April 4, 1932

CONNIE TALMADGE JEWELS STOLEN FROM BUREAU

Santa Monica, April 4
When Townsend Netcher prepared a month ago to take a vacation with his wife, Constance Talmadge, motion picture actress, he placed $4,200 worth of jewels in a bureau drawer. They returned from their trip to find the jewels gone, Netcher reported to police today.




LIONEL BARRYMORE IS SUED ON NECKTIE BILL

Los Angeles, April 4
A suit on file today by a New York firm accused Lionel Barrymore, actor, of having purchased neckties valued at $116 and not paying for them. The complaint did not specify the number of ties.




JETTA CAN’T WAIT FOR LAW

Hollywood, April 4
Jetta Goudal, motion picture actress, kept right on going when her chauffeur was halted on a charge of speeding. Hurrying to her studio, the actress opened the door and started walking as soon as her car was stopped, a police report related today.




If Hollywood gossip can be trusted, Evalyn Knapp will walk altarwards one of these days with Donald (Donn) Cook.

La Garbo has applied for a European passport

Paul Lukas, actor, leaving Paramount, joins Universal.




Grant Withers, Loretta Young’s ex-hubby, is attentive to Sally Starr.




George Raft has been cast as the heavy in Paramount’s “Countess of Auburn,” and it’s likely that Richard Bennett will be supplanted by J. Farrell McDonald. Raft was Miriam Hopkins’ rough-house Romeo in “Dancers in the Dark,” and her word for him is “terrific.”




Andre Luguet, recent Hollywood recruit from Paris, has signed a contract under which his services for a long term will be devoted exclusively to Warner and First National pictures. He is seen on the screen in “The Man Who Played God,” George Arliss’ latest starring vehicle for Warner Bros. Luguet plays the part of the king for whom Mr. Arliss gives a “command performance.”




Charles Starrett, who plays opposite Billie Dove in “The Age for Love,” is a former gridiron star of Dartmouth University. Starrett played his first film role in a football picture, “The Quarterback,” while still a student at Dartmouth.




Eddie Quillan, featured with Maureen O’Sullivan and Roscoe Ates in “The Big Shot,” is a member of the “Hole-In-One” club, an honor coveted by every golfer. On the same program is Robert Montgomery and Madge Evans in “Lovers Courageous.”


From Luella O. Parsons



Los Angeles, April 4
Paramount has put the matter squarely up to Stewart Walker to select new faces and new talent. Walker, famous stage director and credited with the discovery of such favorites as Peggy Wood, Kay Francis, Mary Ellis, Charles Starrett, Alexander Kirkland and Blanche Yurka, will start a school on the Paramount lot.

This school is vastly different from the one that educated Buddy Rogers, Josephine Dunn and others at the Paramount Studios some six years ago. No amateurs can attend. Walker will find his pupils among young people who have always shown talent on the stage or in minor screen roles.
He will groom them in plays and motion pictures, developing them for important Paramount roles.

The original idea belongs to B. P. Schulberg, who has great respect for Walker’s knowledge of the stage and screen. The title given Walker will be “Creator of Stars,” and that, my friends, is something now. Am I right?




If Barbara Stanwyck ever changes her type and goes in for comedy I am going to register a nation-wide protest. There is no one who can be as tragic as Barbara and there is no one who can play these worldly young things with more emotional appeal.

Warner Brothers have bought a novel called They Call It Sin by Alberta Stedman Egan. Miss Stanwyck was in mind when the story was purchased. It’s about a girl whose life is ruined when she finds out she is a foundling, a girl also who loves the wrong man. Sounds very Barbara Stanwyck, doesn’t it?




Surprising that Janet Gaynor said thumbs down on Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The critics, it is true, weren’t very kind to Daddy Long Legs but the public liked it and it made money. Janet, it seems, registered a vehement protest against playing the little girl part in Rebecca. Since they paid Mary Pickford a nice hunk of cash for it and the public seems to crave those Pollyanna yarns, Fox has decided to give the role to Marian Nixon.



Marian, who is small and slim and very young, although she has had considerable screen experience, took tests for Rebecca. All the office boys, stenographers and prop men were invited to express an opinion with the result that Miss Nixon was given the part.

