April 11, 1932

MINNA GOMBEL JUST FRIEND, SAYS BANKER, DENYING TROTH

Sefton Says Report In New York Press Is A Myth

San Diego, Calif., April 11
Minna Gombel, screen character actress, under contract to Fox, and J. W. Sefton, vice president of the San Diego Trust and Savings Bank, are “just friends” and their reported engagement is a myth, the banker said today.

Mr. Sefton’s statement resulted from the publication of the report in a gossip column of a New York tabloid newspaper yesterday. It read:

“The engagement is untrue. I have known Miss Gombel for a number of years, and she is a very fine girl but there is no truth to the report that we are engaged. I suppose someone has seen us together quite a bit in Hollywood and started the report.”

Miss Gombel, a legitimate star on Broadway in several Myron Fagan shows, came to the coast more than a year ago to serve Fox as a coach for younger players and to occasionally take film roles herself. Her work in such pictures as “Bad Girl” led to a new contract and her definite assignment as an actress.

Minna Gombel is widely known among stock fans through her several years as leading woman with the Knickerbocker players, jointly owned by Howard Rumsey, who subsequently became her husband, and Frank Wilcox.

Her withdrawal from the stock field some several seasons later came simultaneously with the fading of her romance with Rumsey. After her divorce, she married Ferdinand Eggens, theatrical promoter. That marriage also ended in the courts.




MICHELE BRIDGET GLORIA’S NEW BABY

London, April 11 (AP)
Gloria Swanson’s baby daughter will be named Michele Bridget, it was announced today. The baby was born last week at the home of Miss Swanson and her husband, Michael Farmer, wealthy Irish sportsman here.




ACTRESS SUES FOR HEART BALM

New York, April 11
A $350,000 breach of promise suit by Marguerite Finley, musical comedy actress, against Phillip M. Plant, heir to the millions of the late Commodore M. F. Plant, has been set for trial in the supreme court here.

Plant is the former husband of Constance Bennett, motion picture actress.

The action was not disclosed until a notice of trial was filed. The complaint has not been filed. It is said that Miss Finley, known to the stage as Margie Finley, charges that Plant proposed to her in October, 1930. Plant is represented as having made a general denial of the charges.




ACTRESSES PAY FINES ON SPEEDING CHARGES

Los Angeles, April 11 (UP)
For her second speeding offense within 10 days, Aileen Pringle, motion picture actress, was fined $20, and Kay Johnson, also an actress, paid $10 on a similar charge, traffic court records revealed today.




WEARING SPURS

Nils Asther has one claim to fame, according to Clark Gable who often rides with him. “Asther is one of the few riders who buckles his spurs correctly,” says the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer player. “Most people put them on with the buckles inside, where they’ll wear on the riding boot. I’ve even seen motion picture cowboys do it. Apparently they teach you better in Sweden.”




WALLACE BEERY FLIES TO RENO

Wallace Beery, motion picture star, who is also an aviator of considerable note, flew from Los Angeles to Reno this afternoon in a little over two hours and will remain there over night. He brought his ship down on the Blanchfield airport.




BREWSTER TO WED BEAUTIFUL SINGER

Hollywood, April 11 (INS)
Brewster’s millions have vanished, but love has not, and today Eugene V. Brewster, one-time millionaire magazine publisher, announced his engagement to Dorothy McCormick, 25, a beautiful brunet opera singer.

“Dorothy is the dearest gril in the world,” Brewster said.

“Whatever Mr. Brewster says goes,” declared Miss McCormick, who was reticent, however, to discuss the engagement.

Brewster met Miss McCormick and her mother, Mrs. Grace McCormick, six months ago.

Brewster and his wife, Corliss Palmer, film actress, separated some time ago.

“Coriss has told me she wants me to be happy and I suppose that when she is ready she will file a divorce action,” Brewster said.




DO YOU KNOW

That “Spanky,” three year old member of “Our Gang,” never cried as a baby, has never been really sick, and likes castor oil?

That Oliver Hardy was graduated from the law college of the University of Georgia?

That Stan Laurel has been the same weight for 10 years?




From Luella O. Parsons:

Los Angeles, April 11
Talked with Carl Laemmle, Jr., just before I took the train for a weekend away from telephones and telegrams. He had just signed Paul Kelly and expressed hope that Kelly on the screen might do as well as Sylvia Sidney. The two of them had a tremendous success in the stage version of “Bad Girl.”

Kelly comes back to Hollywood and to many friends who have been happy over his return to the stage and his subsequent success.

Once he gets here there will be plenty of jobs waiting for him. One under discussion is the sergeant in “Rain” at United Artists, but this is not yet a certainty. In any case, Hollywood friends who stood by Kelly during his troubles are still loyal.




And what part will Cecil B. De Mille have in remaking “The Ten Commandments,” may I ask? You just cannot think of anybody making a Biblical story unless it is C. B.

That is why I was so surprised when I was told that Paramount would make a new version of their “Ten Commandments” picture with William Schorr and Louis Garner directing. They even plan to use some of the Biblical scenes in the De Mille picture.



Sari Maritza will play the vamp in the modern story of “Ten Commandments,” and the very blonde Gene Raymond, newcomer to the screen, will be opposite her with Irving Pichel in one of the principal roles.

