Screen. Page Character

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 6 (Supplement)

Screen. Page Character

LAST week I listed my idea of the 1 0 best character players in Hollywood. Since then my sleep has been haunted by the faces and names I omitted—the players who faces are more familiar to fans than their names —the people who pop up in 10 or 20 pictures a year as doctors, detectives, judges, gangsters, landladies, bankers and what have you—the bit * players who act as buffers between the top character actors and the "extras'* —but who, in most cases, are more experienced and better performers than the top-Eight names of the screen. Elizabeth Patterson. or Savannah, Tennessee, was -well-known on tlu> Broadway stage before M.G.M. brousht her to Hollywood 10 year* ago for the silent "Bov Friend." Elizabeth did not like silent pictures and returned to Broadway, but she went back again with the talkies and now makes an average of ten pictures a year—payment in the 730 dollars a week class. " She usually plays mothers or thwarted spinsters. * on sec Montague Love in one form or another at least 12 times a year, lie has played everything from George. Washington to Henry VIII. ir c has appeared in "Gunga "Dili" for K.K.0.Radio. ''If I Were King" and "Ruler of tlio Seas" for Paramount, "Sons of Liberty" and "Juarez" for Warner Brothers, "Tho Man in the Iron Mask" for Edward Small. Whc.n under contract to one studio, Love receives 7i30 dollars a week. As a free lancer he gets 1000 to 1500 dollars, depending on the size of his roles. Ernest Cossart, of the round face and big blue, eyes, was an original member of the New York Theatre Guild. Ilis first picture was "The Scoundrel." Cossart usually plays butlers. His picture average is eight a year. He is appearing in "The Light That Failed," starringRonald Colman. Monte Woollev, tho "man with tho beard," is probablj r the most erudite of tiic "bit" players. He has a B.A. and M.A. from Yale, where he instructed in tho Baker School of Drama from 1915 to 1927.. He also has an M.A. from Harvard. He has bee.n in Hollywood two years and has appeared in 12 pictures