Saturday, July 25, 2009

NO LURE TO STAGE-STRUCK GIRL IN “MACHINE PATTERN” OF FILMS



Pretty Erin O'Brien-Moore is Irish - and has a mind of her own.
So, after a season in Hollywood where she couldn't reconcile her ideas of acting with those current in the movies, she is back on the New York stage.


New York, April 2 (Associated Press)
It may be assumed from her name that Erin O’Brien-Moore is Irish, which also explains why she is a determined young woman.

Because, as she says herself, “I’m terribly stage-struck,” she turned aside a movie career and its accompanying wealth as it was interfering with her ambition to be a star in the theater.

This auburn-haired Irish girl first caused a murmur among the critics when they stumbled upon her in an obscure Greenwich Village playhouse.

There she was doing her best to give life to a futuristic art play called “Him” written by e. e. cummings, an author who is opposed to all capital letters.

PLAYED IN STREET SCENE

The following season, as the young sweetheart in “Street Scene,” she became what would have been the toast of the town if this were still an age when gay young blades drank champagne from their favorite’s slipper.

Immediately Hollywood beckoned and Miss O’Brien-Moore, with some misgivings, signed her name to a contract that brought her more money than she ever imagined there could be in one place.

“When I reached the studios,” she explains, “I found they had a vastly different idea about acting. To me, a performance in the theater is something creative, something that can’t be turned out as if it were pattered by a machine. I just couldn’t act according to rules as they wanted me to do.”

COULDN’T UNDERSTAND HOLLYWOOD



So Miss O’Brien-Moore refused to make a picture. She remained a year in Hollywood, where the directors could never understand the determined ideas of this young actress.

Now she is back on Broadway in “Riddle Me This,” and it is a coincidence that she plays the role of the sweetheart of a newspaperman. For Miss O’Brien-Moore comes from a family of newspapermen.

Her grandfather was editor of papers in Galveston, Dallas and New Orleans. Her father was editor of journals in Charleston, W. Va., Tucson, Ariz., and St. Louis.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I recently saw Erin opposite Humphrey Bogart in 'Black Legion', so it's interesting to learn that she had a false start in Hollywood earlier. Judy

GAH1965 said...

Glad you enjoyed this. I don't think I've ever seen one of Miss Moore's movies, but she's certainly beautiful in her photos.