The dark-eyed Sidney Fox of Universal, who doesn’t look unlike some of the paintings of Esther, will play the lead.




The trip to New York that Sally Eilers has been promising herself will be taken alone. Hoot Gibson has been all tied up with movies and for days he has been working on the first of the Hoot Gibson series to be made for M. H. Hoffman, Jr. Hoot and Sally had planned this holiday in New York, but business comes first, and these days no job can be neglected. Sally does not start work at Fox for a month or more since Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell will be starred in “The First Year” instead of Sally and Jimmy Dunn as at first intended.




On a fast train headed for New York and more than likely to meet Austin Parker is Miriam Hopkins. Miriam asked for two months’ leave of absence on account of ill health and because she wanted to buy a farm in Connecticut. She had arranged to take the boat with Parker from whom she has been separated, when a change of mind kept her in Hollywood. Frantic cables may have had something to do with her deciding on the New York trip. She and Mr. Parker have never been divorced, although they have not been living together for nearly a year. The Lubitsch picture in which she will be the bright and shining light does not go into production until late June or early July.




Chatter in Hollywood: The friends of Ann Harding fear for her health. She is facing a nervous breakdown and it is taking all of her strength to finish her picture, “Westward Passage,” which she is now making a Radio. She was unable to work on Wednesday, and bad case of laryngitis and nerves kept her at home. Radio is shielding her from all newspaper reporters and from any visitors other than her personal friends. Perhaps some day more will be told about Ann’s courage. Until then her friends are respecting her reticence.




Irene Rich is bringing back her daughter Frances with her to Hollywood to see what she can do in the movies. She is a mighty pretty girl with much of her mother’s charm and since the producers are always on the lookout for new faces and talent, perhaps she will get her chance.




HOLLYWOOD-EMPIRE CONTEST ENTRANTS AT THEATER MONDAY

The Hollywood-Empire Theater popularity contest will swing into action Monday with the assembling of the entrants at the theater. That this contest is attracting the attention of the actors in Hollywood is evidenced by the receipt of a letter from Miss Joan Blondell, who is at work on a new picture titled “Miss Pinkerton,” This is a new mystery novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart in which Miss Blondell achieves stardom. It is hoped this picture will be finished to be shown here during the time of the contest; if this is not possible the winning popularity girl will see it in the studio screening room in California. The rise of this young actress to stardom is nothing short of miraculous. She is much interested in young girls and particularly so in the contest winner.



TRAFFIC BOYS TO SEE ‘TARZAN’

Fifteen hundred members of the Oakland junior traffic reserves anxiously are awaiting for Saturday morning, when they will be guests of The Tribune, the Eastbay safety council, the Oakland police department and the Fox-Oakland theater at a stage and screen show at the theater.

The picture, “Tarzan, the Ape Man,” chosen as of special appeal to members of the traffic reserve group, will be the main feature of the morning program which begins exactly at 9:15. An idea of the type of picture is given in the recent Sunday comics of The Tribune in the new Tarzan feature by Rice Burroughs.

After a short talkie picture, opening the program, Arthur W. Moore, president of the Oakland traffic reserve, will speak. He will also act as master of ceremonies and will introduce other speakers.

A half hour song and dance revue will be given by The Tribune juveniles under the direction of Beverly Swabey and coached by Miss Ivy Ford. A special orchestra will play for them.

“Tarzan, the Ape Man,” feature picture at the Fox-Oakland, will be presented through the courtesy of Phil Phillips, manager of the theater.




THE MIRACLE MAN

Probably one of the biggest arrays of “name” players gathered in one picture since “The Ten Commandments” will appear in the new Paramount production, “The Miracle Man,” which will have an early engagement at the State theater, as soon as the West Coast studio is finished with the editing of the picture.

Sylvia Sidney, Chester Morris, Irving Pichel, Bobby Coogan, Hobart Bosworth, Boris Karloff, Lloyd Hughes and Ned Sparks all have important parts in the new story, which is based on the regeneration of a band of crooks through the intervention of an old faith healer, who works “miracles” for his poor followers. Norman McLeod, one of Paramount’s ace microphone handlers, is in charge of the production, which, when it was made some 10 years ago, brought to immediate stardom Lon Chaney, Betty Compson and Thomas Meighan.

HOLLYWOOD SEES DVORAK, FENTON AS MALCONTENTS

[photo appears courtesy of www.anndvorak.com]

Film Colony Believes Neither One Will Ever Be Complacent

Hollywood, April 10 – by Frank Daugherty

The recent marriage in Yuma, Ariz., of Ann Dvorak and Leslie Fenton ended – or began, according to your point of view – one of Hollywood’s most colorful and whirlwind romances.

They met for the first time last New Years night at a party, and broke all the rules of romance writers by promptly forgetting one another. It wasn’t until two months later, on a Warner Brothers set, that they began, so to speak, to get in one another’s hair.



Fenton, the suave, bon vivant, cultured and traveled, a brilliant conversationalist, a writer, an actor of note – Ann, a girl barely three years out of boarding school and just turned 19, but already lifted high toward stardom by her work in several recent pictures, the most recent of which, “The Crowd Roars,” has just been released.

