MAKING BABY ACT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 5 (Supplement)

MAKING BABY ACT.

DIRECTOR'S METHODS.

To the worried producer or casting director in Hollywood, it seems that every mother in the world has motion picture aspirations for her progeny. But it takes ingenuity to make them act. Here, according to Director Norman Taurog, is what they did to make Baby Leßoy perform in Maurice Chevalier's picture, "A Bedtime Story.'* Mothers of prospective screen prodigies might try the plan at home: — To cry: Take a handkerchief, put it to his nose and tell him to "Blow hard." He hated it.

To laugh: Make any funny face, funny noise, or say "How dah" with accompanying expression. To sleep: Nothing but patience required. To awaken: Never tried. When he wanted to sleep they let him. To make him look to the right: Have some one there out of camera range dancing, waving his amis and grimacing like a scarecrow gone mad. To make him look to the left: See paragraph above. To make him say "Goo": Give him a glimpse of himself in a mirror. To make him say "Da": Give him his bottle.

With this simple work chart the baby is giving a performance that is said to steal the picture from Chevalier, Helen Twelvetrees, Edward Everett Horton, Adrienne Ames and other "veteran" actors and actresses in the cast.