Snapshots of Hollywood:



Jack Holt in a turtle neck sweater, giving several tourists from the Middle West a run for their money. He was lunching at the Brown Derby. So was Lew Cody who came in for his share of admiring stares.




Lily Damita sent a telegram to Lupe Velez congratulating her on her “Follies” success.




Lowell Sherman is contenting himself with playing a director in “The Truth About Hollywood.” He will not direct it.


ADLIBBING ON FIRST NIGHTS




By Wood Soanes
The Barrymore brothers – Lionel and John – are pitted against each other for the first time at the Fox Theater this week in the revised version of Maurice Le Blanc’s old French detective story, “Arsene Lupin,” which has been brought up to date for the occasion.

“Arsene Lupin,” while heavy-handed at times and not always impressive in its story construction, manages to remain consistently good entertainment, the while it permits students of screen acting to compare and contrast the methods and techniques of the two stars.

Perhaps the first surprise was the fact that the men are about the same height and that each possesses an entirely different technique, although they belong to the same school of exposition. Heretofore John has seemed to have an advantage of stature over Lionel.

The choice of this old play with its flamboyant melodrama was ideal for this case because the two roles are about as evenly matched as were those of the brothers in “The Jest,” in which the Barrymores appeared in New York back in 1919.



If you would like to see a movie actor with a jaw you’d love to sock, go to the RKO Majestic and see Eric Linden and Helen Twelvetrees in “Young Bride.” As “Good Time Charley Riggs,” Eric plays the role of a dance hall sheik who talks big business, big deals and big money and lets his wife make the living.

While the picture is not altogether pleasant and possibly the kiddies wouldn’t understand it (but where else can they go this week?) it is a powerful story.

Cliff Edwards adds to the merriment of the New York dance hall wisecracking crowd.

The picture has a modern youth cast and with the exception of Miss Twelvetrees, they show it, yet here is a picture of these youngsters you read so much about and perhaps it is better as it is. Arlene Judge has a golddigging role.

There is a boxing spotlight by Grant Rice, Earl Abel, a deep sea comedy, and RKO News.



With Roland Young, Jeanette MacDonald, Charlie Ruggles and Genevieve Tobin, Maurice Chevalier is not so hard to take in “One Hour With You.”

This light and airy comedy of a wandering wife (Roland’s) and Maurice and his young bride is filled with catchy songs and neat lines, some of which the kiddies understand.

(The poor kiddies; I wonder where they’ll go this week?)

Maurice is a young doctor with apparently but one patient, Mitzi, she being the love-hungry wife of Roland Young.

Young is a professor of ancient history. And Mitzi happens to be Jeanette’s best friend, and so she sends Maurice out in the middle of the night to see Mitzi.
And if you don’t like this, there is Ford Sterling in “Twenty Horses” and a color scenic “Honeymoon Heaven,” a cartoon and Paramount Sound News.



A new picture came into the Aztec Sunday, “Disorderly Conduct,” with Sally Eilers, Spencer Tracy, and El Brendel, and last but not least, Dickie Moore.

Spencer is a motor cop who arrests Sally, bootlegger’s daughter, and is demoted. Dickie is his nephew, one of several. The plot thickens and it turns into a sort of motor cop opera.

It is quite entertaining, and there is a comedy, cartoon, musical novelties and sound news.

THIS IS THE AGE OF REAL ROMANCE

By Alice L. Tildesley
April 3, 1932

That another romantic period is upon us is asserted by those who like to think they know.

Women’s clothes have gone completely feminine. She has abandoned the severe boyish bob and no longer starves herself into a sticklike imitation of her brother. Magazines reflect the current feeling by devoting pages to varying aspects of love instead of business.

Romance and not realism is emphasized as the best avenue of escape from the deep hole of depression. But what is romance?

“I think excitement over an idea, any idea, no matter what; that’s the essence of romance,” decided Rose Hobart, her blue eyes ashine.

“We are more romantic than we have ever been. A hundred years hence people will look back on us as the romantic generation. We think of ourselves as very realistic, but we’re not. We’re too easily moved.

“Romance is the ability to be tremendously thrilled. And boredom is death to romance.”