You’ll not be asked to stop and consider: “What is this thing called love?” that can make two such seemingly dissimilar personalities decide that life, hereafter, is a thing they choose to live and face together rather than singly. From the Bible which says you are to leave father and mother and cleave to this – or that – person, on down through a great many generations of writers and poets and dreamers and schemers you have been asked to consider that question, and our own slight investigation of it doesn’t convince us that anyone is any nearer answering it today than anyone ever was.

There are, however, two things about this particular romance which surprised many. One of those things is Fenton, and the other is Ann.



For Fenton, as all Hollywood has known for a number of years, is a man for whom marriage and home ties and “until death do us part” has had slight attraction. Not that he is not attractive to women. He is more than attractive to them. There have doubtless been many of Hollywood’s most attractive women – brilliant women, moneyed women, bizarre women – who have set their hearts upon Fenton. The trouble was, Fenton would never seem to respond.

For he isn’t essentially a ladies’ man. He isn’t a social man at all. Of the five or six years he has spent in pictures, actually only a few months of that time have been spent in the city of Hollywood. The rest of the time his restless feet were treading distant and little known paths of the earth. The call of strange cities, faces, peoples and customs have ever fascinated him. With money, or without, he has lived in the medieval little islands of the Mediterranean, in Italy, Greece, Morocco, sometimes as a prince of good fellows, in a villa that would shame a prince for grandeur, again, as a bearded and unknown person of mystery, a stranded American depending on help from travelers on visiting steamers – the way he lived has always been a matter of indifference to him.

He has contributed to sophisticated and intellectual magazines of the continent articles on the theater, sketches of strange and little known personalities met on his travels… and has written several plays. Always he returned to Hollywood in the end to recoup his purse for a new start.

And now he has married. Now, perhaps, he will do that curious thing known as “settling down.”

Hollywood has tried on several occasions to star him. One attempt came after his performance on the stage in “An American Tragedy,” still spoken of by people in the know as one of the highlights of the American theater. They tried again after some of his successful pictures had been released – notably “Paris Bound,” in which he gave a poetic and highly moving characterization of a young composer.

And he has always refused the honors Hollywood would have heaped upon him with thanks, preferring his vagabond life.

And for one reason only, to learn more about people, about art, about life. To act better, to write better… whatever anyone learns about such matters.

His opinions, expressed freely to those who know him well, have more often than not been tinged with bitterness and disillusion, as is often the case with those who have seen a great deal in a few years.

All that has changed.

“I don’t say I’m a different man,” he says, “I say simply that I have found something I’ve been looking for for a great while. I’ve found a sort of peace I’ve never known. I want to work now, instead of play. I want to do the things I always have intended doing some day, but which seemed always remote, something to be in a distant future. Now that future is here. I can’t say I’m sorry for my vagabondage. It taught me everything I know. Now I can use that knowledge.”

He can’t for the life of him understand why a young and beautiful girl like Ann Dvorak should have picked him out to marry. He is self-deprecatory to an unusual degree.

“I look like a Japanese schoolboy,” he says.

But her friends doubt very much if, when Ann looked about for a husband, she considered looks very seriously. They think Ann was seeking different qualities – qualities to tie to, qualities that she would find satisfying when looks might be gone.



In her own way she is as restless and irresistibly malcontent as Leslie Fenton. A malcontent in the best sense of that word. A personality ambitious to a degree almost abnormal – anxious to change, anxious to better herself – at almost any cost.

“Nothing will ever interfere with my ambition to be successful,” she once said. “Not even marriage – not even children – not anything.”

And she meant it.

A dark-haired, beautiful, lithe creature, she is a dynamo of energy and application. She might be a younger and smaller edition of Joan Crawford if you didn’t observe her too closely.

She dances a great deal. She has a dancer’s figure. And of course she came by it honestly; she was for three years a chorus girl and a chorus instructor at a major studio. She has large, lustrous eyes that give an effect of calmness when you look into them – but which are belied by her nervous, anxious, capable hands, with their long expressive fingers. She plays the piano by ear, plays it expertly and with deep feeling. She composes, and has written several popular songs, one of which was used in her latest picture.

Her accomplishments, and her emotional depth, make you think she is older than she is. Now they are a couple of deliriously happy kids, dizzy with the stirrings of an emotion greater than either of them.

This thing, they say, is called love.

Coming to one of them after he had tasted most of what the world had to offer to anyone of hardy and curious mind. Coming to the other just as she arrived in the grown up world of people after a sheltered life at school.

And knocking them both for the proverbial loop.

It’s strange, it’s a little amusing, it’s not altogether understandable, and it’s all rather nice, they think.

April 10, 1932

ONE COCOANUT IS CRACKED UP IN AUTO SMASHUP

Hollywood, Cal., April 9 (UP)
“Chico” Marx, 44, one of the Four Marx Brothers of stage and screen popularity, was injured late today in a collision of two automobiles at a Hollywood intersection.

According to police reports, Max Holcomb, Hollywood real estate man, brought his automobile to a boulevard stop and the car driven by Marx crashed into the rear of the Holcomb machine.

Marx was taken to the Hollywood emergency hospital where it was said he had received a broken rib, fractured knee and possible internal injuries.




