Untitled

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 155, 27 March 1926, Page 24

Miss Nola Caselli, who, by popular vote at the brilliant Exhibition Festival Hall ball was accorded first place for fancy dress, wore a very beautiful apple-green velvet dress representing the riding habit of England’s aristocratic heroine of romance, Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. It will be remembered that this was a role splendidly taken by Mary Pickford in the picture of that name. Miss Caselli, who designed and made the costume which was so much admired, is very similar to M,ary Pickford, whom she has impersonated successfully on many occasions. In fact, she has been referred to as the “Mary Pickford of New Zealand.” It is more interesting to know that she recently took the leading lady’s part in New Zealand’s national picture, “Rewi’s Last Stand.”' This film, which has not yet been screened in Dunedin, is an historic romance. A copy of the film has been taken for screening in the British Isles. In 1919 Miss Caselli won the “Green Room” Paramount screen contest of Australasia against 600 competitors, and more recently she won the “Free Lance” beauty’ competition of New Zealand, for which photos were submitted by her photographers. Added to her accomplishments in the public eye, Miss Caselli is a gifted pianist. She is very proud of the honour conferred upon her at the festival ball.

Miss Jennv Lee, who was known so well as Jo throughout the Empire in Dickens’s “Bleak House,” visited Australia and New Zealand in 1882. Some of the papers at Home recently described Miss Lee (who in private life is Mrs. Amv Burnett) as being in pecuniary difficulties. A letter recently received from her by a gentleman in Auckland denies this statement. Miss Lee writes: “I want you to understand that I am not in distress, as the London papers have stated. Ihe fact that one pape> announced tnv death did not upset me so much, but I have been very worried with the reporters’ stories that I ani in adverse circumstances. I have a very comfortable home, and do not want my friends to think that I am in distress.”