FASTER ADVANCEMENT ON THE STAGE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 225, 19 June 1936, Page 16

FASTER ADVANCEMENT ON THE STAGE

Q'NE hundred and eighty Hollywood chorus girls wish they had started in New York on the Broadway stage in preference to Hollywood. While interviewing this number of dancers for parts in a recent musical film, the director asked of each applicant her opinion of the relative advantages of the two phases of entertainment.

One girl declared that if she did not get a screen chance after her work in the film she would go to Broadway and start, afresh. She said she had played in “little” theatres and Texas stock companies. She accepted a Hollywood

chorus job two years ago as a means of getting into pictures. “I’m bound for New York,” she declared. “Hollywood will not. give me the chance in pictures, so I shall leave for Broadway where I can at least get the chance to act. If I succeed there. Hollywood will surely call for my service.

She points out that she is lost in the movie capital. “Because I took a job as a chorus girl, I’m definitely typed. Escape is impossible. I do not say I can become a star, but at least I should have the chance to unfold my film potentialities.”

Other chorus girls express the same sentiments. Many protest that Hollywood is not eager to uncover talent in its own 'backyard, preferring to spend time and money looking outside for players.

THJTH CHATTERTON’S income tax claim reveals, states an American expert, that she spent £2031 on clothes in one year. A mink coat cost £BlO, and underwear £152, pyjamas £ll5, handkerchiefs £66. She claimed that these were “ordinary and necessary expenses” of her film profession, and therefore deductable from her income. Later she agreed to pay.