BARRYMORE BOYS RAZZ EACH OTHER ON PICTURE LOT

Hollywood, April 9
Nobody at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios suspected that the dignified Lionel Barrymore possessed such a thing as a family nickname until brother John arrived on the set and astonished all the onlookers by slapping the elder member on the back and calling out, “Hello, Mike.”

The secret was out, and now all those who dare to (but not many have the courage) call the elder brother by the appellation that some one attached to him during his boyhood.



When the filming of “Arsene Lupin” was completed – and studio executives had put the name of the two brothers on the dotted line for “Grand Hotel” – some official asked the pair to appear in a short publicity trailer that had been prepared to advertise “Lupin.”

The Barrymores agreed, looked at the rather vacuous lines they were supposed to say and then without a word disappeared from the lot. The next day they came around with a “trailer” which they themselves had written and which contained a number of genuine laughs without being in the least pretentious. Studio officials were taken aback by this unorthodox donation of services, but they accepted the new script gratefully.

John likes to tell about the Barrymore baby – and Lionel always listens with the same quiet smile. Lionel is proud of the baby, and John is equally proud of the fact that his brother won the 1931 Academy of Motion Picture Arts award for the best acting performance of the season (in “A Free Soul”).

John’s favorite anecdote about Lionel concerns the days when the latter was putting on weight to such an extent that it began to be noticeable.

“You know, he was actually fat,” John likes to comment. “That was in New York, I told him that if he didn’t do something about it he’d be no good for anything but burlesque parts. Finally, the son-of-a-gun began to agree with me. He took up Vance Thompson’s ‘Eat and Grow Thin’ diet, ran around the Central Park reservoir with four sweaters on, and preserved himself for a future career in the movies.”

When John tells his anecdote too often, Lionel has one in return. It has to do with the time when John was hustled out of bed at 6 in the morning when an earthquake hit town, and was pressed into service by army guards, shoveling bricks from the sidewalks. At the conclusion of the story, Lionel pauses a moment with a twinkle in his eye, and then repeats the late John Drew’s comment on the incident:

“It took an earthquake to get him out of bed, and the United States Army to make him go to work!”




JAB RULED OUT AND ROUND ARM BLOW REQUIRED

Hollywood, March 26
For the last several weeks James Cagney has been leading the life of a prize fighter at the Warner studios. His routine included sparring, jumping the rope, shadow boxing and punching the bag, part of the time in the presence of the camera and microphone, at other times merely for the purposes of rehearsal. All this was preliminary to the process of production of his latest picture, “Winner Take All,” based upon Gerald Beaumont’s story, “One Thirty-Three at Three.”

Seasoned followers of the prize ring will recognize the meaning of the Beaumont title. For the benefit of the uninitiated, “One Thirty-Three at Three” means 133 pounds upon weighing in at 3 o’clock the afternoon of the fight, and harks back to the days of Ad Wolgast, Willie Ritchie and Battling Nelson.

Boxing, as conducted for such a picture as “Winner Take All” has its fine points, some of which are unknown to the professionals. For one thing, the kind of blows delivered have an important bearing on the way the fighting scenes will look on the screen. Short, quick jabs are effective in a real match, but jabs are delivered so quickly that the camera is likely to miss them.

Round-arm blows are much more effective photographically, and therefore in staging a fight for the films hooks and swings are favored by directors and camera men. In some of the most famous battles of the prize-ring the knockout was unnoticed in the pictures because of the speed with which it was sent over.

Cagney has refused to have a double appear for him in any of the scenes. Before going on the stage he was interested in amateur boxing in Yorkville and other sections of New York.




MOVIE GO ROUND
By Luella O. Parsons

Gloria Swanson has written some of her friends that she expects to return to the United States in June. As soon as the new daughter is old enough to travel she and the new husband, Michael Farmer, and three children, Gloria II, Joseph and the baby will take a boat back to the United States.

While in London, Miss Swanson purchased a story from John Farrow, which she plans to make as one of her first United Artists pictures. Johnny Farrow has been taken up by the elite in London and is said to be having a great time. There is little chance that Lila Lee, former fiancé of Mr. Farrow, will go to London. She started to work here and George Hill has been very devoted to her. In fact, it looks like a romance.




WHAT WILL GARY DO?

Gary Cooper is due in New York any day now. He may even be there by the time this is written. Wagers are about fifty-fifty as to whether or not he will marry Bert Taylor’s sister, the society girl, in whom he showed such interest, or whether he will return to Lupe Velez. The Mexican firecracker is said to still have a warm spot in her heart for Gary and as for Gary, he was cra-zy about her before she decided to call it a day.




THE KEATON UPRISING

No one was more surprised than Natalie Talmadge when the story of Buster’s escapade reached the newspapers. Buster and Natalie had had a little family argument. The kind that occurs in the best of regulated families. It wasn’t serious, but it was hectic while it lasted. Buster had been coaxing to take the boys for an airplane ride for weeks. Natalie didn’t want to risk their lives and she absolutely refused. Then when they had a disagreement Buster took matters into his own ands and decided to let the boys have a sky ride. He is back home now probably sorry and wishing he hadn’t acted so hastily.




