TALKIES END POPULARITY ABROAD

By Luella O. Parsons
Hollywood, May 1

No more glamorous screen personalities to Europe~ No more favorites who have all the foreign-speaking countries paying homage to their art! Gone are the days when Germany knelt at the small feet of Gloria Swanson and Norma Talmadge and Italy cried “Viva la Marion Davies” and a few more good old Italian phrases for Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. The talkies are responsible for this change to movie topography.

The war, in other words, changed the map of the world, but the talkies did more. They changed the entertainment for people from Jericho to Timbucktoo. Gloria Swanson, who used to travel with a whole bodyguard of protectors, walked into St. Moritz for the winter sports and nary a soul knew our glorious Gloria. New faces and new stars had been seen at the local theaters.



I talked over this very situation with Adolphe Menjou. He is back from picture-making in London, and no one is more observant than Mr. Menjou, who is one of the most intelligent men in pictures.

He had a breakfast-luncheon of wheat cakes and sausage at my house and in between times we talked of the conditions abroad since the talkies changed everything.

I asked him if London is developing its own stars to meet the talking picture exigencies.



“Only two British stars stand out as favorites,” said Mr. Menjou, “and they are comics. Ralph Lynn and Tom Walls, he told me, are to London what Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are to America. The English public adores them and if you have seen them you can understand this popularity.



Adolph paid homage, also, to the art of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. “London,” he told me, “is flocking to see ‘The Shanghai Express’ Dietrich is, today, one of the greatest drawing cards abroad. As for Garbo, if she plans to travel about Paris incognito, she is doomed to bitter disappointment. Garbo is today a figure as great as any national hero. She will be mobbed in Paris.”

Mr. Menjou is too modest to admit that he is one of the few stars who have survived the talkies. He speaks all languages fluently and for that reason is today as popular in Spain, France and Germany, as he was before the talkies made so many dramatic changes.



“This dubbing-in business,” said Mr. Menjou, “will not work out satisfactorily. You cannot get a $100 a week girl to speak the lines for our $5000 a week stars. The personality of the voice cannot be ignored. Norma Shearer’s voice has its own appeal, so has Marion Davies’ and Mary Picford’s. To put someone on to speak foreign lines for them is exceedingly foolish.”

I asked Mr. Menjou to tell me if this English invasion into motion pictures needs to be taken seriously.

“England,” he told me, “is making more pictures than at any time since the beginning of the movies. But the studios are not equipped to handle big productions. There is only one stage to a studio, and you that won’t go far in today’s screen production.”



Mr. Menjou is authority for the story that Rex Ingram, handsome Irishman and director, is playing the lead in his own picture, “Baronne.” Ingram, said Mr. Menjou, is spending $400,000 on this picture. He needed tanned characters, so he sent his whole company to Nice to acquire a natural sunburn before the picture went into production.



Chaliapin, noted opera singer, is being starred in a foreign picture to cost an enormous amount of money. France is sponsoring this number and the bookings are already pouring in, according to Mr. Menjou, who talked with the producers of this big number.

One of the biggest successes among the English-made pictures is a labor drama produced to show the conditions in the coal mines.

LUMINARIES OF SCREEN FORSAKE HOLLYWOOD FOR THEIR RURAL RETREATS

Mountains and Beaches Call to Performers and Producers, Directors and Writers, and Cafes Have Little Left to Satisfy Tourist Interest

By A. L. Wooldridge
Hollywood, April 30

Actors, actresses, directors, producers, writers – all who can get away – are headed for their retreats in the mountains or at the shore and Hollywood boulevard and the cafes now offer few to be pointed out to strangers.



To Malibu beach have gone Constance Bennett, Marlene Dietrich, Clara Bow, Marion Davies, Leila Hyams, Evelyn Brent, John Gilbert and George Bancroft.



Ready for occupancy but temporarily vacant because their owners are away, are the homes of Raquel Torres, Louise Fazenda, Bebe Daniels and Lilyan Tashman.



A broad-shouldered man climbed into a plane at Culver City the other day and flew over the Tehachapi mountains to the north.

“Wally Beery’s gone to his cabin,” envious observers remarked as the hero of “The Champ” drove his plane over the big “hog-back” ridge. Had one been able to follow he would have seen Beery arrive at a private landing field, two miles from Silver Lake.

