NOW GINGER HAS CONFIDENCE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 86, 12 April 1941, Page 21 (Supplement)

NOW GINGER HAS CONFIDENCE

GINGER has found herself," Lew Ayres said to me some months ago. I didn't quite know what he meant until I saw Miss Rogers as "Kitty Foyle." Her confidence in herself has reached the 100 per cent tide mark. And this has given me an idea. For years I've been trying to define the most important ingredient for film success. And now I think I have it. It's confidence.

I made a mistake recently when I paid that Jlcdy Lamarr was improving as an actress. She is merely getting more confident. She is also acquiring more experience, which is the first cousin to confidence. I doubt whe.tlier Hedy will ever he a great actress. Iler emotional make-up was not planned for that. But I think she will be a star of magnitude if the directors of her future pictures handle, her as cleverly as King Yidor did in '"Comrade X."

C J Backing for Hedy

Every tihie I went on the set Kingfirst making sure that the gorgeous brunette Was within hearing distance — would say: "Wait until you see Hcdy in this —she's great!" Clark Gable helped in the good work. He sort of lifted her into her role on the wings of his own confidence and vitality. "Go in there, Lamarr —and kill 'em!" he'd sav before a difficult shot.

As I said at the beginning of this column, confidence in real life is not always the same thing before the camera. Desi Arnaz had so much confidence away from the camera that everyone on the R.K.O. lot ecstasised: "We have another Valentino —wait till you see him in 'Too Many Girls.'" I went, I saw, but I was not conquered. That super belief in himself disappeared in the process of putting it on the screen.

Carole TjaniTls is. another who is blessed with extreme confidence —when the caincra is absent —hut, for me anyway, it doesn't come through on the screen. Betty Field is the reverse. A conversation with the Betty of nonacting life is one of the more ordinary experiences. There's just 110 one there. Her personality is a "blank facade. But ■give her something to act for the camera, and 6he's any one of a dozen different personalities.

By Sheilah Graham

Of course. Miss Field has had stage* experience. But that counts less than one would expect for screen success. 'Jake Nancy Kelly. She's prettier than the other girl, and, when she came to the movies, had as much stage workperhaps more, to her credit. But her lack of confidence in the new medium was too apparent. Remember those lines of nervousness around her mouth? Siie's getting over her timidity now. All she needs is another chance in a good film.

Hut if Nancy feels badly about the non-consummation of her screen hopes, "this might cheer her up. Stage stars of the calibre of Lynn Fontanne, Gertrude Lawrence and Tallulah Bankhead were flops as screen actresses. And Katherine Cornell is so non-con-lident about licr chances in Hollywood she will not sign a contract here.

Helen I fay os was one of the very few top-ranking stage stars to equal her success on the screen. Usually, important stars of the stage drop down a 7>eg into character players when they bring their talents to the screen. To name a few—Charles- Coburn, Charles Winninger. Thomas Mitchell. Lynne Overman, Finest. Truex, Roland Young, and Helen Broderick. Some of our bigshot movie stars had stage experience, but they never were as big 011 the stage as thev are on the screen.

To go back to ''Kitty Foyle"—and the •'Confidence" theme, Ginger Rogers has two leading men, Dennis Morgan and James Craig. When Morgan was given the more important role of "Wyn," I was told by Director Sam Wood that this picture would make him a grade A star. Nothing was said regarding James Craig and what the picture would do for Ihim.

So what happens? At the end of the preview in Hollywood, in the intervals of praise for Ginger, the lobby re-echoes with-—".Tames Craig—who is lie '!—what has lie done before?" In his rather brief role, Mr. Craig showed the stuff of which stars are fashioned. He was completely confident of his ability to please us. Whereas "Wyn" seemed cowed by his opportunity. Morgan has been much better in less important pictures.

I wonder how much of a coincidence was Shirley Temple's box-office drop and the shyness she developed in the last

year of her contract at Twentieth t cntury-Fox ? Shirley seemed afraid to try anything new in her screen characterisations. And failing something new, she had to cling to the cuteness and lispings of her successful baby period. I hoj»e that when she starts her new movie career, she will step boldly off the safe ledge of the known and take her chance in uncharted spaces. I remember once having a chat with James Cagney on why "big shots" who have been forced off the screen by bad pictures are seldom good when they return to the camera. Katharine Hepburn, of course, is an exception —but even she

required a successful stage play to give her the necessary l»elicf in herself. "What, happens to them in the interval?" I asked Cagney. "They've lost confidence," he replied, "ami when that happens to an actor, "it's good-night." That's the reason John Barrymore goes on—he's lost his memory, but retained his confidence. Mickey Roonev's acting is sheer and unadulterated confidence. If you or I could so far forget ourselves that we couM cry before a camera—not to mention the cameraman, electricians, grips, visitors and so on, the way Master Rooney can, we, too, might be movie stars.