THE ANSWER CORNER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 267, 10 November 1934, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE ANSWER CORNER.

REPLIES TO INQUIRIES. WONDERING (City).—l cannot place the names yon suggest. The nearest to Frank Hier is the late Walter Hiers, who died a year or two ago, and the nearest I , can get to Frances Rich is the actor Frank Rice and the three actresses, Irene, Lillinn and Vivian Rich. All are Americans. DUBARRY (One Tre.> Hill).—Regret unavoidable delay in answering your inquiry re the "Dubarry" Company. The South Island tour began at Timaru on October 12 and continued at Duncdin from October 13 to 23; at Invercarglll, October 24 and 25; at Timaru again. October 26: at Christchurch, October 27 to November 13. I am told the company is to make a return visit to Auckland. D.S. (Heme Bay).—Bing Crosby was born in Washington. He started his film career through Paul Whiteman's influence, and has appeared here in "The Big Broadcast." "College Humour," "Too Much Harmony," •'Cinderella's Fella" and "We're Not Dressing." He is married and has a son, Gary Evans Crosby, aged one year, and also twins, born on July 13 last (a Friday, if you look up the'calendar). "We're Not Dressing" has already been released in Queen Street, but "She Loves Me Not" is yet to come. ROT WILSON (New Plymouth).—The two casts yon ask for are : "Silence of Dean llaitla'nd": The Dean, John Longden; Alma Lee, Charlotte Francis ; Alma Grofi, Jocelyn Howarth; Marian Kverard, Patricia Minchin ; Henry Everard, John Warwick: Ben Lee, Les. Wharton; Charlie Gray, Claude Turton ; Mrs. Lee, Leal Douglas: Rev. Maitland, sen., W. Lane-Bayliss; Tommy Everard, John Pickard; Lillian Maitland. Audrey Nicholson ; William Grove, George Lloiyd ; "Gran' Fer," Fred MaeDonald : Maitland's little son, Billy Kerr. "Harmony Row" : Constable. George Wallace ; police .sergeant, Marshall Crosby; Molly, Phyllis Baker; detective, William Innes; "The Ferret." Leonard Stephens; the boy, Billy Kerr; "Slogger" Lee, John Dobbie. Ray Taylor may have directed "Pirate Treasure," but Louis Freidlander was responsible for "handling of the megaphone" for "The Vanishing Shadow." This, incidentally, is the latest serial for Dominion release. The story was by Ella O'Neill and the cast includes Onslow Stevens, Ada I nee, William Desmond and Walter Miller.

Cary Grant's first contribution to the stage was a new system of lighting for a theatre in Bristol.

Susan Ann Gilbert, daughter of John Gilbert and Virginia Bruce, celebrated her first birthday recently on the set for "Dangerous Corner," the J. Priestley story in "which her mother is appearing with Conrad Nagel. Colin Tapley, the New Zealand "Search For Beauty" contest winner, who is uow under contract at Holywood, has motored over 10,000 miles in the short time that he has been in California. Tapley takes a trip to some Californian or Mexican point of interest every weekend. Puzzle of the week.—Are there any blonde Spanish ladies ? Marlene Dietrich has some 2,000,000 or more in the Spanish provinces to offer ae example, so she will retain her golden locks for the production of her next starring production, "Caprice Eepagnole." The star will thus add a new nationality to her long list of roles which have cast her in, Russian, Hungarian, German, English and French parts. "Caprice Espagnole" will be directed by Josef von Sternberg, who has made all but one of Miss Dietrich'* pictures. One early morning, as the autumn mists were rising slowly above Maida Vale, London, a milkman paused in the act of depositing farm prpduce on a doorstep and gave vent to an expression of amazement. Along the pavement talking with a determined step, came an elderly gentleman with the sunlight glistening on his monocle. The milkman's astonishment was not uncalled for. The solitary pedestrian was George Arliss en route for the studio at Shepherd's Bush, where he is playing the role of the. Duke of Wellington in his first British picture, "The Iron Duke." Four miles across London is Mr. Arliss' morning perambulation, a lengthy stretch which eventually brings him under the shadow of the' Duke of WelHngton's statue. Here the earthly 'duke" acknowledges his metallic contemporary and then steps into a waiting car which takes him to the studios where, through the medium of the screen, he recreates the colourful career °f the gentleman standing in ponderous silence above the London traffic.

Dance experts rate George Raft as the best dancer on or off the screen. Among Raft's pupils was the Prince of Wales. Sir Guy Standing, English painter and actor, drew the designs for the Bengal Lancer costumes he is to wear in hienext Hollywood production, "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer." "A Cup of Kindness," is the title of the latest Tom Walls-Ralph Lynn farce, written by Ben Travers and put over by the team already so famous. Others in the cast are Robertson Hare, Claude Hulbert, D. A. Clarke-Smith and Veronica Rose.

Nine-year-old Dickie Moore now says he is a character actor. He is playing in the "Upper World," with Warren William, Mary Astor and "Ginger" Rogers in the featured roles. He has the part of the neglected eon of a millionaire business man and his socially inclined wife. "I have been playing child parts all my life," said Dickie, "but this boy is almost grown up. He has a definite character, which I have to study and try to represent. It's a real character part." Dickie is a precocious child, but he is also imitative, and it is just within the realm of possibility that he repeated something director Roy Del Ruth was explaining.

Ida Lupino has survived both a sevore motor smash and infantile paralysis dining her quest for screen fume in Hollywood. Baby Le Roy, who appears next in "The Old Fashioned Way," had earned more monej' before he was two than most college graduates earn in live years. Helen Mack, who is featured next in "Kiss and Make-up," with Gary Grant and Genevieve Tobin, wae dancing on the stago when she was seven years of age. Tho famous international House of Immortals, Mine. Tussaud's wax works in London, has acquired the likeness of another film star. A wax iigure of Marlene Dietrich was unveiled there recently, the ceremony being broadcast throughout Great Britain, Europe and most of Xorth America. A recent similar honour has been bestowed on Mae West. Bing Crosby, tho famous singing star, and perhaps one of tho most outstanding personalities in the entertainment world, is the father of twin boys, born on Friday, July 13. The new arrivals will make Nos. 2 and 3 in the Crosby nursery; Gary Evans Crosby, the first child, is just one year old. The happy event is the sensation of Hollywood, and everybody is taking a hand in selecting names for the youngsters. Sucli names as Pat and Mike, Bing and Bang, Tom and Jerry, and even Please and Thanks, have been suggested to Crosby, who is naturally a very happy man. Bing Crosby has just completed his latest picture, "She Loves Me Not," with Miriam Hopkins.

A new colour film, "La Cucaracha" ("The Cockroach"), which has just been released in London, is the latest development of the three-colour technicolour process used for the Disney cartoons. Robert Edmond Jones, the New York theatre designer, arranged the sets and costumes with a special view to emphasising colour effect. The film is said to be entirely free from "flinging" or overlapping of colours, and it does seem to be, on the whole, an advance on any colour system yet employed. The intense heat produced, however, during the filming of these colour subjects—which require more than three times the intensity of light used for black-and-white photography — still makes the process less successful with living players than with cartoon work like the "Silly Symphonies" and the tendency to flushing and fading has not yet been eliminated. "La Cucaracha," which stars the Hungarian player Steffi Duna, who appeared in the English talkie "The Indiscretions of Eve, is really a dramatic song and dance number in two reels, but it has been planned to use the new tcchnicolour process for the Francis. Lederer picture, "The Three Musketeers," and for the film version of "The Last Days of Pompeii," now in preparation.