March 31, 1932

PRINCIPALS IN TRIANGLE SUIT SILENT

Claire Windsor, Screen Star, And Mrs. Read Decline To Talk;

Broker Hides

Oakland, Cal., Mar. 31
All three principals in the alleged “triangle” which resulted in a $100,000 alienation suit against Claire Windsor, stage and screen star, being filed by Mrs. Marian Y. Read, young Oakland society woman, maintained silence today.

That is Miss Windsor and Mrs. Read did – and Alfred C. Read, Jr., young broker and alleged “cause of it all,” could not be found.

Mrs. Read remained in seclusion at the home of her mother, Mrs. James Young, 211 Athol avenue, and declined comment on either her alienation suit against Miss Windsor or the divorce action against her husband, which preceded it by a few days. She said she had been advised by her attorney to say nothing – yet.

NOTHING TO ADD

Miss Windsor, appearing with Al Jolson in a stage production in Los Angeles, also said nothing. Yesterday she declared herself “flabbergasted” by Mrs. Read’s action.

Efforts were being made to serve her with a summons in the suit and attorneys for Mrs. Read said that if they were unsuccessful in Los Angeles, an attempt would be made to serve the actress when she arrives in San Francisco Sunday for an engagement of the Jolson production.

CAN’T BE FOUND

Read, whose offices are in San Francisco, could not be located there and was reported to be in Los Angeles. But he could not be found at any of the principal hotels there, either.

Mrs. Read’s complaint, filed in the superior court here late Monday, charges that her husband met Miss Windsor last September and “began running around with her” immediately. It further alleges that the actress “enticed” the young broker from his home.




GRETA NISSEN AND HEYBURN MARRIED

Hollywood, Cal., Mar. 31 (AP)
Weldon Heyburn and Greta Nissen, both of the screen, were back in Hollywood today following their marriage yesterday afternoon in Tia Juana, Mexico.




ACTRESS WILL PAY $468 FOR CLOTHES

Los Angeles, Mar. 31 (UP)
Out of her salary, now held under attachment, Laura Hope Crews, stage and screen actress, will pay a bill of $468 for clothes, her attorney said in stipulating for a judgment against her which was on record today.




FILM DIRECTOR FACES CHARGES

Los Angeles, Cal., Mar. 31 (AP)
Edwin Carewe, one of the most famous of the film directors, has been indicted on four accounts for evasion of his income tax, federal officials disclosed today.




From Luella O. Parsons:

Los Angeles, Mar. 31
Oh, dear, I get all tangled up over Paramount’s “Crooner” and Warner Brothers’ Rian James picture “Crooners.” Both stories deal with a popular crooner on the radio and each company is trying to get a Bing Crosby or a Rudy Vallee to play – or shall I say, croon – the part.

Paramount expects to sign Bing Crosby, radio favorite, to-day or Friday. You know what Bing’s popularity is throughout the country. If you don’t then you don’t know your radio.

As for Rudy Vallee for Warners’ picture, “Crooners,” well, that is still up for discussion.




Six months ago our most energetic Hollywood producers were looking for Swedish actresses on Greta Garbo’s type and German frauleins with Marlene Dietrich’s beauty. The style has suddenly switched to English actresses. Without any apparent reason the vogue seems to be for these English gals with cultivated diction.

Carl Laemmle, Jr. returns with a glint in his eye. He has signed Margaret Lindsey, young English actress who appeared in “Death Takes a Holiday.” If she is half as good as Junior believes we will be hearing of her next year. Unfortunately, only a few newcomers do become headliners.

William Daly, young stage actor, also has been signed and that isn’t the half of it. Junior returns with the screen rights to “Harlem,” a negro stage play, “Counselor at Law” and “The Prison Doctor.”




A new face on the United Artists lot, Al Rogell, well known director, has been signed to direct Eddie Cantor in “The Kid From Spain.”

Eddie starts work immediately, but work or no work he has promised to appear April 9 at a benefit for the Los Angeles Sanitarium to be held at Universal City. Mrs. Sadie Harper, sister of Jack Warner, is chairman of the entertainment committee and she sets great store by the fact that the popular Eddie will be master of ceremonies. It’s a good cause, too.




