April 14, 1932

MISS COSTELLO TO SUE ACTOR

Baby of Film Colony to File Cross Suit to Divorce Action of Lowell Sherman

New York, April 14
Not to be outdone by her actor husband, Helene Costello, film star, announced today that she intends to file a divorce suit of her own as soon as she gets back to Hollywood.

Her husband, Lowell Sherman, actor, already has a suit on file in Los Angeles.

Miss Costello made her announcement on her return from Europe today aboard the liner Lafayette. She was reluctant to discuss the suit for separation filed last December by her husband, but declared that she intended to lose no time in seeking freedom on her own account.

Helene is a “baby” of Hollywood’s famous Costello family, which includes her sister Dolores, now the wife of John Barrymore, and Maurice, her father, one of the best “heart-breakers” in the business in the motion picture industry’s early days and now a screen director and producer.

Helene’s first husband was John V. Regan, eastern football star, whom she married in 1927 as the outcome of a childhood romance. She divorced him in 1928 and in 1930 was married to Sherman. It was his third marriage.




COLLEEN MOORE SPURNS FILMS

Former Queen of Cinema Who Abdicated Throne in Old Home to Go on Stage

Hollywood, April 14
Colleen Moore, former film queen, is back in Hollywood – but to appear on the stage.

Miss Moore and her new husband, Albert P. Scott, New York broker, arrived here from San Francisco after engagements of her stage play there and in Oakland. She insists that she has no intention, or desire, to resume her screen career.

In addition to changing her career, Miss Moore has changed her appearance with a new style of coiffure.




HUSBAND OF BEBE DANIELS IS SUED

Los Angeles, April 14 (UP)
Frederick La Mar, 18-year-old Columbia studios clerk, has filed suit for $35,000 damages against Ben Lyon, actor and husband of Bebe Daniels. La Mar charged Lyon beat him knocking out some teeth and inflicting injuries to his neck and back. La Mar claimed Lyon beat him, after cursing him, for assertedly keeping Miss Daniels waiting outside the studio last Dec. 23 when she called there to see her husband.




ACTOR FACES SPEED CHARGE

Los Angeles, April 14 (UP)
After Johnnie Hines, motion picture comedian, failed to appear in court to answer a speeding charge, a bench warrant for his arrest was issued by Municipal Judge Paonessa, but service was ordered postponed for a week to give the actor an opportunity to appear. He was charged with speeding 45 miles an hour across an intersection.




From Luella O. Parsons:

Los Angeles, April 14
Just so he won’t be doing a repeat act with any of his stars, David Selznick is staying up nights finding stories for them that are different. “Farinstance,” there is Edna May Oliver all set down to play the part of a woman detective in “The Penguin Pool Murder.” Can’t you just see her doing a Sherlock Holmes stunt in an Oliver manner?

This “Penguin Pool Murder,” I find on investigation, is by three authors, Fulton Oursier, Lowell Brentano and Stuart Palmer. It was published three months ago and it has been a best seller since that time. Bartlett MacCormack, specialist on these mystery drammers, has been engaged to write the adaptation with J. Walter Rubin directing.
That isn’t all; the cast includes Robert Armstrong, Eric Linden and Arline Judge – and June 1 is set as the production date.




The Fairbanks’ will have houseguest soon after they both reach home. Doug met Lady Yule and her daughter in Tahiti and extended an invitation to them to visit Pickfair. Lady Yule, who owns one of the biggest and fastest yachts in the world, was cruising in the South Seas waters when the Fairbanks pictures were in the making. Mary Pickford gets here within ten days to open the house and get everything in readiness for Doug’s return.




Gary Cooper is bringing back a baby chimpanzee with him from his South African travels. If it is as fascinating as Mary and Jerry at the Hearst ranch, he will have me trying to make his acquaintance. Mary takes away all the oranges, apples and nuts handed Jerry and appropriates them for herself. Does she let him know who is boss?




Matty Kemp, who should be rewarded for his stick-to-it-iveness in the movies, is playing the son of Will Rogers in “Down to Earth.” Matty has remained in the movies even when jobs were few and far between. Arthur Pierson, a newcomer, is also on the Fox lot in Rogers’ “fillum.”

