Joan Finds Moving No Easy Work; She Loses Shoes, Keys, Finds Her Piano Too Big; Talks in "Op" to Doug, Jr.

Originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times, September 28, 1928

Looking for Joan Crawford?

This way, please, and be sure to peer cautiously behind every stray packing case, moving van and whatnot because Joan is moving   ….  and how!

Yes, our red-haired heroine who is appearing in "Four Walls" at Loew's State Theater has deserted her own four walls in Beverly Hills in favor of a bit of old Spain tucked snugly away in the hills of Brentwood.

Most of the moving process took place upon a memorable Wednesday last week and had you happened along Roxbury Drive on this particular day you would have felt a certain static in the air ... backed up by the appearance of a young lady with a mop of tousled red hair running in and out of a Moorish bungalow followed by an equally tousled and excited young man carrying large boxes containing everything from shoes to a trio of unconcerned Persian pussy-cats.

In fact this young gentleman, familiarly referred to as Doug Fairbanks, Jr., was a most important member of the moving party. He took complete charge of the more delicate bits of furnishing to ensure their protection, helped load the van, took orders and gave them!

Idle moments were rare, but there were a few and in them Doug and Joan took the opportunity to indulge in the very latest form of pig-latin . . . known to high-school youngsters as the Op language.

To try and explain it would be futile . . . where two such seemingly sensible young people learned it is a mystery! To the ear it sounds like a combination of the proverbial "mouthful of mush" and a serious speech impediment, but the results were seemingly soothing to the conversants.

If one can judge from facial expressions "moving" is a word not to be found in the Op dictionary, whereas those such as moonlight, roses, dream castles, etc., are abundant.

After each Op session, however, the two began work with new enthusiasm, Doug to the van and Joan to the telephone where she did her best to convince various and sundry piano moving establishments that swinging a grand piano from a balcony, a la block-and-tackle route, was just as simple as taking a stick of candy from a 2-year-old.

It was noon before she finally found a piano mover who actually moved pianos and spoke English ... a rare combination.

It would seem that moving day is a hectic period in anyone's life, but in Joan's. . . .

There were beds too big for doors; keys that were lost; cloches that were misplaced. Doug loaded one box with Joan's shoes four times before he had the shoe-shelf cleared.

Ten minutes later, after they were buried safely beneath two mattresses and five Persian rugs, Joan awoke to the fact that she had no shoes to wear, a fact that meant two things, unpacking the van or doing without!

An old pair of tennis shoes found in an obscure corner of a closet, solved the problem beautifully.  .  . luckily for everyone!

In the midst of all this, how-ever, she had little time to think of her new picture, "Andrienne Lacoubreur," which, incidentally, will mark her first starring venture. [My note: This movie became Dream of Love; Joan's character was "Adrienne Lecouvreur."] It was almost 2 o'clock before she finally realized that she had made a rather vague appointment at the studio for 12!

But such is the moving day of a movie star!

"Opus, mopus. copus, flo-pus. . . ."

Something to this effect floated in through an open window and Joan thrilled back an appropriate answer.

This one meant “Should Doug ride her bicycle from the garage into the moving van?”

And since Doug was shortly seen doing just that we judge the answer was “yes.”

[Thanks to Norman for this article.]