Joanne Hartstone – The Girl Who Jumped Off the Hollywood Sign

Local girl, actor, writer and producer Joanne Hartstone has written and stars in The Girl Who Jumped Off the Hollywood Sign. As the title suggests, the show focuses on a fictional character Evelyn Margaret Edwards, stage name Evie Edwards, as she teeters atop the H of the infamous Hollywood sign, as she contemplates her life and the string of events that have led her to this point.

Evie may be the creation of Hartstone, but in reality she is based in fact. She could be any one of so many young women that the Hollywood dream factory has enticed, used and discarded in their quest for box office takings. The sad stories that Hartstone has worked into the script are uncomfortable fare. There is Jean Harlow, who had ammonia and chlorine bleach applied to her hair every Sunday to maintain the platinum blonde locks that M.G.M. insisted on. She died aged only 26 and Louis B. Mayer turned her funeral into a public spectacle, profiting from her even in death. Then there is Judy Garland, from a young age confined to a diet of black coffee, chicken soup and uppers and downers by the studio. This was a practice followed for much of her career. Is it any wonder then that she was tormented mentally as she was. Finally, there is the girl who really jumped off the Hollywood sign, Peg Entwhistle. Success on Broadway brought Peg to Hollywood where she was cast in Thirteen Women, which was not released until after her death. Presumably she waited for further castings which were not forthcoming and she plunged to her death from the H of the Hollywood sign in September 1932.

Evie Edwards embodies the naïve perkiness that one can imagine the studios favouring in the 1940’s. But underneath the perky exterior Evie is angry, and she has a lot to be angry about. Raised by a single father, a hard drinking, and gambling, carpenter, she survives the Depression in the St Louis Hooverville, a tent city for those who had lost everything. From there they move to a boarding house, run by a motherly landlady who instils a love of music and song in Evie. Eventually her father lands a job in Los Angeles working for Howard Hughes, and Evie now aged 18, tags along. She finds solace from her grim upbringing in the reflection of the silver screen and saves her dimes to be able to see her heroines on the screen.

Keen to break into movies herself, Evie finds the courage to front up to the M.G.M. studio in search of work. She picks up a job as a messenger and is also assigned as a junior hostess to the Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen, under the watchful eye of Bette Davis. But try as she might she cannot get the break she’s looking for. Mourning the loss of father in a shooting at a bar, she makes one last ditch effort to attract the attention of a studio.

Tom Kitney’s simple set consists of the top half of the H of the Hollywood sign. Evie perches precariously telling her tale of woe, of not having the “it” factor, of being too fat, too flat, too unnoticeable. Talent doesn’t come into it.  Kitney cleverly uses lighting to bring Evie off the sign to act out flashbacks. She looks beautiful, neither too fat or too flat, but stunning with her hair in victory rolls and dressed in black, a dress that would be suitable for a funeral or a dance number, one that “belonged to Hollywood vamp”, Theda Bara. The show is a hit parade of the 1940s and Hartstone sings each and every one with flair. Close your eyes and it could be Garland.

Even though Evie’s story harks back to the 1940’s, we are left questioning how much has really changed in the dream factory that is Hollywood, that is the movie industry. Clearly exploitation was rife then, but recent events have shown us that women are still ruthlessly exploited by those in power. And in an industry that relies on image will it ever be able to transcend the demands of casting people based on how they look, rather than how talented they are?

Jenny Fewster

More Adelaide Cabaret Festival reviews