Clara Bow mentioned in passing the other day that now that friend-husband is working she isn’t in any hurry to get back into harness. Rex Bell, said friend-husband, has been signed by Trem Carr to make eight Western features for Monogram release. Strange as it may seem, Clara has married a man who is perfectly willing to let her sit home by the fire while he works, a nice lad, this Rex Bell, a real person and one who can do much for Clara if she will let him.

Snapshots of Hollywood:



Betty Blythe, back from the ranch where she has been hibernating for a year or more, was looking stunning in black at the Brown Derby.

Raquel Torres was dancing with Charlie Feldman and seeming to enjoy it at the Frolics. Carole Lombard and William Powell also at the Frolics. Carole seems to care for Bill and it looks as if he is going to continue to keep steady company with her.




From Wood Soanes:

In these competitive days vaudeville and a large group of Hollywood’s screen players are finding each other mutually profitable.

Salaries are generously reported for publicity’s sake, but Jack Cooper, youthful screen star who goes on tour April 9, undoubted will top the list with an announced $7000 a week. Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay are said to have received $10,000 for a short run in the east, and large salaries are reported in other directions.

When the talkies began to arrive they hurt the big circuits. They would take a vaudeville star and show him doing his song and dance in a hundred or more theaters in one night. Now vaudeville is providing handsome recompense to many players who are no longer in demand in motion pictures. Others are slipping but still have a “personal appearance” audience.

Harry Weber, a well-known agent, discussed the matter in Hollywood the other day and said that there are twenty-two weeks work available in the major cities with about sixty additional weeks in smaller towns, and at smaller salaries. Many stars are taking five and six weeks’ work between pictures.

William Powell and Richard Barthelmess are toying with the idea. Victor McLaglen is rehearsing an act and so is Hobart Bosworth.

Already in vaudeville are Sue Carol and Nick Stuart; James Hall; Esther Ralston; Fifi Dorsay; Irene Rich; Louise Fazenda and Jean Harlow.

Others on tour include Belle Bennett, Daphne Pollard, Tom Moore, Alice Joyce, Rosetta Duncan, Leon Janney, Harry Langdon, Lita Grey Chaplin, Conrad Nagel, George Stone and Blanche Sweet.




Mack Sennett has selected the title “Hypnotized” as the title of his fifteen reel road show feature… And there is a rumor in Hollywood that a group of stars who happen to be “between contracts,” so to speak, are banding together for a cooperative venture in the films.




Karen Morely, who has been improving each shining hour in the talkies since she started work, is to have another chance opposite Warner Baxter in “Man About Town.”




Will Rogers is preparing to start work on “Down to Earth” at the Fox studios also.




Columbia studios have re-opened after being closed for eight weeks. They start with Edmund Lowe in “Criminal Court” and Walter Huston in “Faith” and plan twenty-four more pictures this year.


“State’s Attorney” is being made again at Radio. It was postponed to await John Barrymore’s recovery from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Helen Twelvetrees has the feminine lead and George Archainbaud is directing.


Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack who were responsible for many fine nature pictures are to be reunited as a team at Radio when they go to work on “The Most Dangerous Game,” a film version of the Richard Connell story. The yarn is ranked as one of the world’s best short stories. Cooper and Schoedsack will be remembered for “Chang,” “Grass,” and “Four Feathers.”




Kay Francis and William Powell will be team mates in “The Jewel Robbery,” which was done on the stage by Mary Ellis and Basil Sydney.




Lionel Barrymore has been signed to a new contract by M-G-M following his work as Kringelein in “Grand Hotel.” The picture is ready for release as soon as some of the Garbo scenes are re-taken.




Adrienne Allen, latest English actress to try her luck in American movies, arrived here today and will assume a leading role with Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney in “Merrily We Go to Hell.”

Miss Allen, a slender blonde, has been successful in London and Broadway stage productions, and has been signed to a contract by Paramount.




‘ARROWSMITH’ WITH COLMAN

Helen Hayes, Richard Bennett in Cast of Drama Based on Sinclair Lewis’ Story

“Arrowsmith,” by Sinclair Lewis, the only American novelist to win a Nobel prize, comes as a motion picture to the State theater tomorrow, with Ronald Colman playing the title role of the crusading young doctor.

