AGE MATES WITH YOUTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

AGE MATES WITH YOUTH.

Feature of Screen Romances. HOW STARS WORK OUT MARITAL PROBLEMS.

CBy SHEILAH GRAHAM.)

FIFTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD CALIBAN (John Barrymore) ljas married his 21-year-old Ariel (Elaine Barrie); grey-haired Comedian Charles Chaplin has finally admitted that Paulette Goddard, 25, has been his bride- for more than two years. It remains to be seen whether the two latest movie "May-December romances" will endure or be added to the category of failure and divorce. Barrymore already has tried young and old wives—without success. His first, now Mrs. Catherine Harris Orlowski, and second, Michael Strange (Mrs. Leonard M. Thomas), were both near Barrymore's age. His third wife, Dolores Costello, is 24 years younger than the erstwhile stage and screen Romeo, but her youth was evidently the wrong formula for marital bliss, and the couple were divorced after seven years of marriage. Three times wed, Mr. Chaplin always has preferred his brides with the blush of inexperience. Wife number one, Mildred Harris, saw the light of day 13 years after the comedian. Lita Grey, nexj; to annex the Chaplin name, was 16 years old at the time of her marriage in 1924, and 19 years junior to her husband. The newest Mrs. Chaplin recently indulged in a public quarrel with Charlie, and Hollywoodites are doubtful whether the baby-faced Paulette can succeed where her predecessors failed, and keep her emotionally unstable husband on the right side of the divorce fence. The recent marriage of 52-year-old Douglas Fairbanks, senr., to 33-year-old Lady Sylvia Ashley bears—at the moment of going to press—the stamp of success, and Doug, is sure he has found the happiness secret denied him in his previous marriages—to elderly Beth Sully and to 43-year-old Mary Pickford. The latter also has had an age reaction, and prefers Buddy Rogers, 32, to her less boyish contemporaries. One of the most successful of the middle-age youth movie marriages is sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Al Jolson (Ruby Keeler). Al has touched the 50 mark. Ruby celebrates her 28th birthday next August.

Samuel Goldwyn was 41 when he gave his hand, heart and income to pretty. 21-year-old Frances Howard. Mrs. Goldwyn is, if anything, more in love with her husband than when she married him—and is the only person in Hollywood capable of extracting obedience from the hard-to-handle film magnate. Dolores Del Rio is 16 years younger than art director Cedric Gibbons. They were married in 1930, four years after Gibbons' previous six-month marriage to an age-equal had ended in divorce. His second marital inoculation h«« "taken" very well. Richard Dix believes in the theory that, if at first you do not succeed in matrimony with a girl 13 years your junior, try again—only the second time make the age difference 15 years. The new Mrs. Dix (1934 vintage) is now 26 —her handsome husband 41. The same number of years separate Joan Bennett and her writer-director husband, Gene Markey. Miss Bennett's connubial bliaa is 100 per cent scandalproof, in a colony where the smallest breath of marital discord is noted and publicised. Gable Gives It a Twist. Producer Ernst Lubitsch was 44 when, in July, 1935, he took the 27-year-old brunette Vivian Gaye from her agency business and gave her the privileges attached to the name of Lubitsch. A safer subject for comment is the 16-year-old marriage of Walter Connolly and the former Xedda Harrigan. There is something like 13 years' difference between them, but the not over-large age discrepancy has proved no obstacle to happiness—to judge by Connolly's air of contentment. Thirty-one-year-old Myraa Loy lived for just that period before giving single blessedness the "go-by" for Arthur Hornblow, junr., her senior by 12 years. Now for some "May-December" "flops." Director Wesley Ruggles, in his early fifties, made the mistake of committing matrimony in 1931 with Arline Judge, 24. From the start, the years dividing them proved an insurmountable handicap. Ruggles is serious-minded,

engrossed in his work, and dislikes parties—a complete antithesis of ,"Lovely Legs" Arline. A few months ago they , agreed on separation. Jean Harlow was 21 years old at the time she married Paul Bern—exactly twice her age. He committed suicide three months later. That was four years ago, but Miss Harlow still prefers men —or, rather, one man of experience, William Powell, born 44 years ago. Perhaps ttie 27-year-old Carole Lombard—married to Powell, 1931; divorced, 1933—could explain to Miss Harlow some of the difficulties that go with loving an older man. Carole is now confining her companionship to Clark Gable, still on the sunny side of 40. Their marriage, however, is doubtful. Clark, if his two previous marriages can be taken as a criterion, believes in "May-Decem-ber" unions—with the mate younger than the missus!