He would have seen the actor climb in a dilapidated automobile and drive to a spot on the shore where a rowboat was tied, then complete his journey to a small island – the “Wally Beery island,” which is occupied by no other human being. Complete isolation alone with a dog as a companion.

“I derive two great benefits from my island shack,” Beery said. “First, relaxation. I can sit on the back steps of my little pine house and catch rainbow trout. Second, I can ‘take stock’ of myself and my problems – which is the greater of the two.

Every man is better off going away by himself at times to assay his work in the world, to figure out his faults and shortcomings and to study his possibilities.”



Screen players frankly say they get “fed up” on Hollywood with all its tinsel and papier mache, and weary of the struggle among clans and classes and the hectic uncertain life.

It will be remembered that when William S. “Bill” Hart gave up picture work, he moved bag and baggage to a ranch near Newhall and there he now passes all his time;

that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford have purchased a large tract of land down the coast from Los Angeles and are establishing a hacienda on which definitely to remain when they have retired, and that



Harry Carey lives at an Indian trading post near Saugus.



Cecil B. De Mille has three ranches north of Los Angeles. One of these, which he calls “Paradise,” lies in a narrow valley, where he raises pheasants. When the gates are closed and locked De Mille cannot be reached by any one. There is no telephone. There is no nearby road. Once, a year or two ago, when it was urgent that he return to the city on business, an effort was made to drop a message to him from an airplane, but the effort failed.



In the San Bernardino mountains, Reginald Denny has a log cabin well off the beaten path of travel. He goes there to pass summer days whipping the streams for trout; In the fall to shoot ducks, in the winter to revel in the snows; in the spring just to get out of town. A few weeks ago he took Robert Montgomery to the cabin to pass the week-end.

Richard Dix passes most of his time on a farm in the San Fernando valley. Fred Kohler has a chicken ranch near Owensmouth. Warner Oland has five ranches set to fruit and lives on one near Ventura.



Walter Huston was looking over some crude house plans at the Universal studios recently. “I’m building a log cabin at Lake Arrowhead,” he explained, “just to get away from the city. It’ll cost a few hundred dollars. Big fireplace, rough chairs, good bunk to sleep in. I don’t hunt, but I want to get up into the pine woods. It’s the first home I’ve ever owned.”



Lois Weber, who has said “goodbye” to picture business, lives on an orange ranch near Fullerton.

George Hill, director, former husband of Frances Marion, has his “hideout” at Lake Arrowhead. Anita Page owns a cabin near Lake Hughes in the Angelus national forest.



Mary Astor has a cabin between Big Bear lake and Arrowhead, in the San Bernardino mountains.

“My ‘hideout’ is very simple,” she says. “A small cabin with cacti for garden plants, some live-oak trees and bushes. My mother and I go there. We haven’t a radio or telephone, not even a phonograph.”




Dorothy Devore lives on a five-acre ranch far back in the redwood country of central California. Greta Garbo joins no beach colony in the summer, but she always rents a home from which she can have a view of the sea. She moves often. Ronald Colman for years had a house in a canyon which led into the Pacific ocean, but now has a home high on a hill overlooking Hollywood.



Fredric March is at Laguna Beach the year round. Laguna has a colony of writers and is a sort of center for the intelligentsia of films. It’s a sleepy little town without railroad or car line, but one of the prettiest spots on the west coast.

SCREEN LIFE IN HOLLYWOOD

By Hubbard Keavy

Hollywood, May 1, 1932
No one lives in hotels in Hollywood. Folks stay in them temporarily, make them their homes when they expect to be here a short time, say, for one or two pictures.

Aline MacMahon took a hotel suite, expected to return to New York after her first film, “Five Star Final.”

Then came another picture, “Heart of New York,” and then “The Mouthpiece,” which was followed by “Week-end Marriage.”

She decided after six months, when she was cast as the head nurse in “Life Begins” (a story set in a maternity ward,) that it was high time she moved to a house.

No, she didn’t decide to go home the day after she signed the lease. She thinks she’ll stay here.



THE RIGHT NICHE

You’ll probably be seeing a lot of this young Irish-Jewish girl who made her debut as Edward G. Robinson’s wise-cracking secretary in the tabloid newspaper story.

She seems to have been made for a niche that was unfilled until she happened along in the coast production of “Once in a Lifetime.”

Incidentally, Aline may play her same role in that famous satire on the movies when, and if, the producer who owns it ever gets an adaptation that retains the spirit of the play without treating his brothers too caustically.