Florence Britton is checking in each day at the Paramount studios. She is emoting in “Merrily We Go to Hell.”

J. Carroll Naish, an Irishman by birth, is again playing an Italian role. He is in “Week-End Marriage,” at the Fox studios.

Tom Keane (perhaps you know him as George Duryea) has finished his first series of six westerns. He is vacationing in New York and when he returns he will be on the Radio lot for six more of these thrillers.




Norma Talmadge is leaving to-day, arriving in New York just in time to take the Europa for Paris. She will spend the Summer in Deauville and along the Riviera. Her divorce plans are being held in abeyance until she returns from Europe in late Summer. She has rented her Santa Monica beach house to Myron Selznick for six months during which time she will live abroad and in New York.




Snapshots of Hollywood:
Ruby Keeler Jolson (Mrs. Al) in a nifty brown sport suit sitting in the very front seat at the Olympic Stadium with friend husband. Colleen Moore, in a plain and black creation, with hat to match, at the stadium with Al Scott, the new husband.

B. P. Schulberg is renting a house almost next door to the Richard Barthelmess’ for the Summer.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., an interested listener at the Brown Derby while Mike Levee unfolded his Screen Guild plans.




From Wood Soanes:

Joan Crawford will be loaned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to United Artists for the Sadie Thompson role in “Rain” to be made under the direction of Lewis Stone.

Announcement of this arrangement made under the terms of an agreement which marks the first joint producing compact of major film companies was made today by Joseph M. Schenck, president of United Artists. He will produce the picture but M-G-M will share in the profits in consideration of the services of Miss Crawford.

This is the first deal of the kind in film history and was made possible because of the desire of M-G-M executives to secure “Rain” for Miss Crawford. Schenck, however, held the rights from the silent days when the picture was used as a Gloria Swanson vehicle under the title, “Sadie Thompson.” Unwilling to release it, he made the counter proposal agreed upon finally.

Now all that remains is to receive the okeh of the Hays office which expressed itself sternly on the matter of “Rain” when the original plan of making it as a silent was broached. Judging from the arrangement already made, United Artists and M-G-M anticipate no trouble now, indicating that the movie audience has been educated to more hectic melodrama.

“Rain” was adapted from the story of W. Somerset Maugham by John Colton, who subsequently wrote “The Shanghai Gesture,” but the talking version will be made by Maxwell Anderson.

It is quite possible that while Milestone will attend to the general direction of the picture, he will occupy a supervisory capacity while the actual work will be done by Chester Erskin, a stage director of distinction. The two men accompanied by several writers and directors have just reached Hollywood from New York.

Milestone is to make at least four pictures in quick succession at United Artists. As soon as “Rain” gets into production, work will start on an Al Jolson picture to be made from an original story by Ben Hecht and probably directed by H. O’Abbadie D’Arrast. Jolson has just closed his theater season in “Wonder Bar.”




Meanwhile, other member producers of United Artists are at work. Harold Lloyd is in the middle of “Movie Crazy”; Samuel Goldwyn has started work on “The Brothers Karamazov” for Ronald Colman and “The Kid From Spain” for Eddie Cantor; Douglas Fairbanks stats back from Papeete in a week or so with “Robinson Crusoe of the South Seas” partly made; Mary Pickford is working on a story in New York with Frances Marion.

The picture is tentatively titled “Happy Ending.” In the interim, Charles Chaplin is returning from the Orient with a view to starting work on a new picture and Howard Hughes, with “Scarface” finally deleted to suit the censors, is preparing a new special.




Anna Sten, who made a hit in “Tempest” with Emil Jannings and the German version of “The Brothers Karamazov” has been placed under contract by Samuel Goldwyn. She leaves Paris tomorrow for Hollywood. Miss Sten is a Russian who speaks German and French.




M-G-M continues to garner publicity on the Garbo contract. The newest rumor is that she will delay signing long enough to make an independent picture; the last was that she was returning to Sweden for foreign pictures. As long as America pays the largest salaries, she’ll be here, don’t worry.




Richard Bennett has been removed from “The Countess of Auburn” cast at Paramount in favor of George Barbier, and goes into “Merrily We Go to Hell.”

