March 14, 1932

TALLULAH BANKHEAD DENIES ENGAGEMENT

Los Angeles, March 13 (UP)
“Ridiculous!” said Tallulah Bankhead today when she was questioned about reports she was to marry Joel McCrea of Hollywood.
“I’ve only met the man once,” the screen star added.
Reports of an impending engagement of Miss Bankhead and McCrea were published in London today.




JOAN BENNETT OF FILMS TO BECOME SCENARIST’S BRIDE

Los Angeles, March 14
Wedding bells will ring out soon for Joan Bennett, film actress, and Gene Markey, film writer.
Their wedding has been tentatively set for Wednesday. It will be held here, they said.

The couple declared their intention to wed Friday when they applied for their license with the county clerk’s office.
Miss Bennett, a member of the well known stage and screen Bennett family, gave her age as 22. Markey said he was 36.

The youngest daughter of Richard Bennett, actor, Joan Bennett first married in England in 1926, at the age of 16, to John Marion Fox, young California millionaire. They were divorced in 1928. They had one child, Adrienne.

Miss Bennett and Markey first met at the home of Constance Bennett. She is one of the youngest stars in Hollywood and her husband-to-be is known as one of the most highly-paid scenario writers.




MARY NOLAN THREATENS SUICIDE

Hollywood, March 14 (US)
Mary Nolan, the former Imogene Wilson of the Follies, player her greatest role today; played it to an audience of two persons – a lawyer and a newspaper reporter.

In this one-woman drama she tore open ruthlessly the closed chapters of her past and there stood exposed a human soul.

Discussing the 30-day jail term imposed upon her by Municipal Judge Clement D. Nye as the aftermath of a number of wage claims against the actress and her husband, Wallace T. Macrery, she said:

“You may see my body on a slab in the county morgue, but you’ll never see me in jail.
“I’ll kill myself before going to jail for a debt I did not incur, and a debt that has already been paid.”
“I’m on bond now while the case is being appealed, but if it is decided against me I’ll ask a stay of 24 hours.
There is something very important I will want to do during that period of time… after that I would kill myself.
Life isn’t worth living again after looking out at it through the bars of a cell.”

Mary joined the chorus of the Follies at 14. She recalled:
“It was then I met and fell in love with Frank Tinney, a comedian and genius.”

CAN’T EXPLAIN

“I can’t explain it all… no one would understand or care. I just loved him.”
It was this romance, in 1924, which sent the famed Tinny to oblivion, Inogene Wilson to Germany to emerge as Mary Nolan, and Mrs. Tinney into the divorce courts.
“Where is Tinney now?”

Miss Nolan said:
“He’s partially paralyzed and that great voice with which he used to thrill thousands at the Follies is dimmed to almost a whisper.
He’s living with his father – on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

"I dropped by to see him not long ago.
I found him in a nearby park refereeing a marble game for a bunch of little boys. I stood and watched him… bent and paralyzed.”




FILM ACTOR SUED

Los Angeles, March 13 (AP)
A suit on file here against Robert Montgomery, film actor, charges that he failed to repay $300 lent him in New York in October, 1927, to help him enter the profession of actor. The claimant is Day Tuttle, manger of several little theaters in New York.




DIVORCE GRANTED SCREEN PLAYER

Los Angeles, Mar. 14 (AP)
A divorce was granted today to William B. Davidson, stage and screen player, from Mrs. Helen Davidson, New York religious worker, who, Davidson said, ridiculed his profession and accused him of being lazy because he remained an actor.
Mrs. Davidson, he said, was formerly secretary to an Episcopal bishop at Long Island and is now secretary to the chief exectutive of the Seaman’s Institution in New York.
“She told me she would rather see me a ditch digger than an actor,” Davidson testified. “I replied I could be an actor and still be a he-man. Then we separated.”


From Luella O. Parsons:




Los Angeles, March 14
Mexico is doing its best to have a Spanish Hollywood. Antonio Moreno was the first to direct a picture and it went over so well that the Nacional Film company is arranging to produce another. Negotiations are on with Antonio Moreno to direct. This time George Lewis will be the star.

He has been making the George O’Brien pictures in Spanish for Fox and, since he is very good looking, he is highly acceptable to the Mexicans. Don Alvarado has been at Agua Caliente over a week now, working for another Mexican company. Since there is so much grief attached to making foreign versions I don’t believe Mexico will get an argument from the Hollywood producers.


There is a deadly race between three companies to see who gets a Washington story first. There’s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with “The Claw,” to be adapted by Samuel Blythe. There’s Columbia with “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” and there’s Warner Brothers with “The Dark Horse,” starring Warren William.



Miles Connelly, formerly of Radio pictures studio, will act as supervisor for Columbia on “Merry-Go-Round,” and Eugene Thackery, formerly connected with the Hoover presidential administration, is already on the Columba lot giving the benefit of his experience. This picture will go into production in 10 days. A hurry up job. Many of the scenes will be made in Washington. “The Claw” will be filmed in Washington and that, too, I understand, is under way. Well, competition is the life of trade.




Things are humming at the Columbia studios. Every night the midnight oil is burning while Harry Cohn and Walter Wanger get together and make plans. The latest plan centers around a production to be called War Correspondent. I thought at first in view of several biographical efforts, Columbia might be immortalizing Floyd Gibbons, but we are told this is any war correspondent, with Jack Holt as the hero.



A radio deal of mammoth proportions is under way between one of the big companies with Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper as the stars.




Elissa Landi received air-mail the first copies of her new book, “House For Sale.” This is about her fourth or fifth book and they tell me she shows real literary talent.




Someone remarked the other day that Gene Markey’s Mercedes has been on the Fox lot so much every one began to think it was a prop. Well, next week when he and Joan are married we won’t think so much about it.




The military stride of Col. Tim McCoy is once more seen on the boulevards in Hollywood. He is back from his ranch in Wyoming and he’s got a new job. The colonel will be starred in “The Riding Kid” for Columbia. He was lamenting a few months ago that he couldn’t get a job anywhere, but since westerns are back among us again his troubles are probably over. At any rate, he has a job with Columbia.




Mary Duncan is on the Fox lot, having a test made. Sorta like old times.




Buster Keaton’s St. Bernard dog, Elmer, is missing again. He is the wanderingest dog in Beverly Hills.




Edna May Oliver keeps her youth and beauty by swimming in the ocean every day.



Erich Von Stroheim is out of the hospital where he had a cyst removed. He had the job done so he could emote opposite Greta Garbo.




Marilyn Miller has taken up knitting. She is making a sweater between dancing lessons.




Kay Francis is wearing dark glasses. Not to disguise herself, but because of an injury to her eye.