Miss MacMahon is a Brooklynite who “recited pieces” when she was young. Being a pretty good reciter, she was encouraged to try the stage. And after she attended Columbia University she did with much success.

Her father, Bill MacMahon, was a newspaperman for years. Her mother is Jewish. Aline has been married for four years to a New York architect.




PERHAPS SO

On the day they had been married a month, Gene Markey sent Joan Bennett three boxes of flowers – gardenias, roses and gladioli.

In the largest box was a card saying:

“With sincerest sympathy to Mrs. Markey from Mr. Markey.”




Spencer Tracy’s wife and son bought him a polo pony for a birthday present the other day.

Spencer says when he gets three or four more horses he’ll be able to get in a game.

Tracy and many others who are just learning the gentleman’s sport usually play on the basis of so much for the use of a horse, equipment and the field. Even playing that way it’s an expensive pastime.


COLLEGIATE MINORITY

Approximately only one-third of the 210 actors and actresses among the great and near great in Hollywood, a survey shows, have attended college.

Seventy-six went to college, 73 have but a grammar school education and 61 have a high school training or its equivalent.

This might indicate that a sorority pin is no pass to movie success, nor a fraternity emblem a stepping stone to stardom.

But for the majority, amateur or actual stage training was a prerequisite of their picture careers.




ARLISS LOOKS ABROAD

There is a possibility that George Arliss’ next picture will be made in his native England.

The film quota laws require each company releasing pictures in England to produce a certain number of them there.

Few of the American-produced British movies are released in this country, however, since usually they are of inferior quality or have no American box office names. An Arliss picture could be shown successfully in both countries.

The star has tentatively agreed to the plan, provided as much effort and money are put into the picture as would be here.

As Arliss might have put it, but didn’t, “no cheating.”




Rotund Eugene Pallette has played 640 movie roles, which much be a record.




Johnny Mack Brown, who has been conspicuous by his absence from the screen the last few months, will be in a series of six westerns after he finishes “The Fatal Alarm,” a mellow melodrama.




BOX OFFICE TITLES

The title-changing activities of movie men sometimes have an effect opposite that intended. There is the case of “Old Man Minnick,” “Chic” Sale picture.

It was changed to “The Expert” for a two-fold reason. Warners hoped its similarity to a title Sale made famous, “The Specialist,” would help the picture. And they thought “Old Man” might keep young people away.

“The Expert” attracted men in great numbers; women stayed away.

It’s really a delightful story of an old man, one the whole family would enjoy.




O. K. WITH PARENTS

One can’t help admiring James Force’s nerve and confidence.

He’s the amateur actor whose friends are financing his assault on the movies.

Here a little more than a month, he still is looking for his first job. There’s no indication of downheartedness.

“I didn’t expect to get any kind of break in so short a time,” he says.

“I’m going to give this proposition a year or two, or maybe three if necessary.”

Force, 30-year-old insurance salesman in St. Louis, sold “stock” to 35 of his friends, most of them fraternity brothers. Each sends him from $5 to $25 a month, a total of $250.

The contract with each specifies he will share, in proportion to the amount he contributes, half of all Force makes as an actor during the next 10 years.

If Force is successful, each sponsor is guaranteed a maximum return of 2,000 per cent – or $20 for each $1 invested.

When Force conceived the idea of an organized, well financed trip to Movieland last December he quit his job to devote all his time to his campaign.

In less than a month he had explained it to 100 persons; 33 were “sold.”

I asked Force what his parents thought about his “proposition.”

“Father just grinned when I told him,” he answered, “and said: ‘Well, I guess it don’t hurt to try anything once.’ Mother’s different. She’s as sure as I am that I’ll succeed.”

“She seems to be concerned about only one thing now. She’s afraid I’ll marry some Hollywood girl and get divorced right away, like, as she says, ‘Everyone else does out there.’

“She also advises me in every letter to keep away from the wild parties.

“I’ve been to a couple of parties, but there weren’t any picture people there. Nor were they very wild.”

Force specialized in amateur shows and in occasional stock company appearances as a character player, but he’ll take anything in the movies to get started.

Extra? Sure, he says: “I’m not proud. I’ll be atmosphere, background or spear carrier.”

He thinks he’ll have to get over a natural reticence that is keeping him from “muscling in” at the studios and talking about himself and what he can do.