She sat at our table in the studio café Indian room, clad in the gingham dress and checked green apron of her current role, her soft brown curls pinned high, plum-colored makeup outlining her expressive lips, and managed to look the epitome of that quality she discussed.

“When we are thrilled over anything, we are keenly alive. It makes no particular difference what the thing is, if we care enough. Look at the unworthy sweethearts men and women love. It isn’t the object of our devotion that must be perfect, it’s the feeling in us.

Enthusiasm is the key to life. If we can keep our enthusiasm over anything, whether it is a person or a career, we usually succeed.

“The catch is, I suppose, to find the person and the work that can hold our interest. Nobody can advise us about that, because no one else sees that strange excitement that lies for each of us in the other person, or one other type of person, in one kind of work above another. We have to recognize these for ourselves.

“My parents adore music. My father is first cellist of the New York Symphony orchestra, and my mother, Marguerite Hobart, was a well-known opera singer when I was born. Naturally they felt that I should also adore music.

“My sister followed their path and is a wonderful musician. I studied music for years as a child and still enjoy it, but I knew I’d never be more than another pianist if I spent my life at the keys.

“At first I thought dancing was what I wanted to do, so the family let me study that, but it all boiled down to acting at the end. Acting was the thing that fired me; music and dancing were merely helps to learn rhythm and timing for my real career.

“My father opposed it because for him all romance lay in music and he hoped that his children would find it there, too. My mother, when she saw that I was really in earnest, did what she could to help me.

“Mother happened to be staying with Vivians, a talented English family who used to bring the Ben Greet Players to this country every year, when Percival Vivian mentioned that he was looking for an ingénue to play over Chautauquas with his company. He wanted to pay very little, which may explain his willingness to take me when mother sent for me.

“We played one night stands for 18 weeks, and I still loved it when we finished the run.



“Mother knew no theatrical people, but she heard of the Shuberts, so she took me to their offices.

“’This is all I can do for you,’ she told me, ‘If they won’t have you, I’m afraid you’ll have to do as your father wishes and be content.’

“I was only 15 and I had had 18 week’s work. I thought I must succeed because I loved it.

“I remember I was wearing a plaid skirt and a woolly white sweater with a roll collar and no hat. I looked at all the smart actresses in their furs and satins and wondered if I would ever be like them. While we waited, a little dark man came out of an inner office, glanced around and said to me: ‘What’s your name?’

“I stammered, ‘R-r-rose Hobart!’ and he sent me into the private room. Afterward I found out that he was one of the Shuberts. The other sat at a desk and hardly looked at me as he asked what I’d done. I proudly told about the Chautauquas. ‘Same as nothing,’ he commented. ‘Can you act?’

“I think so. I d-don’t know.’

“If you don’t know you can act, don’t bother me,’ he returned. So I assured him I did know, and he gave me a note to Eva Le Gallienne, who was casting ‘Liliom’ at the time.



“Miss Le Gallienne told me later that when she saw me she cried: ‘At last they show some sense!’ They had sent her dozens of small blond chorus girls for the part, which was that of her 14-year-old daughter. I played it for more than a year.

“There I was, launched on the work that means romance to me. I can’t imagine any other taking the place of it.

”That, in my opinion, is the way one should feel about the person one marries. Not having been married so far, perhaps my ideas on the subject don’t count.

“According to the studio, you know, I have no sex appeal, so maybe I am out of order in discussing romance. I haven’t discovered how they know I lack the essential quality, but I notice that whenever any official meets me out socially with an escort, he can’t conceal his surprise. He gazes at the man with a ‘Just what is the matter with that one?’ expression.

“I believe it must be because my collar bone shows. They like soft and squashy necks.
“But whether or not I am an authority on romance between two persons, I stick to my ideas on romance in everyday life. People who are easily bored miss it altogether.

“Sometimes I think there should be special education against boredom. Children should be taught to interest themselves in something; in many things.

“There’s a big thrill in lines outside our own if we investigate them. I’m terribly interested in psychology. Before I came out here I studied for a year with a famous doctor, who has done marvelous things by psychoanalysis for patients who seemed hopeless under other medical care. I wanted to know why people behave as they do and what it is that changes them. I thought it would be valuable to me in depicting character, but it was also valuable because it was so thrilling.