THE DANIELS COTTAGE

The house at the beach recently occupied by Marlene Dietrich has an interesting history. So many celebrities have occupied it from time to time. It’s a small place, not much more than a cottage, but it faces the ocean and has an unusually good beach.

Buster Keaton lived there first, then Bebe Daniels, then George Bancroft, then Pola Negri and later Marlene Dietrich. It is owned by Miss Daniels who bought it several years ago as a summer home. Later she built other beach houses, but this one has always been her favorite.






THE MOVIE FANS

The good old movie fans have added to the shekels taken in by Leslie Howard and Helen Hayes at the legitimate theaters where they are playing. Robert Montgomery says Mr. Howard told him the balcony is always filled for “Animal Kingdom” these days. Miss Hayes says she believes that many of those who buy those balcony seats are movie fans. “They saw me on the screen,” she said, “and they come to the matinee and evening performances of “The Good Fairy.”

Lawrence Tibbett supplements this by saying for the first time since he has sung in opera there is a line of people waiting at the stage door. This, he attributes, to the good old movies. Maybe the movie fans are becoming stage fans.




GRETA WAS THERE

Looking over the morning mail I had this letter:

“Dear Miss Parsons: And this is straight goods. If you don’t know it already Greta Garbo did attend the Kreutzberg recital last Tuesday night. She sat third row center in mock turtle back sweater and an older gray coat, accompanied by an older woman and man. And the piece de resistance is that Marlene Dietrich sat just four seats away, same row, with Von Sternberg. Don’t you love it?”

It was signed “A too, too thrilled fan from San Pedro.”

I also find a telegram saying that Gilbert Roland has been signed to play the lead in “Gigolette,” directed and written for Beaux Arts Productions by Alphonse Martell. This is Gilbert’s first independent.




DEAR PUBLIC TELLS WHAT IT WANTS

By Luella O. Parsons
Hollywood, April 9

Comedy, pie-throwing, slapstick comedy of the type that made Mack Sennett famous, is what the dear public craves. Surprising that in the national poll conducted by the Hays organization an overwhelming majority voted in favor of low comedy.

Sex and problem plays come last on the list of preferred films. Serious drama, dealing with political intrigue, governmental activities or important social problems, is popular with only a few of the picture-going public. The voters, in other words, would rather see a Mickey Mouse, a silly symphony, a Charlie Chaplin, a Harold Lloyd film than a suggestive play in which the alluring heroine obviously seeks the easiest way or a gangster shoots down his pal.

Travel films with adventure as the attraction, wild animals in jungles and mystery dramas are second in favor with Westerns a close third. Irvin Cobb, author, registers his choice for melodrama, mystery detective and cinema tales of adventure.

The caustic H. L. Menken says in his usual manner, “If I had to go to the movies regularly I think I would prefer low comedy to anything else; after that travel films.”

The Hays organization, in conducting this canvass, was undoubtedly motivated by the success of the poll for prohibition, which the Literary Digest conducts each year. Personal letters sent out by Mr. Hays to prominent men and women brought a variety of answers.

Richard Washburn Child desires more realism. He would have the films tell the story of life as it is, not as it is fancied by some scenario writer.

Cleveland E. Dodge, philanthropist, is for the whole range of biographical, patriotic, religious and exploration films. In addition to an admitted liking for historical pictures he says that he is a “fan” for adventure films.

Wallace Irwin, author, comments thusly: “More and better comedies is my slogan. Perhaps I love comics because they so frankly and honestly represent life as it ‘ain’t’ They dwell in the never never land where anything can happen and usually does.”



What do you think Texas Guinan, queen of the night club life and widely publicized as the originator of “give the little girl a hand” prefers? Here is a surprise. Miss Guinan, who apparently has her serious moments, prefers inspirational pictures and classical dramas.




COLMAN IN SPOTLIGHT THIS WEEK

Recklessly adventurous rather than romantic, Ronald Colman comes to the Granada theater Wednesday in “The Unholy Garden” as Samuel Goldwyn’s first screen presentation of the year.

For the first time in two years, Colman is no longer the suave polished English gentleman. Instead, he is an outcast and a renegade hiding out with a dozen other refugees from the law in a strange outpost at the edge of the Sahara. Disheveled and unshaven, hair touseled and clothes mussed, he is a sharp contrast to the immaculately groomed hero of “The Devil to Pay,” “Raffles,” and “Bulldog Drummond,” his earlier pictures for Mr. Goldwyn.

Estelle Taylor and Fay Wray have the principal feminine roles. As the wanton voluptuary part of the story, Miss Taylor has the biggest part since her memorable appearance in “Cimmaron.” Miss Wray is the protected daughter of the embezzling recluse, hiding at the Inn.




LOLA LANE AT RIALTO FRIDAY

Lola Lane has discovered how to become a screen star overnight. Recently she accepted an engagement to play the role of Letta Larbo, famous film luminary, in Universal’s rollicking comedy “Ex-Bad Boy,” and you can tell for yourself by going to the Rialto Friday where she is appearing, along with Robert Armstrong, Jean Arthur, Jason Robards, George Brent and other fun-makers.




HOWARD HUGHES FILM AT STATE

Howard Hughes, who is recognized as filmdom’s outstanding movie-maker because of his production of superior pictures, will present his latest film-play, “The Age for Love,” at the State theater, starting today.