“In fact,” he added, “I’ve got to get rid of what I think at times is an inferiority complex. I understand no one in Hollywood feels inferior.”




HOLLYWOOD FOLK

Real happenings and unreel matters:

Reginald Denny has given up flying, Ben Lyon says, because Mrs. Denny worried every time he left the ground.

Ben, the only actor in the air division of the R. O. T. C. averages an hour’s flying every week without worrying Bebe Daniels Lyon. He has nearly 550 hours to his credit.

Just back from a vaudeville tour, Ben says the biggest laugh of the whole trip occurred in St. Louis.

The theater he played in seats 5,600, and plays to capacity only on Sundays. The rest of the week the house is seldom more than a third full – or at least, Ben added, it was so when he was there.

One night an actor glanced over the many empty seats and exclaimed: “I’ve played towns smaller than this theater.”




ROMANTIC JIMMY

Joan Crawford’s brother’s ex-wife, Jeanne Le Sueur, has become a “stand-in” for movie players. Currently she is standing up while Peggy Shannon sits down.

James Dunn met Mrs. Le Sueur on the set and the next thing James knew he was reported going places with Jeanne, and then the romance rumors started.
Dunn denied all and said his flame is still June Knight, dancing in New York, and that he phones and writes daily.




Charles Bickford, who heretofore would rather have his own way than a steady job at $2,500 per in the movies, has changed his mind.

He read Jim Tully’s “Laughter in Hell,” a story of brutality in prison camps, and mentioned that he’d like to play the murdering hero-convict in it.

Universal’s Carl Laemmle has been trying to get Bickford’s name on a long-termer for two years, since Charlie helped make “Hell’s Heroes” an outstanding picture.

When Bickford learned he could have “Laughter in Hell” provided he signed a contract he considered only a few minutes before saying “yes.”

“Bad Boy” Bickford, as he has been called, usually has trouble of some kind with his movie employers, the base of it being his objection to roles for which he thinks he’s unsuited.




TENDER HEARTED HAROLD

When one of 20 ducks being used in a “gag” in Harold Lloyd’s “Movie Crazy” was killed accidentally, Harold decided the rest should be spared from possible similar fates in the future.

He pensioned the 19, taking them to a big pond on his estate where they’ll spend the rest of their days.




A FAMILY AFFAIR

Because so few are able to say her name the way she would like it, Ann Dvorak has adopted the popular pronunciation.

Ann is the slender, dark-eyed young girl who sprang to prominence after playing in “Scarface.”

“Dvor-shak” is the way she has been saying it, giving it the same sounds as the Czecho-Slovakian composer’s name. But everyone insisted on “Devor-ak.”

Now even Ann is pronouncing it the way it is spelled.

The history of Ann’s name is almost as involved as the solution of the ancient puzzler, “How old is Ann?”

Her real name is McKim. Her mother, who was Anna Lehr in pictures several years ago (and who has remarried since separating from Ann’s father) wanted Ann to use her name.

Daughter demurred because she wanted to start out altogether on her own.

A family conference resulted in the selection of Dvorak, a family name from her mother’s side. Howard Hughes, who picked her for “Scarface,” wanted to change it to something easier to say, but a newspaperman argued against it.

According to Ann, he said it’s unusual enough to be interesting “and when she’s famous she can drop the Ann and be just Dvorak.”

Of course you know she’s legally Mrs. Leslie Fenton now.




It would take too many words to explain the family history of Lysle Talbot, a Nebraskan who gained his experience in stock companies in Texas, Ohio, South Dakota and Iowa. But his real name is Lysle Hollywood.

He’s here for pictures and luckily, says he, he took the family name of Talbot years ago. His mother’s family name is Warner and he almost used that.

It would look like more than a coincidence if he had, because he’s in Warner pictures now.




HIS ROLES TRAIL HIM

A lonesome man on the night of a movie premier is “Chic” Sale.

Sale has as many fans as the next one, but they don’t know him without his whiskers, mustachios and the spectacles of the characters he has made famous.

Even children, who have an uncanny perception about such matters, seldom recognize this thin, slightly stopped young man with the sharp nose and the pleasant eyes.

He’s one man on the screen, another off. No other actor, not even Lon Chaney, was ever so completely sold to the public as a character rather than an individual.




ART AND MECHANICS

Charlie Ruggles has sent a servant or two to Setauket, Long Island to prepare his home for occupancy because he expects to return there.