“It was like witnessing miracles. Men and women who couldn’t get along in life were made over new when they were shown that there was no reason for them to fail.

“If I had time to find them, no doubt I could be just as much moved by other subjects. It would be rather a good thing if we could educate children to search for worthwhile occupations for spare time.

“I’m told that there is no necessity to search after the kind of romance that culminates in the altar. That is supposed to come out of its own accord.”




Roland Young’s eyes crinkled with mirth until they were mere slits of blue in his suntanned face. He is slender and fair, not very tall, and looks exactly like his photographs.

“What is romance?” he repeated in his pleasant English voice. “What a question to ask a man at 4:30 in the afternoon.

“I think romance is a different thing to each of us. To me, life is romance. Or perhaps I should put it that romance is life as we live it, a mixture of adventure, hard work, luck and sentiment.

“Enthusiasm is a grand thing, but I don’t think it is all of romance. Life isn’t all high spots.

“Romantic periods are like measles; they come along every so often in the history of the world, for no particular reason. They are good for us. All art and poetry is created during these periods, not during the hard stretches of realism between them. I don’t know why it should be considered that to be romantic is to be soft. I don’t agree with that idea.

“Everything that happens to us can be romantic, in a certain light. That is, if we look back on it from a safe distance. We don’t remember how bored we were with poverty. Supposing that we have arisen from the gutter to greatness, it looks to us from the pinnacle of success that the days when we had to stretch a penny to make it cover half a dollar’s worth of goods were exciting. We didn’t find them so at the time.

“If we look on romance as an adventure, then the dangerous moments of life are romantic; but when we are living them, the romance is not so apparent.

“Some of the most exciting moments of my life have passed during the making of pictures, but I can’t say that I enjoyed them.



“While we were filming ‘Madame Satan,’ the action called for a group of us to be dropped from a Zeppelin. Most of the cast were permitted to leap, but I was to be thrown out.

The idea, as explained to me, was that I would be tossed out while the ship was quite low into a net spread to catch me, but when the time came the ship was high and the net far, far below. The expert suggested that I remember to keep my feet high, my head forward, and land on my back so as not to break a leg or my neck. The advice was not easily followed. I took the drop about a dozen times, and why I escaped intact is still a matter of amazement to me.



“In a late picture with Pola Negri, she as queen and I as king were being driven to our coronation in a coach drawn by four white horses. The horses used were coyboys’ mounts, accustomed to perform in rodeos, and I presume the scene was too tame for them. They bolted. They plunged off to the edge of a cliff, where the side of the coach got jammed against the two rear animals, while the leaders attempted to climb each others’ backs. There we were caught in a jam.

Pola was yelling, ‘Save me,’ and I couldn’t do a thing. Fortunately, we were rescued from our perilous position in due time. I can’t look back at it yet with any particularly romantic feeling, but in due time I suspect I will catalogue it in my memory as one of my romances.”

The walls of Roland Young’s den are covered with pictures of penguins; the shelves are stocked with hundreds of tiny reproductions of the bird that walks like a man; there are doorstops, book-ends, paper weights, penholders, ashtrays, cigarette boxes and bottle-stoppers made in the image of the fascinating bird.

“Penguins are romantic,” asserted the hero of many screen plays. The male is always faithful to his choice. He courts her just as a human being courts his mate. When his eye and lays it at her feet. Rocks are used to make nests so that the eggs shall be in safe, high and dry spots.

“If the female bird like him, she give him a peck on the chest; if she doesn’t like him, she probably gives him a jab in the eye.

“If she peck him, he has to fight several other contestants for her favor, and if he comes out the victor, even though bloody, they go off together in triumph and build their nest. And he is true to her forever.

“That’s romance, isn’t it?”

Roland should know. He met his wife when she was a child of 10 and lover her and her only, though he had to wait until she grew up before they could be married.
When the now Mrs. Young was in her teens, she and Roland played together in a comedy written by her mother, Clare Kummer. In one scene the girl had to pluck a pink carnation from a basket of these blooms and hand it to the young actor.

Pink carnations are still his favorite flower.

He believes in sentiment and thinks there can be no romance between two persons without it.

