Hollywood Has The "Root Of All Evil"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1938, Page 7 (Supplement)

Hollywood Has The "Root Of All Evil"

From Our Own Correspondent HOLLYWOOD. WHILE the whole of America has been rudely shocked by the startling revelations of the latest commercialising of the screen, the experts have been quoting the First Epistle to Timothy, sixth chapter, and the tenth verse: "For the love of money is the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred, from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Many are the families of motion picture stars who have "pierced themselves through with many sorrows." So often it has been seen that success and fat salaries bring strife and bitterness in their wake. The 4,000,000 dollars that Jackie Coopan reportedly earned as a child actor is spreading poison between mother and son. It seems such a little while ago that we were rejoicing with this family anent the "luck" that had come to them when Charlie Chaplin starred Jackie in "The Kid."

Xo doubt about the little boy's devotion to his mother and dad then, or of theirs to him. The parents had such joyous plans for this babe of theirs. But dad is dead, and that vast accumulated fortune now makes the front pages a hideous bone of contention between mother, her new husband, and the boy once bo loved, so "lucky."

Money has certainly brought nothing but strife and bitterness to Mary Miles Minter, her mother, Charlotte Shelby, and her sister, Margaret Fillmore. Mary's earnings began to cause trouble in 1923. She was reputedly worth 1,000,000 dollars by 1925, when she demanded an "accounting" from mother through the courts. Year by year ever since some new phase of this bitterness has been aired legally. The case of Freddie Bartholomew is still painfully fresh in memory. Freddie's success, his 100,000 dollars a year, set parent against parent, parents against the aunt who had reared the boy, brought his grandparents in to take sides, and furnished an appalling exhibition of family enmity, to the infinite profit of the lawyers. "And a small child shall feed them" is a reasonable paraphrase, by the latest court decision, eight people share in the lad's success, if not his love. At the moment both Maurice Costello and Peter F. Reed are demanding fathers. Maurice is suing daughter Dolores fpr

"not providing sufficient funds for my support.*' The quarrels began in 1027, when the star's parents were divorced on this issue, and have been going on ever since. Peter Reed is Martha Rave's father. He's demanding an "accounting" and feels he is entitled to 200 dollars a month. f>oo dollars cash, out of Martha's r 2i500 dollars a week. ' Direetly little Kdith Fellows eanie into the higher salary bracket, her mother. Mrs. Harriet Fellows, whom she had not seen for years, disputed with grandma, who had raised her from babyhood, for her "custody" and her money. Another current case is that of Sigrid Ciurie and her young husband, Thomas Stewart. He and his sister claim to have invested 50.000 dollars in Sigiid's career and he is suing for a share of her salary as a retort to her action for divorce. Yet this, too, was a fond love match such a little while ago. Plenty of former ardent love matches have ended up with bitter divorce suits and vast money claims. The first Mrs. Stan Laurel, after receiving 274.000 dollars, is still making new demands. The second secured 17.000 dollars and two cars from court rulings. Ann Harding and Harrv Bannister's troubles were mostly money-engendered, as were Ben and Mary Blue's. Virginia Cherrill and ( ary Grant's romance elided in a money tight, as did Rudy Yallec's and Fay Webb's, Alice White's and (Jy Bartlett's.