Inquiry by your curious reporter seemed in order when Charlie made this statement.

Here is a comedian engaged successfully and regularly in his business returning to a residence too far from filmland for commuting.

And we learn that Charlie’s contract expires in a few weeks and he doesn’t expect to say “yes” to another agreement, although it is probable he will be offered one.

The answer to the “why” interrogation is that (like numerous others of greater and lesser importance,) Charlie will be asked to take a cut if his contract is renewed – something Charlie says he will not do.

“I think it is a mistake for any player to lower his salary,” Ruggles told me. “Rather than take a cut, I’ll go back to my first love, the stage.

“Anyway, I don’t want to stay away from the stage too long or I’ll forget what I’ve been learning during all these years.”

Charlie regards the theater as art and the movies as something entirely mechanical.

Said he with frankness:

“Motion pictures, from the actor’s standpoint, are entirely a monetary business. They have no heart, no romance, no traditions, as has the stage.

“Most people are in this business in Hollywood to make a lot of money and get out. Some keep collecting money.”

He had much else to say on the same subject, none of which sounded to me like the “beefing” of one disappointed because his boss isn’t raising his salary.




WHY DO THEY?

Every time I hear a motion picture player, accustomed to the comparative leisurely life of working in the movies, complaining about the hardships of vaudeville (as most who have made “personal appearances” do) I feel like asking “Why do you do it, then?”

Any movie “name” can collect twice as much per week in vaudeville as he ever did in pictures.

The gentlemen who hire the Montgomerys and Tracys and Gables and others who play polo won’t object until one of them cracks a collar bone while a picture is in production. One day there’ll be a lot of good ponies for sale cheap.

CENTER OF ATTRACTION FOR CELEBRITIES SHIFTS TO HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Wayfarer May See All He Ever Knew or Heard of Among Them If He Gets by Outer Portals to Holy of Holies and Has Patience to Wait

By Wood Soanes, May 1, 1932

The Rue de la Paix in Paris and Forty-second and Broadway in New York were at one time supposed to be the two places in the world where you would see everyone you ever knew – if you waited long enough.

Today you may not see everyone you know in Hollywood’s studios, but you will at least come across most of the celebrities of the world. The only trick is to get entrée to the studios, because it requires much more than the price of an aperitif in a French sidewalk café, or the stamina of bucking the Broadway crowds to worm your way past the ogres of the outer offices.

At Radio I ran into Jack Sheehan, once of Oakland and more recently of New York, emerging from a successful interview with George Archainbaud, who was looking for a certain type of player to appear in support of John Barrymore in “State’s Attorney,” then in the making. A few moments later I saw Irving Pichel, returning from a stage where he had been at work with Ann Harding in “Westward Passage.”



Pichel is up in the money now, but I think that when his heart gets the best of his head it is not in Hollywood at all but in the ramshackle old church in Berkley that he converted into the Berkley Playhouse.

As we were talking Captain Jack Robertson appeared, lean and hardy in appearance and bubbling over with vitality. Time was when Robertson was a dreamy-eyed ticket clerk for the Western Pacific here, thinking of daring deeds. He nearly lost his life getting pictures of an eruption on Lassen peak. Later he came into prominence with his motion pictures of the Arctic. Now he is photographer-explorer de luxe.

The day before I had had a similar experience at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and First National. I was watching chubby Archie Mayo try to make a picture and experiment with a new practical joke handshaking device at one and the same time when Allan Vincent appeared. Local theatergoers will remember him from a memorable season when he appeared in ‘The Vortex” and other dramas.

Vincent, like the others, is unchanged. He still regards the world with a jaundiced eye, and can see little that is momentous in Hollywood’s hurly-burly. He had been imported from New York for a line of roles at Paramount, found he wasn’t getting them, and departed. When the contract difficulties were settled he began to free lance. He plans to do two or three pictures and then return to Broadway, where a new play awaits him.



The man who provided him with so many good roles and whom he replaced on several occasions for road tours, Noel Coward, was, perhaps at that very moment, telling the bigwigs at Fox that he didn’t care to have any part of Hollywood as a working arena. He had sold them three plays for the screen, and he would be glad to answer any technical questions, but, really, he had to be going.

It was all quite shocking to the smaller fry at Fox Hills because, after all, here was a man who had been given an exorbitant price for his product, who had been furnished with a handsome limousine and a liveried chauffer, and who could have made a tidy sum by acting as adviser or something. But no, all he could think of was the appalling state of affairs that demanded that an artist begin to work at his art at 7 a. m. and keep at it all day.