“The Age for Love,” a United Artists picture, was produced after nearly a year of preparation and metropolitan critics have praised it as one of the outstanding pictures of the year.

It was directed by Frank Lloyd, who was recently voted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as the outstanding director of the season.




COHEN-KELLY COMEDIANS ARE BACK

A riotous laugh picture showing the inner workings of Hollywood studio and social life.

This aptly describes the “Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood,” which is featured this week at the RKO Majestic theater.

The picture presents as its stars George Sidney and Charlie Murray, the screen’s oldest team of stars from the point of pictures made together. In this picture Kellys’ daughter becomes a featured screen player during the silent picture days, and when the Cohen’s follow their Irish friends to the film capital they find the Kellys have “gone Hollywood” with tremendous enthusiasm. The Kellys find enjoyment in “high-hatting” their Jewish friends.

Subsequent events find the Cohens successful through the song-writing proclivities of their son when theme songs were a necessity for every picture. And the advent of the talking pictures proved to be the downfall of the Kelly girl because her voice failed to register. This situation gives the Cohens an opportunity to high-hat the Kellys.

The capable supporting cast includes Norman Foster, June Clyde, Esther Howard and Emma Dunn.

Earl Abel’s organ program has been titled “U Auto No,” and includes popular and comedy song numbers accompanied by screen slides.




JOAN BENNETT HERE THURSDAY AS ‘BEAUTY QUEEN’

The first picture ever to deal with the fate of the beauty contest winners will be shown under the title of “She Wanted a Millionaire,” at the Empire theater starting Thursday. This production is the Fox picture which Joan Bennett was making when she was seriously injured by a fall from a horse.

It is the story of a small-town girl who is entered in a bathing beauty contest by her sweetheart. She wins over international contestants and is wooed by a middle-aged millionaire. In this marriage she hopes to help her destitute family, but the attendant inconveniences of such a union reveal the secrets of unfortunate girls who marry for money.

The cast includes Joan Bennett, Spencer Tracy, James Kirkwood and Una Merkel.




‘THE CHEAT’ AT THE GRANADA TODAY

Tallulah Bankhead, star of “Tarnished Lady” and “My Sin,” in both of which talking features, she scored individual triumphs far beyond the plot opportunities, has a role minutely fitted to her enigmatic, excitement-craving self in “The Cheat,” a modernized Paramount edition of Hector Turnbull’s famous box-office leader of silent days. She has the role created then by Fanny Ward.

With Irving Pichel, gifted character artist most recently featured in “An American Tragedy” and “The Road to Reno,” in the “branding” role originally done by Sessue Hayakawa, there is no reason to believe that this feature, to be headlined at the Granada theater beginning today, will not prove as popular as its non-voice predecessor.

JACKIE COOPER HAS ALL AVERSIONS OF THE AVERAGE YOUNGSTER FOR STUDIES

By Wood Soanes
April 10, 1932

Child actors have always been poison to me. It’s not that the young ones are so obnoxious themselves, although that is pretty generally the case, but invariably there is a stage mother or stage father in the offing.

Mind you, I don’t object in the least to child actors in their proper environment. I can go to a Maypole fete at a school and enjoy every minute of it; I can, and frequently do, watch Christmas pageants with satisfaction; and I have seen numerous school plays that kept me entertained.

But take the child away from children’s entertainment and clamp him on the stage in his vacation time, or plant him in Hollywood to burden the screen with his immature sophistication, and I begin to have a friendly feeling for the bull that loses his temper when he sees a red umbrella.

We were sitting in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lunch room one noon not so long ago – an old friend from the publicity department and I – when he jogged my elbow with a: “There’s Jackie Cooper; I’ll go bring him over!” I nearly swallowed my fish-bone in my eagerness to restrain him. Indigestion is bad enough without courting trouble.

The last time a child actor had entered my line of vision it was here in the office and Frank Newman was the culprit who dragged him or her – I have, happily, forgotten the name – in for an interview. I was excessively polite and the child was quite odious, and my subsequent remarks to Brother Newman put a permanent wave in his hair and cured him of practical jokes.



Well, anyway, young Cooper sat down quite close to me in the dining room and had a glass of milk with Wallace Beery, who was eating his customary stevedore’s lunch and exercising his lungs in bull-like bellows, They were at work on “The Champ” preparing to do the Tia Juana scenes and every so often young Cooper’s treble was matched by Beery’s baritone or what-have-you.

Luncheon was over, I was standing alone in front of the studio barber shop which adjoins, for no known reason, the café, when Beery and Cooper came bowling out of the door. And, as it is probably easy for you to believe, there is no escaping Beery when he makes up his mind about something. Nothing would do but that I meet his diminutive pal.

Cooper and I had quite a chat and I am pleased to make an amendment to an old opinion: “All child actors are odious – and occasionally you find an exception that proves the rule.” Cooper may be marked down as a shining exception. He is one veteran Hollywood child actor who has escaped from the experience unscathed.

It isn’t easy to interview Master Cooper for he is much the same off the screen as on it. That is to say, he is a real boy with the normal interests of a real boy. If you can get the subject around to football, baseball or aviation, you have a chance of getting some responses. Otherwise you simply have an interested listener.