Robert Warwick is getting considerable work at Warner Brothers. He is in the cast of “Dr. X” supporting Lionel Atwill; and he has been added to the cast of “The Dark Horse” featuring Warren William. “The Dark Horse,” incidentally, may pave the way for a number of political pictures.




LIFE BEGINS TO BE FILMED BY WARNERS

Loretta Young Slated to Play Joanna Roos’ Role

By Chester B. Bahn, April 14
Warners has purchased talkie rights to “Life Begins” (“Birth”) by Mary McDougal, former Syracuse suffrage worker. The play recently had a brief run on Broadway with Frank Wilcox and Joanna Roos in the cast.

On the screen, the play will be retitled “Woman’s Day” and will serve Loretta Young, Glenda Farrell, Aline McMahon and Clara Blandick.
Naturally it will be heavily censored when adapted.




Suddenly recalled to Hollywood, Jean Harlow has cancelled the remainder of her vaudeville tour.




ZaSu Pitts, now in “Shopworn,” has been signed by Universal for Fannie Hurst’s “Back Street,” and Charles Bickford has been given a five-year contract by Universal.




I hear that Radio will picturize “The Animal Kingdom” with Leslie Howard and Ann Harding co-starred. The former stars in the current Broadway production.




Kate Smith may be in Paramount’s radio film… Mary Brian leaves the stage for pictures shortly… Grant Withers is getting a jazz band together.




“The Devil and the Deep, a story of love and adventure woven into the background of a submarine disaster, will be a Paramount co-starring vehicle for Tallulah Bankhead and Gary Cooper.


Dickie Moore joins “Our Gang,” but with the privilege of appearing in features for other studios. He’ll be in Marlene Dietrich’s “Velvet” for Paramount.




Adolphe Menjou has returned from England to ally first with Fox and later with Universal. For the former he will play in “Precious” (alias “Fancy Free”) with Minna Gombel, Joan Marsh and Allan Dinehart.




M-G-M has picked “Eskimo” as Johnny Weissmuller’s next; W. S. Van Dyke will direct.


Dorothy Peterson has joined the cast of “Criminal Court.”




Roscoe Ates, who stutters in the Keith-bound “Young Bride,” entered the theatrical world as a ticket-taker in his home town, Hattiesburg, Mo. Ates studied music and soon became a theater orchestra leader. For years he played in vaudeville and stock. While playing in Los Angeles he was given a film contract.




Kay Francis, Strand-bound in “Man Wanted,” her first Warner Brothers picture, spends her time between pictures boating in the Pacific with her husband, Kenneth McKenna, prominent director. Kay acts as chief cook and bottle washer while McKenna navigates their 35 foot yacht. Their yachting costumes consist of bathing suits and overalls.

In “Man Wanted,” Miss Francis is supported by David Manners, Kenneth Thompson, Una Merkel, Andy Devine, Claire Dodd and a large cast. William Dieterle directed.




Old-time film cutters do not sigh for the “good old days,” according to Jimmy Smith, one of the members of his craft who has been connected with the picture industry for more than 20 years.

Smith, the cutter who was assigned to work on “This Is the Night,” recently reminisced on the set at the Paramount Hollywood studios as Lily Damita, Charles Ruggles, Roland Young, Cary Grant, and Thelma Todd rehearsed a scene in this musical romance, which comes to the Paramount tomorrow.

“It wouldn’t have been safe even to walk on the set in the so-called ‘good old days’,” said Smith. “Some actor or actress probably would have tried to tear me limb from limb for leaving him on the cutting room floor in a previous picture. The cutters were the real villains of Hollywood in the actor’s eyes.”




CLAUDETTE COLBERT STAR AT NATIONAL

What do society girls do when their family fortunes suddenly vanish?

In some instances, such bereft young women have been known to plunge into the workaday world and make commercial successes out of lives that once had been ordained mainly for squanderous activities.

“Secrets of a Secretary” has to do with the activities of such a girl – Helen Blake – played by Claudette Colbert at the National Theater to-day.

Saturday brings Buddy Roosevelt in his western thriller,”The Ridin’ Kid,” and also chapter four of “The Vanishing Legion.” Between the hours of 12:45 and 1:45 Saturday afternoon, any two children, under 12 years of age, will be admitted on one ticket.

Starting Sunday, April 17, performances will be continuous from 2 until 11 P. M. every day.