The morning I arrived at M-G-M my first sight was of Clark Gable, who had just steamed from the studio with a handsome patch over his left eye that made him look like Captain Kidd Junior. It was, so the oculists told him, nothing more serious than a foreign body in the eye, collected either while driving his car, riding a polo pony, or walking along Hollywood boulevard.

“It’s so small, they can’t see it with a magnifying glass,” Gable complained, but it feels like a load of coal to me.”

Well, as small as it was, this foreign body in right eye of famous leading man – as the entry may read in the log book of the “Strange Interlude” efficiency expert – was costing M-G-M plenty of money. Gable was willing to go on with rehearsals but neither the directors or Norma Shearer would hear to it. So the company was dismissed and the production waited, while the star and leading man went to their several homes.

Gable has gone further into the money since I interviewed him last October, but if he wore a hat I am satisfied that it would be the same size. Even if you don’t like his acting, you must give him credit for keeping his balance in a distinctly trying situation. It is not an easy chore to have feminine stars literally fighting for your histrionic services, and raising bob if they don’t get you.



Yet it was less than two years ago that I happened on a set where this recruit from the stage was working in a picture with Anita Page. His face was similar and I asked the press agent accompanying me what his name was. The press agent didn’t know, and, strange as it seems, the director when questioned couldn’t remember it either. I really ought to expose these two indifferent prophets, but they are good fellows at heart, so I’ll close the books.



Robert Montgomery was also in evidence on the M-G-M lot, not a whit changed over the six months, although he, too, has been elevated to starring proportions. He was a work on “Letty Lynton” with Norma Shearer and was putting in his spare time listening to the reminiscences of May Robson and Louise Closser Hale, who had been having a grand time of it for days talking about the stage as it existed in pre-movie era.

Montgomery, like Gable, is a stage recruit who has been catapulted into fame by the movies. But he never has lost his hankering for the stage. Gable, a different type, feels that he had enough hard knocks in the theater to do him for a while and is quite content to be a picture star for the duration of his contract, which is one of those seven-year ones.

“I was just thinking the other day,” he told me, “with one eye closed, that in seven years I may be an old man with a gray beard and there won’t be any stage jobs for me, just as in the past. So I should worry about that part of it. I like this work, I like the money, and I like my leisure and comfort.”



That was the day – March 24, if I remember – that Joan Crawford had a surprise birthday party. She had been working all morning and into the early afternoon on a scene in “Letty Lynton,” wherein Montgomery, as the gay young blade, outwits Lewis Stone, as the stern but wise District Attorney, and in which Miss Robson and Miss Hale appear in important roles with Emmet Corigan and Edward Hearn in smaller parts.

Finally, Brown dismissed Miss Crawford with a suggestion that she go to her portable dressing room and get ready for the close ups on the crying scenes. Obediently, she left while the studio orchestra ground out its routine of sentimental tunes, and the rest of the company rehearsed the scenes to be shot. Presently, Brown left for the Crawford dressing room, on the set, and there was great activity.

Actors began to dash about on their tip toes getting tables and chairs, electricians and mechanics showed more signs of life than they had all day, a table bearing a huge cake was carried over from the commissary and adorned with candles. Coffee and ice cream were carried in by the studio waiters. All this paraphernalia was placed on the darkened stage in front of the dressing room.

Finally Brown emerged, the candles were lighted, and a hue and cry went up for the star. She stepped down from her dressing room all prepared to do some first class crying and was startled into a real exhibition of joyful tears. I imagine that Brown secretly cursed the ill luck that prevented him from having a camera there for his desired close-up. The spectacle of Joan Crawford crying over a birthday cake would have been an ideal substitute for Letty Lynton crying over an averted murder trial.

May 1, 1932

DAISY DE VOE MUST SERVE YEAR MORE

Los Angeles, April 30 (AP)
Blonde Daisy De Voe, former secretary to Clara Bow, film actress, who was convicted of charges of grand theft from her employer, must serve the remaining 12 months of an 18 month county jail sentence, conditional to five years probation.

The district court of appeal today denied Miss De Voe a new trial of the charge. Her attorney, however, said he would file a motion for a re-hearing.




