GRIEF IN STUDIO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 156, 3 July 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

GRIEF IN STUDIO.

JEAN HARLOW'S DEATH. COSTLY BLOW TO EMPLOYERS. FATE OF FILM "SARATOGA." (By HAROLD HBFKERXAN, for N.A.N.A.) For the second time within a year the death of an outstanding screen personality to-day shrouded the big Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio in sorrow and confusion. Jean Harlow's passing followed that of Irving Thalberg, youthful production genius of one of the industry's foremost picture-making group, by less than nine months. In each case the news was flashed over the lot shortly before the noon hour, paralysing work in offices and on sound stages. Although company executives had been forewarned Sunday and early Monday that Jean's illness, at first treated lightly in studio reports, had taken a critical turn, none was prepared for the shocking nature of the hospital bulletin. Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore were at work on the studio back lot, shooting an exterior scene for "Saratoga," racetrack comedy-romance, in which Jean and Gable were being costarred. Gable, visibly agitated by the news, left the set without a word, got into his roadster and drove off the lot.

Peggv McDonald, who had dressed Jean's hair almost from the day she reported to the studio six years ago, fainted and was taken to the hospital 011 the lot. Director Jack Conway ordered the set to be closed.

One of the secretaries in. the publicity department wept intermiitently as she attempted to keep pace with an unending string of phone calls from the news services. Often her voice broke as she gave out patches of information the callers sought. The little secretary was one of Jean's best friends. A year ago she underwent a serious operation that left her in poor health and stripped of finances. She was back on the job only a day when Jean sent her an envelope containing a cheque for 500 dollars. The girl carried the cheque back to Jean on the set that same afternoon, thanking her but refusing to accept so a gesture. Jean took the girl's purse, opened it and slipped the cheque inside. "Now you get off this stage." she warned in mock anger, escorting her to the doorway, "and if you don't cash it bv the time tjie bank closes to-morrow I'll never in my life speak to you again." Louis B. Mayer and other executives, too stunned by this latest thunderclap, were in no mood to discuss a solution to the dilemma the studio faces in disposing of the unfinished "Saratoga." The picture represents an investment of a million dollars. It is a certainty it must be entirely scrapped or 90 per cent of the scenes "re-sliot" with another actress, because Jean's role ran through the story from beginning to end. Following "Saratoga." Jean was on loan call to Twentieth Century-Fox. where Darryl Zanuck had just completed elaborate preparations for her appearance with Tyrone Power and Don Ameche in a Mid-West historical epic, "In Old Chicago."