HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

GOSSIP OF THE STUDIOS.

(By MOLLY MERRICK.)

HOLLYWOOD (CAL.), Juno 20

When Bebe Daniels begins her next picture Lowell Sherman will not only be the leading man but will direct as well. There is an increasing tendency toward directorial and production work among the veterans of the screen guild. They know their chances for remarkable parts lessen as the years go on. And their opportunity to run the old salary up increases as' they plunge into this constructive angle of the motion picture industry. The Moore brothers have eyes on the directorial game. Matt Moore long since announced his intention of taking up cinema work from the angle behind the cameras. Lionel Barrymore's success in this field has been a tremendous incentive, i Close friends of' Mary Pickford predict a future for this star as a producer. Those who only know America's sweetheart from the audience side of the show, see in her a beautiful face coupled with acting ability and a superlative amount of sympathetic charm. Those who know Mary Pickford behind the scenes have much to say of her business shrewdness, undoubtedly inherited from her mother, who was a powerful factor in the establishment of Mary's popularity, voicing decided pronunciamentos as to what her daughter should and should not play in the formative years of the Pickford career. Mary Pickford is far less interested in social life than is Douglas Fairbanks. She is a child of the cinema, a business woman at heart, an actress by avocation and a beauty • through tho laws of nature. She signs every cheque paid out by her corporation. When the rush of work doesn't permit the Pickford to make out all the salary cheques, she always rushes through a few for the carpenters and electricians. But close personal supervision of her financial affairs has oven been an inviolate rule of her business career. The closing of her career before the camera will probably open the doors to a more constructive and ambitious plan of producing the sort of pictures the years of application and experience havo taught her will take with the public.

For the first time in many years Elsie Janis will not .occupy her famous old manor house at Tarrytown, New York.. She will spend the summer months on a chartered yacht, the "Charlottes" in the blue waters of the Pacific, and iit between cruises, she' will continue with her studio work. Elsio Janis has made a significant name for herself among the cineniaites. Her most recent work—writing the lyrics for C. B. Do Millo's "Madame Satan" has resulted in high praise. She staged revue previous to that. You can't down a clever girl.

Stan Laurel, junior, arrived in Hollywood and registered five and a half pounds' weight. Stan senr. claims he lost out trying to get a laugh from the new arrival. Junr. took one look at his parent and burst into loud wails.

They say comedy is to be tho big thing. That being the case, one understands perfectly the arrival of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse from England. This gentio is the highest priced writer of nonsense on earth. But it is nonsense with a flair.

In the days when he was making the reputation which now has made him the "Highest-Priced Writer of Short Stories on Earth" (the village will supply all sorts of competitors for this title, for, methinks, I have heard this tag before) P. G. Wodehouse lived in San Rafael, California, on a. charming little estate with a steep path which led up from the ocean.

How do I know so much about it? I once picked wild forget-me-nots on said estate blissfully not knowing that I was poaching on the preserves of the great. Just one of those days when the springtime spirit made a girl forget her background.

Writing laughs for a village so full of wise-cracks as to give the person with a sense of humour a somewhat healthy pain is no sinecure. Jokes are things to bo whispered in Hollywood. Tho remark clever is something to bo written on the secret files and sprung when it will make the most amount of money.

Will Rogers' conversation is said to be the most jerky of any of the Hollywood wits. When he feels a good nifty coming forth, Rogers swallows hard and substitutes something else. He knows his Hollywood lads. Jesse James and Joaquin Murrietta were amateurs compared to them.

Edna Purviance can't keep out of the headlines. To-day they are searching a ship from the Hawaiian Islands for suspects supposed to have stolen twenty

thousand dollars' worth of jewels from the famous blonde, who is given credit for once reigning over Charles Spencer Chaplin's heart. The jewels were stolen after a party given by Miss Purviance in the land where Okohoelehoe is served nonchalantly. If you've ever been to Honolulu, and if you've ever tasted the famous "Oko" of that land, you need no further explanation. If you haven't landed in this end of the globe, may I explain that vodka and mescal are soft drinks compared, to it. , And when a famous Wilshire gambling rendezvous was raided, bediamoned ladies and genties with the most expensive and futuristic cuts in evening clothes were found to bo among those present. Koulette a day keeps tho money away. Joan Bennett is now a star. She ia now also the lady most in favour in John Considine's fancy according to village rumour. And John Considine is the United Artist excutive who was engaged to Carmen Pantages at the time tho theatrical family ran afoul of the courts and became the most headlined house in local history. Joan Bennett's beauty is rare. Delicate and blonde, she has the faery charm which La Gish once spelled for cinema. But she has a quality outside the concept of the Cish. Her voice work has improved more than any girl's in cinema circles since her debut in "Bulldog Drummond." As llonald Column's lead at that time, her voice seemed harsh and hoarse, but since then the Bennett tone has found favour with the "mikes." Anna Q. Nilsson's brave fight to conquer lameness had another pathetic chapter added to it recently when surgeons inserted a wooden section in the injured hip bone which has refused to knit by normal means these two years past. This beautiful actress' tragic accident and its wretched results is another of tho disasters attributable to the village diet system and the necessity of maintaining a sylph-like figure. Although the Swedish actress belonged in the early group of picture players, in figure and form she is as exquisitely slim and supple as any girl in her teens.

But years of rigid exercise and diet required to maintain the camera figure vitiated the blood to such an extent that when a horseback accident resulted in a broken hip bone the knitting process could not be induced.

During the two years of enforced idleness one of the screen's greatest beauties has seen her medium pass into something entirely foreign to her knowledge—the talking picture. She has put up a brave fight to recover the health which once made a brilliant career possible. This last desperate measure may return her to the professional ranks. But the chances are even that she may never be able to face a camera again.

Alice Joyce has been one of Anna Q. NUsson's dearest friends for many years. They were inseparables, dining and lunching together frequently —two of the most distinguished and lovely women of the cinema colony. No player who has fought through a long siege of discouragement has had more hearty co-opera-tion from her friends than Anna Q. Nilsson,

If you have a waltz simmering in your system, go to Europe, young man, where there is room for budding genius. The celluloid colony is strutting more proudly each day over the musical names it ha& corralled—but the addition of Oscar Strauss to the list has about capped the climax.

Some of the great are having weird experiences meanwhile. A few days ago Rudolf Friml was at the piano during the scoring of one of his numbers. A test was made. Then the company stood about to hear the verdict of the mixer— several hundred yards away in a ceiling booth. His voice came back clearly and loudly through the amplifiers: "The stuff comes through 0.K., boss, but tell that fool at the piano to pipe down. Who does he think he is anyway, a oneman orchestra?"