ARLISS TO START FOR EUROPE SOON

Now that “A Successful Calamity” has been completed, George Arliss has decided to start from Hollywood for Europe at an early date, to remain abroad for the spring and summer, returning to California and the Warner Bros. Studios for the resumption of his picture work next fall.

This decision is a change of plan on Mr. Arliss’ part, as he had expected to make another film in Hollywood before going overseas for his annual vacation. According to advices from the West Coast, Mr. Arliss declares that in all probability he will not return to the stage for at least two years. “I have a number of interesting proposals to consider, “ said the actor, “but it seems scarcely worth while to try a stage production when three or four months of my next two seasons are already occupied by motion picture engagements.”

Mr. and Mrs. Arliss will spend about two weeks in New York before sailing for France, where they will remain until June, at which time they will cross the Channel to England, to spend the summer at their home in St. Margaret’s Bay, Kent.

In “A Successful Calamity,” which will probably have its world premiere in New York next month, Mr. Arliss is supported by a large cast including Mary Astor, Evalyn Knapp, Grant Mitchell, David Torrence, William Janney, Hardie Albright, Hale Hamilton, Fortunie Bonanova, Richard Tucker and Barbara Leonard.




“FIRST ACTRESS” GAVE BREAK TO SPENCER TRACY

Actor Played With Ethel Barrymore in “Royal Fandango”

Spencer Tracy, who returns to the sound-screen in “Young America,” was born in Milwaukee on April 5, 1900. He learned his A-B-C’s in the public schools of that city and then went to Marquette University to discover the “hows, whys and whens” of medicine.

Half way though college he suddenly decided he wanted to be an actor, shut his textbook with a bang, grabbed his hat and boarded the first train for New York. There he studied dramatic art, joined a stock company, played in Theater Guild productions and got his first break with Ethel Barrymore in “The Royal Fandango.”

When that show finally closed he hopped to Cincinnati for a season of stock with Stuart Walker. Then back to New York for a three-year contract and diversified roles with George M. Cohan.

While he thought at the time he was making strides along the path to fame, he now realizes that he was only toddling and learning to walk. Bigger things were yet to come. The first was his role in “The Last Mile,” which won him acclaim on Broadway and a contract with Fox Films.




FORMER ARTIST

Myrna Loy was a commercial artist when “discovered” as a screen possibility by Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Valentino. Since then she has vamped her way to success and a contract.




LEADING MALE ROLE

Nils Asther will have the leading male role in “Letty Lynton,” Joan Crawford’s next starring picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Clarence Brown, who recently directed “Emma,” will direct the new film.




WEARS OLD COSTUMES

Dorothy Jordan wears costumes dating way back before the war on into modern times in “The Wet Parade” in which she is appearing at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. She “grows up” from a little girl by the use of her costumes alone, without any recourse to makeup.




NOAH BEERY JUNIOR

Noah Beery, Jr., making his film debut in “Heroes of the West,” a Universal picture, will not follow in the footsteps of his “villainous” dad, but will assume the character of a frontier youth seeing adventure.




GARDENING HOBBY

Gardening is the main interest of H. B. Warner, famous English film actor, when not engaged in making pictures, and he has won many prizes at flower shows with his rare and exotic entries, which have been developed in the hothouses at his Beverly Hills estate.




GARBO’S BARBER BOSS RIVALS FILM STAR’S RETICENCE

Stockholm, April 30 (AP)
Einar Widebaeck, owner of a suburban barber shop, declined a Stockholm movie house’s offer to tell about his employment of Greta Garbo to the first night audience of one of her films.

Greta started to earn her living by lathering customers in Widebaeck’s shop.
Like the movie star, Widebaeck has prospered; like her, too, he is reticent about the days she spent in his shop.




UP AND DOWN THE RIALTOS

“Grand Hotel,” with its multiplicity of stars, cost Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer $970,000 to make, and it is expected to gross approximately $2,000,000; the net profit thus will be slightly more than a million.

But before you call “Grand Hotel” an example of smart showmanship, give heed to the fact that in the same production period M-G-M might have made at least three other features with Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford and Wallace Beery had not their services been drafted for what originally was announced as a Greta Garbo starring film.




Fifty thousand British film fans, replying to a questionnaire, have “elected” Ronald Colman, Englishman, and Norma Shearer, native of Canada, as their favorite cinema players.

The poll, the first taken in four years, has these runners-up, in order of their popularity:

Women – Constance Bennett, Marie Dressler, Ruth Chatterton, Janet Gaynor, Greta Garbo.