Helen Hayes, the stage star who recently triumphed in her first screen appearance in “The Sin of Madelon Claudet,” plays opposite Colman in the role of the devoted wife who risks her life for her husband’s career.

Richard Bennett, the stormy petrel of the stage and the father of Constance, Joan and Barbara Bennett, has a major role as Sondelius, the plague-fighting Swede, and A. E. Anson, an eminent stage figure making his motion picture debut, has another rich character role. Myrna Loy, Charles King, Alec B. Francis, and David Landau take important parts.

“Arrowsmith” is the story of one man’s devotion and ambition in the battle of humanity against the death-dealing plagues which have always been the scourge of mankind. It sweeps from mid-western countryside to a tropical island in the West Indies, where young Dr. Arrowsmith and his colleagues go to battle against the black death. His relations with the little nurse he marries as a struggling country doctor, continuing throughout the picture, weave a broad current of romance through its stirring scenes.




AMERICAN TRAGEDY ON NATIONAL SCREEN

“An American Tragedy,” which opens at the National Theater today, is the story of a boy, lonesome and confused, who seizes his first chance at love, only to feel it become a lodestone which keeps him from real love and his opportunity to satisfy his youthful ambitions.

In desperation he tries to free himself of the first girl, and involves himself in a series of events from which he is powerless to escape.

Phillips Holmes has the leading role, with Sylvia Sidney and Frances Dee carrying the two important feminine roles.

Saturday will bring Tom Tyler in “The Man From Death Valley,” and chapter two of the serieal “The Vanishing Legion.” Starting Saturday, two children, if they are not over 12 years old, will be admitted on one ten-cent ticket between 12:45 and 1:45 P. M. every Saturday.

March 30, 1932

SCREEN ACTRESS DEFENDANT IN ALIENATION SUIT

Oakland, Cal. Mar. 30 (AP)
Claire Windsor, Hollywood motion picture beauty, to-day was accused of stealing the affections of Alfred C. Read, Jr., stock broker, in a suit filed by Mrs. Marian Y. Read, who asks $100,000 in damages.

In the complaint Mrs. Read charges her husband met Miss Windsor last September and “almost immediately began running around with her.” She accuses Miss Windsor of enticing him away from his home and that the actress associated with him in public. She declined to amplify the charges in the complaint.

“I could tell plenty,” she said, “but on advice of my attorney I can say nothing at this time. It’ll all come out in court.”

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles where she is appearing with Al Jolson in a stage performance, “Wonder Bar,” Miss Windsor was “flabbergasted, or floundered – or something” at the action because “she couldn’t understand why all this fuss was made about only knowing Mr. Read.”

She said Jolson’s manager introduced her to Read.

The suit against the actress was the second filed by Mrs. Read within a week. A few days ago she asked for a divorce from the broker, charging cruelty and that Read associated with other women. She is asking adequate alimony and custody of their two children, Alfred James, 2 years old, and Mary, 10 months. The Reads were married at a civil ceremony in 1927 and again at a Piedmont church wedding in 1928.





WEDDING PLANS GO ASTRAY

Hollywood, Cal., Mar. 30 (AP)
The scheduled wedding plans of Greta Nissen and Weldon Heyburn went astray to-day and so did the couple. The film players, who announced last night they would fly to Tijuana, Mexico to-day for a wedding, were not aboard the air line ship when it left a Glendale Airport this morning. Friends surmised they probably left Hollywood by automobile and would turn up husband and wife at some out-of-the-way point.

The couple’s romance began when the two met as members of the cast of “The Silent Witness,” a recent picture. One sequence called for Heyburn to choke the Norwegian actress. Miss Nissen declared she developed a fondness for Heyburn the first time they rehearsed the choking.

Both were formerly of the stage. It will be the first marriage for each.

Miss Nissen, whose real name is Grethe Fuzi-Nissen, is a native of Oslo, Norway. Her recent pictures include “Women of All Nations,” “Transatlantic,” and “The Silent Witness.”

Heyburn is a native of Selma, Ala., and the son of Col. Wyatt C. Franks of the United States army. He attended the University of Alabama and later George Washington University where he was graduated. He came to Hollywood from the stage last August and has important parts in a number of pictures.


