HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 27, 1 February 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

GOSSIP OF THE STUDIOS. (By MOLLIE MERRICK.) HOLLYWOOD (Cal.), December 23. Rudy Vallee fans have sprung to the defence of their idol. As I hoped they ! would. What they have not done—and I had hoped they would do this—is to tell me what they fiud that is so fascinating in the idol of the air. Here is an extract from the most fiery of the Vallee proselytes: "Well, 6our grapes, what have you against dear, fascinating Rudy 1 Believe me, he has 'it' and is the idol of everyone. But you, you jealous ols cat, you are sore because you can't make a hit like he is making. . . ." She must have heard me sing! But I still contend that Rudy listens better than he looks. Half a million is the biggest movie salary paid for one picture to date. And a singer got it. John McCormack

You'll be seeing him from time to time in pictures, lou've seen him already in one or two. His blonde hair, laughing eves and rare smile are fated to be popular. That's why Regis Toomey "went over" in his first cinema appearance, and why he's just signed a longterm contract in one of the larger Hollywood sjtudioe. He is the type that makes you careful lest you tag him "whimsical." If you were not careful you might say he had a wistful smile. But heV. far too much a he-man for any such philandering in prose, and the grind he went through in small English companies has made this American youth one of the most firmly rooted in experience of all the younger group of artists the talkies have brought us. Regis Toomey is the boyish detective who died so well in "Alibi." He is the naive insurance agent who fell in love with a very wealthy girl, and in the process completely stole the picture

from Constance Bennett, who was very busv wearing French frocks as tne wealthy girl. And soon he is going to plav opposite Nancy Carroll in a cute little plav that has to deal with kitchens, kisses and "komedy." He poises a character on that shadow line between comedy and pathos so cleverly that you laugh and cry and wonder. You smile with dimming eyes, but you're laughing again before the tear "has gathered sufficient momentum really to fall. That is the secret of Charlie Chaplin's hold upon the world in his comedy field. And it's a formula very hard to beat. When Regis Toomey was a. lad in the British Isles—he's a Californian by birth, but he did his apprenticeship with small stock companies over there —he rode a bicycle and read Western stories. They' were printed quite conveniently for him in paper bindings and fitted snugly into the pocket of a Norfolk jacket. You could lean, your bicycle against the wall of a village inn and prop your paper-covered blood-aiid-thunder story against a, Toby jug while waiting for the barmaid. When producers sounded Regis Toomey out regarding ideas after his first success- in cinema roles, they found his ambition was to make "The Saga, of Billy the Kid." Investigation revealed that Billy Haines was slated to do this very thing, with the story all tied up and" waiting, so the first Toomey ambition had to go by the boards. Billy the Kid was the youngest desperado to snuff out a life with the same fine disregard for the victim we have when we step on a spider. His victims were numerous, his career a crazy patchwork of kindliness and cruel criminality. The characterisation is one of the most complex and at the same time maddeningly simple any young actor could attempt. It is one thing to choose a story in Hollywood, but quite another thing to get it. When Richard Dix was advertised as slated to appear in "Bulldog Drummond." the powers that be at the studio where Ronald Colman afterwards made this picture held their tongues. They allowed their rivals to announce all the preliminary detail on the story, but when the time came they quietly took up their option on the tale, leaving the opposition to smile wryly and look elsewhere for a story.

One of the greatest bugbears in the industry is the difficulty of finding a role that will fulfil all the requirements of John Gilbert's personality. "Redemption" is made and on the shelf. And the Molnar, which presents him to the public, is rather in lighter vein than we are accustomed in the Gilbert type. Jack Gilbert has a brunette personality and a blonde voice—a menacing eye and disarming, silvery speech. Scenario staffs pale and look baffled when the word goes out to dig up a vehicle for the gelatine idol. So far the boys of Regis Toomey's type do not require a role to fit the personality. .They bend their types to meet the exigencies of the roles given them. Men with the training of Basil Eathbone escape the glorification which the Jack Gilberte and Rudy Yallees achieve. In the past they were a minority in this village. *To-day the actor who projects himself into the role is becoming an asset. The motion picture industry is making an honest and sincere endeavour to give the public well interpreted plays with capable players in them. This will not do away with stars. The mystery of mass appeal will always be with us. It seems to be a quality which arouses in the beholder a reaqtion out of all proportion to the apparent endowment of the person responsible for its origin. Gossip credits Ina Claire and John Gilbert with seeking publicity in their forthcoming separation. It may be true. No inovieite is above such a ruse. But intimates of Jack Gilbert say the actor has been in the depths. The critics have attacked his talkie venture with particular venom. The financial tide went against him—the know-alls of movieland credit him with having "lost everything but Ina Claire and his house." This is gossip and may not be worth the breath it is spoken with. But Ina Claire starts a new picture immediately. Jack Gilbert does the same as soon as they can find a story lit for him; and Gilbert confided to a friend just before this contemplated separation, "It is a pity I am bothered with money affairs on top of all this other trouble." Clara Bow is still in the hospital. Lon Chanev has not been well enough to start the silent picture which Fred Niblo has ready for him. If he does not recuperate sufficiently to start within the fortnight Niblo will shoot a talkie he is preparing and the Chaney picture will go over to spring. Anthony Bushell is a new type of leading man who has some of the appeal Conrad Nagel popularised. This remark may not make a hit. Players do not like to be compared with other players, but' the fact remains. He was once a member of the London company of "Is Zat So," hence it was quite appropriate that he and Zelma O'Neal, his wife, would be at the Gleason dinner the other night. Regis Toomey was also there. He understudied Jimmie Gleason in the role in London. Willard Mack was there. Stage comedians are gaining favour in the village. After Edgar MacGregor had expatiated for several hours on the merits of a, gentie. named Gus Shy, lie received permission to bring Shy to Hollywood. MacGregor is one of the stage directors who believe in the photographed musical comedy, or the photographed play, as the case may be. And he is converting movie magnates to his point

of view. He has a theory that motion pictures informed with sound should neglect no part of the entertainment field, from comedy, musical comedy and drama to grand opera. « If you think the newcomer from Broadway sits and ''observes" for months after his arrival, as he did in the good old days when a Broadwayisc was as rare as a three-headcd-calf in the village, you are mistaken. He jumps right in and goes to work. One of the first things MacGregor did was to infuse the Tibbett picture with comedy. On short notice he chose Laurel and Hardy and got results worthy of a year's thinking. He has some grand opera music— Tsehaikowsky, if you please —stowed away in his head for a rainy day. It may have to be raining dollars, but that happens now and again in Hollywood. Then he will pick a popular artist of grand opera for the star, a beautiful girl with a, lovely voice for his lead, and the millennium will have begun in celluloid. Dialogue has brought to the fore the matter of the double entendre. There is no such animal in pantomime, where an honest crudity makes a spade a spade. Our first talkies didn't bother much with shades of meaning. They were assembled hastily with title writers doing dialogue. As a result the characters just sat about dropping tags out of their mouths. Then conflict entered into talk and possibilities loomed- Now comes the naughty line, so camouflaged that you can take it. one or two ways. A light in the actor's eye—a lift of his eyebrow —a flirt of.the wrist, lets you into the secret. One of the best little double-entend-rists in the village is Edmund Lowe, whose mastery of the lavender line is something to marvel at. Raoul Walsh is another expert. Get them together and the result is something rightalonc the edge of censorship, if the censor could get any traction. But the smooth, polished surface of their product defies attack. Edmund Lowe is one of the best actors in cinematics. And Walsh has directed talkies ami silent pictures with equal acclaim. But they are adding grey hairs to the censor's" heads.