Men – Clive Brook, George Arliss, Robert Montgomery, Maurice Chevalier, John Boles.

The stellar turnover in four years is indicated by the absence in 1932 of these names from the first 30:

Dolores del Rio, Betty Balfour, Clara Bow, Vilma Banky, John Gilbert, Harold Lloyd, Norma Talmadge and Laura La Plante.




MOVIE GO ROUND

By Luella O. Parsons
Hollywood Calif., April 30

The report current in Hollywood is that B. P. Schulberg purposely precipitated the battle between Marlene Dietrich-Josef Von Sternberg and Paramount.

His reason for so doing is thought to be because he felt that Miss Dietrich would be much better with another director, that she would be less an automaton and would be much more natural and easy on the screen.

Anyway, it’s interesting conjecture although we can hardly believe Mr. Schulberg would deliberately hold up production to get Miss Dietrich to make a picture with another director. Yet B. P. may have had just that idea in his mind.




DEMPSEYS TOGETHER

Will the Dempseys kiss and make up? A group of newspaper folk, discussing the matter, were agreed that it was more than likely that a reconciliation would take place. No two people could have had as emotional an outburst at the time of the separation if they had not been interested in each other. It’s only when love is dead and cold that a divorce is sought quietly without a few things said on each side. Jack and Estelle had dinner at Stare’s café one night last week and a little later appeared at the frolics. No less than 10 people called to tell this writer the news for said one “if they do make up it’s front page copy.”




A DIFFERENT OFFER

They are putting down a red velvet carpet for Richard Barthelmess at Warner Brothers and turning over all the best facilities of the studio for him.

Dick is in pretty right now because he voluntarily offered to take a cut in salary when he heard that conditions were not what they were last year. His cut is equivalent to the price of one picture, in other words he gives Warner Brothers three pictures for the price of two.

If other stars would do as Dick has done it might save embarrassment all around. Who knows where the ax will fall and where it won’t fall? Drastic changes are being made in all the studios and salaries are being cut.




MALIBU SEASON OPENS

The red buckram lampshades and the simple prints chosen by Constance Bennett for her Malibu house promise to make her beach house outstanding. William Haines, who is one swell interior decorator when he isn’t acting, has been in daily conference with Connie over her new house. She is determined to keep the furnishings simple and inexpensive and for that reason has chosen charming prints, beautiful in their simplicity.

The Malibu season has opened with a vengeance. Shutters are open and furniture is being put in place. Wynne Gibson has rented a beach house 10 miles north of Malibu. She is using unpainted furniture and her friends say it is effective.




THOSE JIGSAW PUZZLES

The Jigsaw puzzle companies must sell a lot of their product right in Hollywood. This town is that interested in putting the intricate bits of these puzzles together. I have watched Marion Davies try piece by piece to find a part of a garden flower or a bit of a lady’s gown or part of the stone steps of a medieval castle and she never rests until she succeeds.

Vivienne Osborne Is another jigsaw puzzle fan. Bess Meredyth, Louis B. Mayer, and Sylvia Thalberg are others who find this the greatest diversion in the world.

Believe me, you have to have steady nerves and be able to concentrate to fit these hundreds of small pieces.




WHO ADVISED GRETA

Just who first started Greta Garbo on the big mystery act has often been a matter of conjecture. One of the magazine writers, Gladys Hall, says that Lon Chaney told her before he died that he had advised Miss Garbo to live in seclusion and to refuse to be on public parade.

“I have never gone in for big premiers,” he told her, “nor have I ever been seen at café openings.” Miss Garbo, up to that time, saw every interviewer and was just a good-natured girl from Sweden. She used to laugh and be one of the most friendly of the foreign players – but that was before she became famous.




CHATTER IN HOLLYWOOD

Adrienne Ames’ millionaire husband came out here to take her back to New York. She was perfectly willing to go and had packed her trunks and was bidding Hollywood a temporary adieu when she was summoned to make a test for Richard Barthelmess’ picture, “Cabin in the Cotton.” She has been under contract to Paramount and has made excellent strides in the year she has been here.




Nancy Carroll’s red head is very apt to be missing from the screen at Paramount. She is having troubles, I am told, and her option has not yet been taken up.

Junior Laemmle celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday Thursday at Universal City. His chief diversion was having a birthday luncheon with the executives.