HIGHEST-PAID STAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 76, 30 March 1935, Page 5 (Supplement)

HIGHEST-PAID STAR.

GRACIE FIELDS' RECORD. £150,000 FOR THREE FILMS. All that Gracie Fields want? is a cottage in the country at 10/0 a week, but on February 1 she signed a film contract for about £150,000 —the biggest ever drawn in England. For this she will make three screen plays in two years at Ealing. This contract puts Gracie atiead even of Garbo as a high-priced screen artist. Greta was paid £60,000 for her last venture, "The Painted Veil,'' but she makes only one film a year. So Gracie makes £150,000 while Garbo coins £120,000. Gracie made less fuss about signing the contract than anyone else in her manager's office. And she was chere on time. She was charmingly embarrassed as cameramen and film writers crowded round her. "I'm scared stiff," she confessed. "What I want is a cottage in the. country at 10/0 a week. I'm frightened of all this responsibility." Gracie was to have started work on her first production under her new contract on March 4, with Ba?il Dean directing her. J. B. Priestley ftas written the script. The play has not yet been christened, but it is a North Country comedy—the author is Yorkshire and the star a Lancashire lass. Mr. Dean has been living in the Norrh lately "absorbing atmosphere." Douglas Wakefield, the Sheffield comedian, and Gracie's young brother, Tommy, are to be given part 3.