THEY MUST BE VERSATILE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 237, 5 October 1940, Page 6 (Supplement)

THEY MUST BE VERSATILE

THE motion picture actor who can't display versatility before the camera is doomed to failure.

"Most film stars lose their appeal to the public not because they advance in years, but because they don't 'change pace,' or present something new and distinctive to their audiences.

"All any star needs to keep at the top of his profession is a frank, honest study of himself, followed by alterations in style of acting."

These are the assertions of Mitchell Leisen, one of Faramount's top directors, who is busy now untvping an actor named Walter Abel, who, with Claudette Colbert and Ray Milland, is appearing in his current film, "Arise, -\lv Love."

Executives viewing scenes in which Abel, the famed Broadway stage actor who flopped in two previous attempts

By Harold Heffernan

to make a name for himself in the screen firmament, appears as the screwy director of a world-wide news-gathering agency, declare at last lie has acquired that essential "change of pace." With the picture still unfinished Abel has been signed to a term contract.

"Abel," says Leisen, "is doing a splendid job. It's all very simple. He's just changing his pace. He's hitting a faster, livelier tempo, and he's going in for light and romantic acting."

Until Leisen got hold of Abel he had played only very serious roles. Those of district attorney predominated. All of which added up to a fierce purpose, with never a smile in 90 minutes of entertainment.

Leisen has lia<l a great (leal to do with tlic broadening out of many other stare who were consigned to the onetype category. One of his first "rediscoveries" was Carole Lombard. Until

slie appeared in Leisen's "Hands Across the Table" of four years ago, Carole had been playing a suave, sophisticate.

This was because, she admitted, she didn't know how to let loose of her emotions. It was Leisen who developed and released her natural flair for comedy, so Carole lias been going great guns— to the extent of 150,000 dollars a picture —ever since. He Changed MacMarray At the time Leisen took charge of the career of Fred Mac Murray, who was nothing more than a boy scout actor when lie first began five years ago. Mac Murray lost most of his self-con-sciousness when he appeared with Carole in "Hands Across the Table." In that picture he stopjied trembling and worrying about his lines. And no one was more surprised than Mac Murray himself to discover at the preview that he had been transformed into something resembling a comic.

The same picture marked the progression of another actor, Ralph Bellamy, who had landed in a rut. Sometimes he was a stalwart hero; sometimes a heel. It was Leisen who put that dumb, faraway look in Bellamy's eyes; and ever since then Bellamy has had more work than lie can handle.

Although he is modest and refuses to take bows, Leisen actually is responsible for taking the liam out of Bob Hope and starting him off on the high road to success as Paramount's ace comedian. When Hope first landed in Hollywood from the five-a-day time, he was tabbed as "strictly a vaudevillian." Leisen s|>cnt a year ridding Bob of a lot of old tricks, meanwhile pleading for a chance to feature hiin in "Tlie° Bi" Broadcast."

Everybody remembers what happened. Hope's performance and liis singing of that haunting song "Thanks for "the Memory,'' made screen history and a new star overnight.

"It's quite eimple," says Leisen. "If a player will listen to honest criticism of hie obvious faults he has a good chance of going places. After that ho must learn to let his hair down—and give." Whatever it is, a lot of "big timers" in Hollywood to-day have reason to be thankful to Leisen.

J)URING her most trying and dramatic

scenes in her recent picture, "Three Faces West," Sigrid Gurie received the news that Oslo, Norway, where her father, mother, and two brothers live, was invaded by the Nazi Army. Crew and cameramen marvelled at and admired the poise with which she received word about the raid, and labelled her "number one trouper." Strangely enough, Sigrid Gurie plays the part of a Nazi refugee in ''Three Faces West."