A pretty bit of sentiment set their wedding ceremony on the back porch of the girl’s summer home “because the sun was setting and the light looked so beautiful on the garden.”

“A caterpillar got down the neck of one of our bridesmaids and we had to halt the ceremony to get it out,” he remembered, whimsically.

All of that was a dozen years ago.

What is romance to you?

Whatever it is to you or to me, it’s coming back in style!

(Copyright 1932 for the TRIBUNE)

IN STUDIOS AND THEATERS

New York Times, April 3, 1932

Four new pictures, in addition to “Shopworn,” will be shown at the Paramount Theatre during the month of April. These are “Misleading Lady,” based on the stage hit of the same name and featuring Claudette Colbert, Edmund Lowe and Stuart Erwin; “This Is the Night,” with Lily Damita and Charles Ruggles; “Sky Bride,” with Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie and Virginia Bruce, and “Sinners in the Sun,” with Carole Lombard and Chester Morris.




The introductory work on Sidney Howard's film version of Dostoevsky's “The Brothers Karamazov” has begun in the West Coast studio of Samuel Goldwyn. Ronald Colman will take the part of Dmitri. Production has been tentatively scheduled to start May 15.




“Congress Dances,” which has been tentatively slated for the Rivoli Theatre, will have its premiere at the conclusion of the run of “One Hour With You” at the Rialto. The leading part in “Congress Dances” is taken by Lillian Harvey, assisted by Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover, Henry Garat and others. It was produced by Erich Pommer and will be released by United Artists.




In order to seek local color Eddie Cantor has gone to Mexico, it is announced by Samuel Goldwyn. Mr. Cantor will appear as the main character in “The Kid From Spain.” Among new writers and composers for the same staff are Harry Ruby, Bert Kalmar and William Anthony McGuire. Messrs. Ruby and McGuire recently finished their work on “Horse Feathers,” in collaboration with S. J. Perlman. Mr. McGuire wrote “Kid Boots” and “Whooppee.”




A much-discussed subject of late has been that of misrepresentation in pictures dealing with newspaper film plays. The United Artists Corporation is the latest group to voice its opinion in the controversy in announcing that it has given its pledge “that pictures made by member producers of this company will assiduously refrain from bringing discredit upon the Fourth Estate.”

The pledge was given in a letter sent by Al Lichtman, vice president and general manager of United Artists, to the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers' Association.

“Reflection upon the American Press by stage and screen,” wrote Mr. Lichtman, “is regrettable, and I may say that no picture released by this company will bring discredit to your business.”




Several photoplays are to be started before April 15, according to an announcement by RKO-Radio. In one of these, to be entitled “The Roar of the Dragon,” Gwili Andre, who despite her non-Scandinavian name, is hailed as a “Norse beauty,” who will make her screen debut here. Other pictures announced by the same organization are: “Hold 'em in Jail,” a comedy based on the Sing Sing prison football team; “Hell Bent for Election,” a political satire, and “Is My Face Red?” said to deal with the worries of a New York columnist. Edna May Oliver will play the principal roles in the first two comedies.




Latest additions to the cast of “The Dark Horse,” a political drama now in production at the West Coast studios of First National Pictures, are Robert Warwick, Sam Hardy, Burton Churchill and Harry Holman. Other performers in this vehicle include Warren William and Bette Davis, Vivienne Osborne, Guy Kibbee and Frank McHugh.




Paramount Publix Corporation announces a picture tentatively entitled “Bride of the Enemy,” in which the stars will be Claudette Colbert and Clive Brook. Mr. Brook is just back in Hollywood after a six weeks' vacation in England.

PROJECTION JOTTINGS

April 3, 1932

Among the surprises in “Horse Feathers,” the Four Marx Brothers' next comedy to be released by Paramount, is “Dance of the College Professors.” Harold Hecht, local maitre de ballet, has trained twenty elderly, bearded actors for the burlesque. The dance takes place upon Groucho Marx's cinematic installation as president of a college.




Constance Bennett will take the major role in “The Truth About Hollywood,” an RKO-Radio picture, it is announced. This assignment has postponed the making of “Unmated,” which had been scheduled for immediate production. The Hollywood picture was written by Adele Rogers Hyland and photographic work on it will be started withing a week under the direction of George Cukor.