TIFFANY HALTS MOVIES FROM USING FIRM NAME

New York, March 29 (AP)
Tiffany and Company, Fifth Avenue jewelers, today obtained from Supreme Court Justice Edward S. Dore, a permanent injunction restraining Tiffany Productions Inc., motion picture producers, from using the name of “Tiffany.”

The suit disclosed that the jewelry firm, established in 1837, had done business amounting to more than $350,000,000 in the last 40 years.



From Luella O. Parsons:




Los Angeles, Mar. 30
Sari Maritza has been in Hollywood so long without making a picture Paramount will have to start exploiting her all over again. She has become almost a myth now. Perhaps that it’s appropriate then that her initial picture should be “Cloudy With Showers,” for the play, like Miss Maritza, has been in the family for months without anything being done about it.

Roland Young, who sailed away to make a picture in London and who is due back here in June, will play opposite Miss Maritza. At the time Paramount bought “Cloudy With Showers,” it was intended for Fredric March and Claudette Colbert.

Probably Young and Maritza will be a better combination. Certainly Young will be very good as the master who is brought into compromising situations through no fault of his own.




Several of our best known scenario writers have changed their studio addresses the last week. Jules Furthman, well known writer of Marlene Dietrich plays, George Bancroft dramas, etc., has moved his typewriter to Columbia.

Arthur Caesar, local wit and popular with all the newspaper crowd, is at Paramount. Ben W. Levy, well known New York writer, and James Bernard Fagen, are also new on the Paramount writing staff.

Malcolm Stuart Boylan and Harvey Gates have also gone Paramount with contracts ‘n’ everything.

Sam Hoffenstein is writing the adaptation of “The Sign of the Cross.” This struck me as good for a laugh. Hoffenstein, who belongs to the ultra-sophisticated crowd and who wrote “poems in praise of practically nothing” is the last person we would imagine Cecil de Mille would appoint for this job.




The bewildering answer to fans’ demands that Clara Bow play “The Red Headed Woman,” is that Miss Bow has never been on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.

“The Red Headed Woman” is apparently not as much in Miss Bow’s thoughts as it is in the minds of the public. I have never known so many letters to demand that one person play a part. I don’t see how M-G-M, in view of this, could have the platinum blonde, Jean Harlow, make the picture. If they cannot get Clara, at least the heroine should have red hair.

Miss Bow is now negotiating with the National Broadcasting company to do a series of radio talks. The deal is all but closed. I’d like to see her make a picture first. But when has there been a time that Clara hasn’t managed things her own way?




One of the unsolved mysteries of Hollywood is Kay Johnson’s failure to click after her appearance in “Dynamite” and other pictures. She started out with a bang, but for some unknown reason she has never seemed to get back where she started.

She plays opposite Walter Huston in “Faith” and I am told it’s a good part with a fine cast. Pat O’Brien also has an important role and Jeanne Woolins – oh pardon me – I mean Jeanne Sorel, will be introduced to the movies in this picture.

Who's Who This Week In Pictures

Of the many South Americans who have made conspicuous careers in motion pictures, Lupe Velez of Mexico is one of the most successful. The very titles of the pictures in which she has starred – “Hell Harbor,” “Tiger Rose,” “The Storm,” “Lady of the Pavements” – indicate her tempestuous temperament.

In “The Broken Wing,” at the Paramount theater, she is the heroine of the action and passion, typical Lupe Velez.

Her real name is Guadalupe Villalobos, and she was born at San Luis Potosi on July 18, 1909. Her father was a Mexican Army officer. From her mother, who was an opera singer, she inherited her taste for the dramatic. As a child she danced and sang Mexican folk songs.

When she was 15 she played in the musical comedy “Rataplan” and was “discovered” by Hollywood scouts. She has since appeared in such productions as “Stand and Deliver,” “Wolf Song” (with Gary Cooper), “The Gaucho” (with Douglas Fairbanks), “Where East Is West” (with Lon Chaney), “Resurrection,” “The Squaw Man” and “The Cuban Love Song” (with Lawrence Tibbett).




Another player in the same photoplay is Leo Carrillo. He comes of Spanish stock, but his family has lived for generations in California. He enjoyed a good education, but did not care much about “settling down.”

For some years he was a cartoonist on The San Francisco Examiner, and then he went on the stage. He has played many important parts in stock and other theatrical productions, but finally he found himself in the movies.