But try to talk the movies and Cooper’s mind begins to drift away. He’s still standing there, and still listening, but his mind is somewhere else, probably on that new glove he saw in a Hollywood boulevard sports shop and which he would very much like to own. He had just turned eight when I saw him and the men on the set had given him a surprise birthday party, and better yet, he was going to Tia Juana.

“I get a kick out of it,” he said laconically. “I’ll get a chance to sleep on a train – for the first time in my life.”

“Then you like to travel” I suggested.

“Oh, I dunno,” replied the child star.

“Wouldn’t you like to see all the places you’ve studied about in geography?”

“I hate geography.”

“Well, how about arithmetic?”

“I hate that, too.”

“Aw, now” – this from Beery, who was back on the job with a fresh package of cigarettes – “What’ll people think if you talk like that?” Jackie had drifted off to the railing on which a number of current magazines were spread to catch the eye of passing actors, and Beery continued with the interview.

“He had an awful job with the multiplication table,” Beery laughed, “but I think he got that straightened out. You see he’s crazy over aviation and that gave me an idea; ‘Think of planes!’ I told him. ‘Suppose you see four in the air. Now imagine there are three times that many – how many are there?’ You’d be surprised how quick he caught on.”

This eight-year-old made his debut when he was five. A youngster was required for a Lloyd Hamilton comedy at Educational and Jackie got the job. It was just a small part and he did it well enough to satisfy his bosses and get more odd jobs.



By the time “Movietone Follies” and “Sunny Side Up" had been made he was a rather seasoned trouper and Hal Roach took him for the “Our Gang” comedies. He began to come into prominence in “Donovan’s Kid” and when “Skippy” was launched he was sold to the world. “Sooky” followed and a short time after I talked with him, he achieved real fame in “The Champ.”

He was born in Los Angeles and in answer to some rapid questions when he rejoined Beery and myself, he admitted that he doesn’t care much about travel, he likes to read adventure stories, he doesn’t think much of piano lessons, is fond of dogs and horses and likes to play with tools and is looking forward to the day when he gets into manual training class.

When he grows up, however, he wants to be either an actor or a writer, granting that he can be an aviator like the beloved Wally, on the side. Right now acting would seem to be his forte for his directors tell me that he has a definite gift for “catching an idea.” The directors explain the scene to Jackie. He learns the lines, and after that there’s nothing to worry about.

“Well,” he explained in that slow speech of his, in answer to a question, “I dunno. I just try to think like the fellow the director is telling me about.”

If all of Hollywood’s actors could master that formula the work of the directors would be reduced by half.

April 9, 1932

MAE MURRAY FORCES SUIT OVER UPKEEP OF BROTHER

Los Angeles, April 9 (AP)
With the upkeep of her brother, William Koenig, as the point of controversy, Mae Murray, film actress, was at odds today with the county welfare department.

County Supervisor Frank Shaw announced he intended to proceed under the California pauper act to recover from Miss Murray money donated by the county department to keep Koenig’s family from destitution.

Miss Murray made no attempt to deny the relationship, but was indignant at Shaw’s announcement.

“I am surprised and naturally a bit indignant that any official should announce that he is going to take legal steps to collect some money from me before he asked me whether I am willing to pay it,” she said.

Records of the county welfare department show Koenig, under the name of William King, in November, 1931, his wife and their two children, had been referred to the department by the Assistance League as being in destitute circumstances. A total of $119.52 was advanced them.

Miss Murray, declaring she had not seen her brother since she was a child until 10 years ago, said she had him placed in a sanitarium and had advanced him money for several years.

“Finally, I concluded I had made a serious mistake in encouraging him to live in idleness,” she said. “I have here a letter from his wife which shows she agreed with me.”

“There should be some limit to generosity,” she added.




SALLY O’NEIL AND FILM PRODUCER ARE REPORTED ENGAGED

Hollywood, April 9 (UP)
Sally O’Neil, motion picture actress, and Arthur Lowe, vice president of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and son of Marcus Lowe, film producer, are engaged to be married, Molly O’Day, sister of the actress, revealed today.

Declaring she had talked with her sister over telephone, Miss O’Day said, “I know they are engaged to be married, but I believe no date has been set for the wedding.”

Miss O’Neil is in New York, recently having returned from a trip to Europe. Her sister said she expected her to return to Hollywood soon to resume her motion picture work.




MIX SAYS NO PICTURE HAS $3,500 IN PAINT

Los Angeles, April 8 (AP)
Down in Tom Mix’s home country an entire barn is painted for a few dollars, the film cowboy said today as he prepared to answer a $3,500 suit George Townsend Cole, artist, brought against him for alleged failure to pay for a portrait.

“There isn’t $3,500 worth of paint in any picture,” Mix said.

“Down where I come from they paint a whole barn for a few dollars and you could be paid for having a liver pill advertisement painted on the roof, too.”

Mix denied he had ever authorized Cole to paint his portrait.




TOM MIX ASKED TO BUY TEMPLE

Los Angeles, April 9 (AP)
Despite the denial of Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson Hutton that she was negotiating for the sale of Angelus temple, the Los Angeles Times said today Tom Mix, screen cowboy, had been approached by Rev. Paul Rader, evangelist, and his business manager, F. C. Winters, named as prospective buyers of the temple, for a loan of $50,000 to make the down payment.