Maxwell Anderson has been engaged by Columbia Pictures to convert “The Washington Merry Go Round” into a film-play. He has already left for the Coast to start the work. Mr. Anderson collaborated with Laurence Stallings on “What Price Glory?”Among his other screen works are the story of “The Cock-eyed World,” the adaptation and dialogue of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and the dialogue of “Trader Horn.”




First National Pictures announced that Vivienne Osborne, who has played leading parts in “The Famous Ferguson Case” and “Two Seconds,” has started acting in “The Dark Horse.”




Lionel Barrymore has signed a new contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, according to an announcement from Culver City. Mr. Barrymore has directed a number of M-G-M features, among them being “Madame X,” “The Rogue Song” and “The Unholy Night.”




“Heroe's of the West,” by Peter B. Kyne, has gone into production at Universal City, The main parts are taken by Onslow Stephens and Jacqueline Wells. Others in the cast are Ed Cobb, Jules Cowles, Martha Mattox, Harry Tenbrook and Frank Lackteen.




Jackie Cooper, accompanied by his mother, is due to arrive in New York for a brief stay.




Richard Barthelmess, First National star, now on his way from the Orient to Europe, spent Easter Sunday in Bombay. He is due to arrive in Naples on April 4. He will go from there to Paris and soon thereafter he will embark for New York. Mr. Barthelmess is accompanied by his wife. They will leave for Hollywood after a brief stay there. His next picture will be “The Cabin in the Cotton.”




Warner Brothers announce that the following will be in the cast of “New York Town,” which is based on a play by Ward Morehouse: Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Inez Courtney, Lysle Talbot, Gloria Shea, Humphrey Bogart and Jobyna Howland.




Among plays to be adapted for motion pictures is “Harlem,” the Negro play by William Jordan Rapp and Wallace Thurman. It will be screened by Universal Pictures Corporation.




Thirty-three children have been selected by Paramount for roles in “The Strange Case of Clara Deane.” The children, ranging in age from two to eleven years, will appear in orphanage scenes with Wynne Gibson and 4-year-old Cora Sue Collins, who plays one of the important parts in the picture.

A GERMAN VIEW

Upon returning to Europe after an engagement of several months in Hollywood, Lil Dagover, the well-known German screen actress, hastened to add her contribution to the tales about “hardships” being endured by the greater and lesser lights of the film metropolis since the motion pictures learned to talk. In an interview printed in the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna, Frau Daugover is quoted as saying:

“Things have changed a great deal in Hollywood in the five years since my previous visit there. Most of the stars of the silent films have faded out and those who have been able to hold their places have modified their demands and views materially. The snobbishness of the old days has vanished. Today it is just a question of work; not, 'I must have an expensive car because I am the irreplaceable diva.' Competition by the actors from the theatre, many of whom are brought from the North, is the main reason for the altered conditions.

“Hollywood has ceased to be a paradise, for today even the work itself if no longer a pleasure. Extreme concentration of will-power is needed in order to be able to endure the activities, which always begin at 9 o'clock in the morning and often continue until 3 o'clock the next morning. Of course this is bad for the social life. Only once did I have occasion to meet all the big figures of the film metropolis – at the Mayfair Ball, which I attended in company with the family of Oscar Straus, the composer,”

Frau Dagover told her interviewer that she had just signed a contract for a talking part in the operetta “Teufelsreiter.”




Anna Sten, the Russian actress who supported Emil Jannings in “Tempest” and who appeared in the German version of “The Brothers Karamazov,” has been engaged by Samuel Goldwyn for United Artists. Miss Sten was born at Kiev of a Russian father and a Swedish mother. At the age of 15 she was admitted to the Russian Film Academy and later played in one of the Stanislavsky Art companies, appearing in Pirandello plays and works by Ibsen and Maeterlinck. She became interested in motion picture work, however, and she returned to the screen in a number of Russian films, including “The Yellow Pass.” She expects to leave Paris for Hollywood about the middle of next month.