Among the pictures in which he took leading parts were “The Girl From Rio,” “Hell Bound,” “The Homicide Squad,” “Lasca of the Rio Grande” and “The Guilty Generation.”

His best remembered part on the “legitimate” stage was in “Lombardi, Ltd.”




“The Broken Wing” also has in its cast Melvyn Douglas, a native of Macon, Ga. He will be remembered from his motion picture debut in “Tonight or Never,” when he played opposite Gloria Swanson, and in “Prestige.”

Mr. Douglas was in stock productions at Chicago, Madison, Evansville, Sioux City, Columbus, Cleveland and Detroit before coming to the New York stage.




In “Girl Crazy,” which is to be presented at the Mayfair Theater, there are Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey and Mitzi Green.




Mr. Wheeler was born at Paterson, N. J. He began in a humble way as “prop” boy and “bit” player in stock companies. He drifted into vaudeville and at the age of 20 he was a headliner on the old circuits. His first important appearance as a comedian was in Ziegfeld’s “Rio Rita,” with Robert Woolsey. His first motion picture was in the screen adaptation of the same musical comedy hit. He has appeared in eight comedy films.




Mr. Woolsey, whose cinematographic career is almost parallel with that of Wheeler, was born at Oakland, Cal. For many years he was a professional jockey, but had to retire from the turf after a bad fall.




For Mitzi Green, born in New York City on Oct. 22, 1921, and who appeared on stage when she was only 3, a rosy future seems to be in store. On the occasion of her stage debut she did a clever imitation of Sadie Burt, and at 7 she did a “single.”

Mitzi has appeared in “Honey,” “Sooky,” “Skippy” and other films. The girl prodigy is fond of swimming, dancing, tennis and piano playing and she delights in horseback riding.




A newcomer to motion pictures, but well known in the sports sphere, is Johnny Weismuller, world champion swimmer, who is to be seen in “Tarzan, the Ape Man,” Edgar Rice Burroughs’s celebrated story, to be shown at the Capitol.

Mr. Weissmuller, a native Chicagoan, stands six feet four inches and weighs 190 pounds. As a boy, Johnny was thin and weak, so much so that his parents consulted physicians, who advised that he build up his body by swimming.

With him is Maureen O’Sullivan, the dark-haired, blue-eyed Irish colleen who came to this country to play with John McCormack in “Song o’ My Heart.”

She is a daughter of a Major in the British Army, and was brought up in a convent school at Roehampton, England. Her success in America was instantaneous. She has appeared with Will Rogers in “So This Is London,” in “The Princess and the Plumber” and in “A Connecticut Yankee.”




A third prominent member of the “Tarzan” cast is C. Aubrey Smith, the English actor who came to this country to stage plays and who went from regular theater to the motion pictures.

In 1927 he staged mixed Doubles” at the Bijou Theater in New York and in 1928 he took the part of Sir Basil Winterton in “The Bachelor Father” at the Belasco Theater.

His first American film appearance was in the film adaptation of “The Bachelor Father,” when he appeared with Marion Davies. Other pictures in which he has been featured include ‘’The Perfect Alibi,” “Daybreak,” based on Arthur Schnitzler’s novel; “Never the Twain Shall Meet,” “Just a Gigolo,” “The Man in Possession,” “Son of India,” “Guilty Hands,” “The Phantom of Paris” and “Surrender.”




George O’ Brien and Victor McLaglen act the principal parts in “The Gay Caballero” at the Roxy Theater. The former entered film work when he became the protégé of Thomas Meighan, and he has played in many photoplays. Mr. O’Brien has used the same big black horse in pictures for five years.




Mr. McLaglen is probably best remembered for his part as Captain Flagg in the film play of “What Price Glory?”

He was born in London but lived in South Africa for several years. His early life was crammed with adventure. Of imposing physique and a lover of all outdoors, he went to London, where – faute de mieux – he enlisted in the Royal Life Guards. Later he drifted to Canada, where he worked in mines in the Northern Ontario cobalt fields. He was an accomplished wrestler and boxer and could hold his own against celebrated professional pugilists.

