress outside Gene Autry was quite flustered when we got there. She was arguing with some people outside his door telling them they could not go in. They informed her that they were his parents so she didn't argue any further.

Autographs of Walter Pidgeon, John Wayne & Gene Autry

The door behind us opened. We turned around and there was Walter Pidgeon’s head sticking out of the door. He very obligingly signed his autograph on the back of the telephone bill. Which incidentally will be reported to be lost this month. Having reached our peak here we departed for the second floor. Again we meet our friend and again he is on the wrong floor. But this time he wanted to give us his autograph so he also writes on the telephone bill much to my sorrow because from what we could read he was the secretary to a secretary. June Sotery then entered the picture, taps on Wendy Barris door and went in, lucky dog.

The movie, Dark Command, was based, although only so slightly, on Quantrill's raid on Lawrence in 1863. And to honor and celebrate the film, a set featuring the Hotel Eldridge was built in Lawrence's South Park and then set on fire, albeit Hollywood style fire so nothing actually burned.

Mary Grace's photo of
the burning of Lawrence-1940.

    According to one of synopsis of the film on the website imbd, Quantrill played by Walter Pidgeon and called Cantrell was upset that a Texan, John Wayne, had beaten him in an election to be Marshall. Upset by this defeat Cantrell, a well respected school teacher, steals Wayne's girlfriend and burns the town down. According to one clipping in the scrapbook, eventually Cantrell's mother kills him. The oddest part, although, the film's treatment of the raid that killed more than 160 people is all odd, is that it is set before the Civil War.