Who's Who This Week In Pictures

Elissa Landi, who acts the principal role in "Devil's Lottery" at the Roxy Theater, is a Venetian, but was brought up in England. Her mother is the Countess Zenardi-Landi. Before taking to the stage and screen seriously, she wrote two novels, "Neilson" and "The Helmers." She joined an English stock company at Oxford in order to secure material for the writing of plays. After minor parts, she scored in the leading feminine role in “Storm,” and later played in “Lavender Ladies,” “The Constant Nymph” and “The Stag.” She left the stage for motion pictures and appeared in eight film productions made in England, France and Sweden. In January, 1930, she appeared with Adolphe Menjou in a French picture, “My Kind of a Father.” Miss Landi went to Hollywood in the Fall of 1930, and has appeared in the films “Body and Soul,” “Always Good-bye,” “Wicked” and “The Yellow Ticket.”




Alexander Kirkland, also in “Devil's Lottery,” was born in Mexico City. He was educated at Taft School, Waterbury, Conn., and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The stage attracted him, and he made his debut in “R. U. R.,” a New York Theater Guild production. Remaining with the Theater Guild for two years, he appeared in several plays, including “Yellow Jacket,” “Month in the
Country,” “l'Aignon,” “Marseillaise” and “Wings Over Europe.”

On a vacation trip to the West he got as far as Hollywood, where he drifted into the motion picture field. He has appeared in such screen works as “Surrender,” "Charlie Chan's Chance” and “Almost Married.” Mr. Kirkland's father is an attorney in Mexico City. His grandfather was Rear Admiral Kirkland of the United States Navy.




Barbara Stanwyck, the stellar performer in “Shopworn,” the feature at the Paramount, was christened Ruby Stevens. She developed into a graceful dancer as time went by, and being forced to earn her own living, through being left an orphan, she worked as a telephone operator for two years, after which she was employed in the pattern room of the Conde Nast Publications. She latter applied for a position as typist for a music publishing concern. While waiting to see the manager she heard some people talking about the revue then being rehearsed on the Strand Roof, and this she joined. Next, she was in the chorus of “Keep Cool,” known for the first time as Barbara Stanwyck. After stage experience in “The Noose” and “Burlesque,” she took up screen acting. Her first part was in “Behind Locked Doors,” but it was her role in “Ladies of Leisure” that brought her a contract with Columbia. Since then she has acted in “Ten Cents a Dance,” “The Miracle Woman” and “Forbidden.”




Lucien Littlefield, who takes an important part in “Shopworn,” was born at San Antonio, Texas. After appearing in stock shows he went to Hollywood, where he played first in “Rose of the Rancho.” He has been seen in “Tom Sawyer,” “Scandal Sheet,” “Reducing,” “Queen of Main Street,” “No, No, Nanette” and 'Young as You Feel.”




Zasu Pitts, the comedienne, who also appears in “Shopworn,” was born at Parsons, Texas, and reached the screen via amateur theatricals. She first appeared in “The Little Princess” and other parts without any marked attention. But when von Stroheim cast her in the feminine lead in “Greed” she was hailed as a clever actress. Since then she has contributed to the success of “The Big House,” “The Squall,” “Seed,” “War Nurse,” “The Secret Witness” and other productions.




In “Ladies of the Jury,” at the Mayfair, Edna May Oliver takes one of the leading parts. Miss Oliver was born at Boston and educated there. She began her stage career as an opera singer, but turned to the stage and appeared in her first Broadway role with Arnold Daly. Her successes include the plays, “Cradle Snatchers” and “Show Boat.” In the motion pictures she has won favor in “Cimarron” and “Laugh and Get Rich.”




Marian Marsh, a featured player in “Beauty and the Boss,” now at the Strand, was born in Trinidad, her real name being Violet Krauth. She says that she is a mixture of English, Irish, French and German. When she was a child her parents came to America and lived in Springfield, Mass., Boston, New York and latterly Hollywood. Her sister is Jean Morgan, also a film player, She took Marian to a studio to have a test made. Marian then appeared in minor parts in several films, and, for a brief period, she was on the stage, playing in “Young Sinners,” Miss Marsh's favorite role is that of Trilby in “Svengali.” To keep physically fit, Miss Marsh plays tennis, skates, rides horseback, swims and dances. Miss Marsh is 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 102 pounds. Her most recent pictures include “Five Star Final,” “The Road to Singapore,” “The Mad Genius,” “Under Eighteen” and “Alias the Doctor.”