When the war broke out Mr. McLaglen enlisted for service with the British forces and when with the Royal Irish Fusiliers to the Mesopotamian front. Upon his return to the United States he ventured into the motion-picture field, and there remained ever since. Among his earlier parts were roles in “Men of Steel” and “The River Pirate.”

He was also seen in “On the Level,” “Spring 3100,” “The Cock-Eyed World,” “The Black Watch,” “Strong Boys,” “Captain Lash,” “Hangman’s House,” “Mother Machree,” “Loves of Carmen,” “Percy,” “A Girl in Every Port,” “Hot for Paris,” “Happy Days,” “The Unholy Three,” “Dishonored” (with Marlene Dietrich), “Three Rogues,” “Women of All Nations,” “Annabelle’s Affairs” and “Wicked.”

IN THE REALM OF SHADOW STORIES

Increase Activity in the Film Studios

John Barrymore Picture “State’s Attorney,” Is Almost Finished

Hollywood, Cal.
RKO-Radio and Paramount took the centre of the cinema stage this week with production activities or announcements that were gratifying to stockholders as well as Hollywood’s unemployed.

RKO has five pictures in work, one in rehearsal and seventeen being prepared. Paramount has announced a series of Westerns, has signed Charles R. Rogers to produce eight pictures independently, and has poised its pen to sign a contract with Cecil De Mille on the same basis.

RKO has not been in full swing since some time prior to the “proxy days” when stockholders were in a somewhat turbulent state of mind. Now, with David O. Selznick firmly in command, film is being ground through the cameras as rapidly as sets can be erected and actors rehearsed.




Back from the Hawaiian Islands, the Dolores Del Rio company making “Bird of Paradise” is now shooting the interiors. In spite of legend to the contrary, the natives were not regarded by King Vidor, the director, as an acceptable type of beauty for the American screen, and thirty-five girls who look as audiences want Hawaiians to look are dancing their way through native huts and streets on the RKO lot.

The company met with hearty cooperation in filming the island sequences, the only difficulty being that they found villages with stone walls that had such a New England tang that new locations had to be found. The company brought back a native and a turtle. Upon completion of the picture the native will be sent home, but the turtle is worrying the publicity department already.





“State’s Attorney,” the John Barrymore vehicle written by Gene Fowler, is about finished; Ann Harding’s first picture since the Pathe-Radio merger, “Westward Passage,” is in production. “Roadhouse Murder,” a mystery-thriller, is nearing the last days of its schedule; Tom Keane’s newest Western, “Sunrise Trail,” is being shot in the mountains.




Constance Bennett’s next, “Unmated,” taken from Cecil Strange’s novel, “Free Lady,” is in rehearsal. Six others are to start before April 15 and the rest of the seventeen will follow as rapidly as the stages are cleared.

Mr. Rogers’s association with Paramount is regarded locally as important. He was engaged in making independents on the same basis about two years ago when he made “Millie” for RKO. He had a number of others scheduled, but was drafted to take over the Pathe lot when RKO bought that concern. The more recent merger was not to his satisfaction, so he withdrew.

This making of independents has long been discussed, but none of the majors has tried it. Mr. Rogers, as an “Indie” can make the first–string productions for $200,000 that would cost a major concern at least $400,000. He will hire nearly his entire staff for each picture, retaining only a skeleton organization when not in production.





Just what the terms of Mr. De Mille’s contract are has not been made public. He will not work on the Paramount lot, however, but will rent space in some leasing studio.

It has been decided his first is to be “The Sign of the Cross.” He was planning on making “The Ten Commandment,” but this week signed over his rights to Paramount on continuance of his royalty agreement. The talker version is being written now, but no director has been assigned.





This week Paramount pulled “Farewell to Arms” off the shelf and determined to make it with Fredric March and Claudette Colbert. The script was originally written for Gary Cooper, but due to the relationship between that star and the studio and the fact that Mr. Cooper is abroad, it was decided to film it at once with others. Barney Glazer, who wrote the original treatment, is dressing it for the new set-up.




Paramount is expecting considerable from Wynne Gibson, who has just completed the shooting of “Clara Deane,” now known as “The Strange Case of Clara Deane.” Because of her work in “Two Kinds of Women,” she was selected for what is regarded as the ace emotional role of the year. She plays the part of a woman from girlhood to old age, and the gossip is that she has more than taken Ruth Chatterton’s place on the lot.