“About a week ago,” Mix is quoted as saying by the Times, “the Reverend Rader and a man whom I was introduced to as Winters came to my home and asked for a loan of $50,000. They explained they wanted that sum to make a first payment on the property owned by Mrs. Hutton.”

Mix said he took no action, because “purchase of a religious temple is a little out of my line.”

Mrs. Hutton, who holds title to the big tabernacle and its Bible School, said yesterday it was “not for sale.”




MACK SENNETT TO LENGTHEN COMEDIES

Hollywood, April 9 (UP)
Mack Sennett, pioneer producer of film comedies, in announcing today he had signed a contact whereby his productions will be released by Paramount Publix corporation, revealed his plans to lengthen comedies turned out by his studios.

Sennett said he will produce three and four reel pictures – he called them “featurettes” – in the future. He said he had found dissatisfaction among the theater-going public over the practice of neighborhood houses to show two features on the same program. His so-called featurettes will substitute for one of the full-length features. The comedies are now of two-reel length.




PLANS TO WELCOME CHAPLIN STIR HEATED RIVALRY AMONG JAPANESE

Special Cable to the New York Times
Tokyo, April 8
Although Charlie Chaplin is coming to Japan for a rest and holiday, the desire to entertain him royally, and incidentally to gain some self-advertisement, has aroused the Japanese film companies to a frenzy of rivalry that would make a good Hollywood plot.

Mr. Chaplin’s Japanese secretary, Toraichi Kono, now in Japan, proposed to leave the arrangements for his welcome up to Kenichiro Kamimori of the Fuji Film Company.
This was more than the other producers could bear, so yesterday they formed the Rokkakai – meaning the Six Flowers Association – to welcome Mr. Chaplin.

The Six Flowers threaten that if they are not permitted to share in the glories they will radio to Mr. Chaplin – to warn him against the welcome prepared.




EDWARDS REMAINS SAME

Hollywood, April 9 (AP)
The condition of Snitz Edwards, veteran stage and screen comedian, showed no change today, although relatives planned to remove him to a hospital. He is critically ill from a malady believed to have resulted from drinking water while on a South American tour many years ago.


From Luella O. Parsons:



Mack Sennett, who reaped a glorious harvest with his bathing beauties and Keystone Comedies in the golden days of film making, is back again with an idea. This time he will make Featurettes – comedies that are longer than the ordinary feature. Paramount yesterday signed a contract to release these Sennett Comedies.

More pictures to fill the theaters is the crying need. Paramount realizes this, and, in signing the products of Charles and Mack Sennett, is rising to the occasion.

The Sennett galaxy includes the crooner, Bing Crosby; the singer, Donald Novis; Babe Kane, Charles Murray, Dorothy Granger, Harry Gribbon, Andy Clyde, Natalie Kingston and others who have signed for the Sennett comedies.




Wonder if you know that Charlotte Greenwood will probably play one of the comedy gals in the “Tish” series with Marie Dressler?
Surprising that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer never thought to put Charlotte in a Dressler picture before?




Did you know that Dorothy Jordan is on the Fox lot playing in Will Rogers’ picture, “Down to Earth”?




That Dorothy Lee is going to go back to the stage? Her contract is up at Radio and she is sailing through the canal April 14




Do you know that Marilyn Miller will be guest of honor at the Assistance League luncheon next Wednesday? That the league doled out $60,000 for charity last year?




That Frances Dee will cast her smiles at the men of the Advertising Club at the Biltmore when she is guest of honor there?




Just heard that King Vidor will direct Ronald Colman in “Brothers Karamazov.” King did a very worthwhile job on “Street Scene” and is at his best in serious drama. If he does the Colman picture that means it will be some time before he returns to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot. He has not yet finished “Bird of Paradise” for Radio and when he does he will move over to United Artists to discuss the story, et cetera.




With Sally O’Neil in London, and her sister, Molly O’Day quietly at home here, we haven’t heard a word about these Noonan sisters in a long time. Everything’s going to be different now. Molly has found a job for herself. She plays the feminine lead in “Gigolette,” now being produced at Tec-Art. Gigolette, we are told, is the feminine for gigolo and it is the same type of story but told in reverse English.


Snapshots of Hollywood:




Maude Adams and Otis Skinner were given a great ovation by the film people at the opening of Merchant of Venice. The Robert Montgomerys among those at the performance. Dorothy Jordan and the ever faithful Donald Dilloway, Daisy and Paul Lukas, Marilyn Miller and another attentive don, Alvarado Edward Graham were among the stage people who paid homage to Miss Adams and Skinner.




Ivan Lebedeff, one of the best monocle wearers in Hollywood, was lunching with Polan Banks. Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. entertained at the Ambassador following the premier of Doug’s picture. Paul Bern, Joan Bennett, Gene Markey, Heather Thatcher, Hollywood’s only woman monocle wearer, Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon and Clark Gable were in the party. Mrs. Gable, who is in from New York, reported as being much entertained.




Groucho Marx gave a party in honor of his father’s seventieth birthday. A revolver was put at each place in case the guests didn’t like the conversation