Charles Butterworth, who is also to be seen in “Beauty and the Boss,” was born at South Bend, Ind., the son of a physician. His career had been mapped out for the law, but the college theatricals took his mind to the stage. He made an immediate hit as a comedian , but kept to the amateur stage. After having over come an early childhood ambition to become a piano tuner, Mr. Butterworth drifted into journalism for a brief spell and worked for a while on The South Bend Times. Then he went to New York and worked for a while on The New York Times. He became acquainted with J. P. McEvoy, who, after hearing Mr. Butterworth reciting “A Day at the Rotary Club,” engaged him for his revue, “Americana.” This was Mr. Butterworth's first professional theatrical test and he soon followed up his early success in such Broadway plays as “Allez Oop,” “Good Boy” and “Sweet Adeline.” After this last hit he was engaged by Warner Brothers and went to Hollywood.

Of his likes and dislikes Mr. Butterworth has said that his favorite picture is “Custer's Last Fight,” which he saw in the good old days in the saloons, and that his present ambition is to guess his weight on a penny slot machine. But he is more serious when he speaks of music, for which he has a genuine passion.

Mr. Butterworth wrote recently: “My hobbies are bobbing for apples, reading pamphlets, watching water go over a dam, and watching men hoist safes into high office windows. I feel terrible most of the time. I have spots before my eyes, but perhaps no one has noticed them. My heart pounds rather badly after running up twelve flights of stairs. I have an aunt in Flint, Mich., who wears birds on her hats.” Mr. Butterworth's latest pictures include “Life of the Party,” “Illicit,” “Fame,” “The Mad Genius” and “Side Show.”




Warren William went into picture work comparatively recently. He was born at Aitkin, Minn., his father being a newspaper man. The reputed lure of journalism, however, had no fascination for the younger William, and he expressed a desire to become a marine engineer. When the war broke out he joined up. And when he returned he drifted to the stage, having taken a part in army theatricals in France. He has acted in Ibsen and Strindberg plays.

FILMS UNDER WAY

April 3, 1932

Production executives at the M-G-M studios approach the final quarter of the 1931-32 season with several pictures currently in work and others in various stages of preparation for the screen.

“Strange Interlude” is expected to vie with “Grand Hotel” in matter of popularity. Eugene O'Neill's characters will live again on the screen in the persons of Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Henry Walthall, May Robson and Ralph Morgan.




Current events of the news pages will find their reflection in “China Seas.” Tod Browning will direct Clark Gable in this photoplay immediately on his completion of work in “Strange Interlude.”




Ramon Novarro is at work under Sam Wood's direction in “Huddle,” a story of campus and football romance. This novel will find Madge Evans , Una Merkel and Martha Sleeper as its principle protagonists.




Jackie Cooper's next picture will be “Limpy,” an adaptation from the William Johnston novel of the same name. Chic Sale, Dorothy Peterson, Ralph Graves, Helen Parrish, Gus Leonard and Oscar Apfel are seen in support of the juvenile star.




Marie Dressler began work last week with Polly Moran in “Prosperity,” under the direction of Leo McCarey.

Marcel de Sano will shortly get under way with one of the most-discussed stories of the year. Katherine Brush's “The Red-Headed Woman.” No cast has as yet been assigned for this bit of theatrical property.




Walter Huston heads the cast of “Night Court,” a new melodrama dealing with corrupt courts and judges in a great city, with Phillips Holmes and Anita Page in leading roles. Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt, John Miljan and Tully Marshall all have parts in “Night Court.”




Charles Riesner, director of M-G-M's three quite popular comedies, “Caught Short,” “Reducing” and “Politics,” is preparing to make in audible from that great favorite, “Turn to the Right.”

Edgar Selwyn will direct Faith Baldwin's “Skyscraper.”




Monta Bell has been added to M-G-M's directorial staff to make “Downstairs,” John Gilbert's next, from a story suggested by the actor.




Charles Brabin is working on “After All.” This is a picturization of the John Van Druten stage play of the same name, which was seen on Broadway last season. Margaret Perry repeats the role which she had in the stage production, and Robert Young, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt, Donald Cook, Laura Hope Crews, Myrna Loy and others play prominent parts.