In comedy circles the gag men are laughing themselves sick over their own witticisms. Charley Chase has been re-signed by Hal Roach for a series of short comedies and they are now being prepared. He will assist in gagging them upon his arrival from a vaudeville tour.




Filming of Harold Lloyd’s newest is going ahead rapidly. He is using many of the famous old sets on the various lots for his gags about Hollywood. The Metropolitan Studio, where all of his work has been done for years, has been converted into the “Planet Film Company” with signs announcing the fact all over the lot. The action in Mr. Lloyd’s story has to do with his being starred by “Planet.”





SCREEN BOXING

George O’Brien and Victor McLaglen, who appear in “The Gay Caballero,” a Fox picture now at the Roxy, are both expert boxers. Mr. McLaglen once fought four rounds to a draw with Jack Johnson. Mr. O’Brien was one of the outstanding boxers in the United States Navy.

Most boxers in Hollywood merely earn from $15 to $50 an assignment, taking beatings wile doubling for the stars. The reason is that their ring technique differs from that of picture battles. The short killing blows that do the harm inside the ropes would be invisible on the screen. There the knockout punch comes up from the floor, so the audience can see it.

Two men skilled in the science of screen punching can put up a good fight without serious injury. Mr. O’Brien has learned to stop his fist just short of his opponents jaw while his forearm strikes his chest. The man is staggered as if struck by the fist. The thump is recorded by the sound machines.

Injuries, however, sometimes do happen in spite of precautions. For this reason fight scenes are always the last to be made in any picture. For rough-and-tumble battles such as O’Brien and Weldon Heyburn in “The Gay Caballero,” lightly built “breakaways” are planted on the set to represent the chairs and tables used as weapons. Sometimes in his excitement one contestant seizes a real chair by mistake and sends his opponent to the hospital.

March 29, 1932

AIMEE, ACTOR IN DRY DEBATE

Same Old Arguments Dished Up in Big Way to Benefit of Temple and New Movie

By George Beale, United Press Staff Correspondent

Los Angeles, March 29
Aimee Semple McPherson-Hutton and the motion picture colony got together last night and gave a super special production that only such a combination could offer.

The famous woman evangelist, generally credited with being a better showman than the best in Hollywood, argued the matter of prohibition with Walter Huston, well known screen actor.

As a debate, the points were much the same offered in any prohibition discussion, but Mrs. Hutton, the Kleig lights and the pageantry led some 10,000 people to stampede to the evangelist’s Angelus temple.

The winner of the event will be decided Thursday by a count of ballots cast by those present and meantime Mrs. Hutton took up a collection and Huston attracted a lot of attention to a prohibition picture in which he has just played a leading part.



AIMEE PRETTY SURE OF WINNING

Those who know the Angelus temple felt that Mrs. McPherson was pretty sure of a victory in the voting because she has a habit of winning, especially in her four square gospel home.

Then, too, she took advantage of an opportunity and offered one of her “stocks in trade,” to clinch her argument by introducing a reformed drunkard, gambler and drug addict, who said he had been “the biggest crook in my town until prohibition came along and Sister Aimee reformed me.”

The scene around the Angelus temple was somewhat reminiscent of the days of 1926, just before the then Mrs. McPherson returned from a long absence which she attributed to “Rosie and Steve,” kidnappers.

When the doors of the temple were opened, ushers were brushed aside and ropes, chairs, and people were knocked down in the rush for seats.
Although the temple ordinarily holds no more than 5300, there were fully 6500 inside.



3000 WAIT IN STREETS OUTSIDE

Police estimated at least three thousand were in the streets outside and countless others listened in over three radio hookups from the temple. Such crowds were frequent after the kidnapping episode.

Huston presented his side of the argument first, reading carefully from a prepared paper. His references to his opponent as “a wonderful woman,” “a great personality” and “a charming lady” drew the greatest applause.

Another good hand went to him when without mentioning the Lindbergh kidnapping by name he brought it into his argument indirectly blaming prohibition on the gangster and said he felt it was a pretty bad “state of affairs when one of our greatest citizens must call on the underworld to help him recover his child.”

EXAMPLES CITED

Huston held up Los Angeles, of which Hollywood is a part, as the horrible example of prohibition. He said:
“ In this great city we all love – not a lawless city – there were 1380 persons in every 100,000 of the population arrested for drunkenness during one year of prohibition.”



Mrs. McPherson-Hutton first appeared with her newly marcelled blond hair showing over a huge bunch of white lilies. She wore a white silk dress with a blue silk cape.
“Mr. Huston said there were bootleggers everywhere,” she shouted as the crowd laughed. “That might be a contrast because I don’t know a single bootlegger. Speakeasies might appeal to Hollywood, but not to us here. But I suggest someone give us the address of those bootleggers and when we’re through with this debate we’ll go out and clear them out.”

5000 BALLOTS

Approximately five thousand ballots were passed around. They are to be mailed to Angelus temple. The ballots bore a space in which the sender could apply for a free photograph of “Sister Aimee.”




GLORIA SWANSON ILL WITH BRONCHITIS

London, March 29 (UP)
Gloria Swanson, American screen actress and wife of Michael Farmer, was suffering today from bronchitis at her Mayfair residence here.




Warner Brothers have taken the film rights to “The Mud Lark,” Arthur Stringer’s new novel, for the uses of Barbara Stanwyck who is now in vaudeville in the east with her husband, Frank Fay.


From Luella O. Parsons:



If Rudy Vallee still yearns to live in Hollywood where his wife, Fay Webb, is happiest, the chance is open for him. Warner Brothers have been negotiating with Rudy to play the lead in Rian James’ story, “Crooners.”

So far he has expressed interest in the offer and it has reached the point where it’s all a matter of money. “Crooners” is really the life story of Rudy Vallee, boy from Maine whose crooning into the radio won him world-wide fame. Rudy is said to be eager to play himself and will do so if he can arrange his stage engagements satisfactorily.




Agreed that no amateur could make a screen play out of Washington Merry-Go-Round, Columbia has handed the assignment to Maxwell Anderson. Late Friday night the deal was closed, with Anderson making plans to take a fast train to Hollywood.

Probably no more difficult assignment has ever been handed any writer. Washington Merry-Go-Round is a series of scorching attacks on every one of any importance in Washington. Even President Hoover is analyzed in decidedly frank language. It takes a man with Anderson’s dramatic ability to weave a play out of a story with no plot.

Anderson has to his credit such plays as “Elizabeth, The Queen” and “What Price Glory.”




Lupe Velez, having had her taste of Broadway success in "Hot Cha," the current Ziegfeld “Follies,” is now listening to a movie offer. The Fox company, it appears, would like to feature the colorful Miss Velez as Charmain in “What Price Glory.” Lupe likes the part that Leyla Georges played on the stage and Dolores Del Rio made so popular on the screen. Whether or not she can leave the “Follies” on a few moments’ notice is another matter. I do know she has been offered the role and is said to be favorably inclined.




Johnny Weismuller is one in a hundred and I’ll tell you why. The average actor who is engaged because he is a champion in some line or other, is usually a flop. Few of them get beyond the one-picture stage.

Johnny Weismuller made “Tarzan” and I’m told that it is quite a picture. Everyone who sees it says that it’s a yarn that holds the interest from beginning to end. Anyway, he has been signed on a new contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and a search is being made to give him another story on the order of “Tarzan.” Why not get Edgar Rice Burroughs to write another one?




Joseph Schenck knows a story when he reads one. That’s why he lost no time in buying “Happy Go Lucky,” an original Ben Hecht has written for Al Jolson. Al was all set to do “Sons O’ Guns,” but when he read the Hecht epic he agreed with Mr. Schenck that it is a swell yarn.

Lewis Milestone, who will be production boss at United Artists when he returns from New York, will produce the Jolson story for Mr. Schenck. Millie is expected back next week when he will go into immediate conference on the Jolson story and other U. A. productions.

Snapshots of Hollywood:



Charlie Farrell, tanned a deep brown, was lunching at the Desert Inn in Palm Springs with Virginia Valli. Charlie and Virginia have a house at the Springs and they have been hosts to many friends this past season.




Billie Burke, slim and amazingly youthful in appearance, was at the Desert Inn with her tall daughter, Patricia. She long-distanced Flo Ziegfeld and reports him improved in health.