Holly wood’s Stay-at-Home Stars

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 255, 24 July 1936, Page 16

Holly wood’s Stay-at-Home Stars

■yXTEEY do some Hollywood etarsi want ’’ to make pictures in England? Why don’t others? For various reasons. Many of the “big-timers”—the Garbos, the Gables, the Shearers, the Tones, the Crawfords, the Blondells, the Jack Oakies, the Gary Coopers, the Kay Francis’s —are tied down by contracts to leading American studios, whose bigbusiness chiefs will not permit them to work in England. I deliberately selected these names, states W.H.M. in the “Film Weekly,” because most of them have been heavily bid for by British producers. The story may be a different one in the near future, but meanwhile most of the biggest stars must stay in Hollywood. Why? Perhaps in the majority of instances because their producers have plenty of work for them to do here. Perhaps, also, becauste British producers are becoming stiff competitors to-day, and the Hollywood big shots are in no mood to cut their own throats. A few of the leading Hollywood stars have contracts which permit them to work outside of Hollywood for a certain period each year. These contracts were dra.wn up in the first place with

an eye on the New York stage, but in many cases they can be invoked in favour of British films. As new contracts are offered them many of the stars are insisting upon the inclusion of a

little clause which will permit them to work without restriction outside of Hollywood. Many of the leading Hollywood producers try to “kill” that little clause, not because they do not wish their artists to work in England, but because, if British producers are going to use their talent, these same American producers hope to make a little money out of it. A couple of friendly Hollywood executives have, within the past year, made no less than £50,000 out of “loaning” their players to British film concerns. They never have “released” one of their artists for England until they were sure of collecting at least twice as much as that artist would draw in salary. The British producer would say to the American producer, “I want Miss Blank for siuch and such a film.” “Right,” the American would reply, “you can have her at two thousand dollars a week, with travelling expenses to London and back, plus English in-come-tax.” Of that two thousand the artist herself would probably get one thousand. The rest would go in profit to the production company holding her under contract. Ten to one the artist herself would never know at what price she had been “acquired” for British films. Claudette' Colbert, when sought by 8.1. P. to star in “Glamorous Night,” said she would be glad to work in England subject to the right kind of story and direction, but that, even at £25,000 a picture, she “could not possibly afford it.” Many other of the most popular stars

JVTANY of the big Hollywood stars will not work in England because they cannot afford it —not even at £25,000 for one film. The Hollywood representative of an English film journal explains why.

are in exactly the same position. Ridiculous as it may sound, they cannot afford it! They probably have three, four ,or even five films a year to make under their Hollywood contracts. They have little or no time to begin with. But, supposing they have time to make a quick trip to England for one film? They add to their total income upon which the Californian and American Federal Government both levy tax. Take Miss. Colbert’s American income for four pictures at £BO,OOO a year. She is offered £25,000 for one British film. Unless she stays in England over six in America on the whole £105,000. And months of the year—which obviously is impossible —she must pay income-tax at the rate of 58 per .cent.! The British producer may pay her English income-tax for her, but, in the end, she will have made one extra picture and' will have just a fraction less money for herself than if she stayed in Hollywood! The American income-tax scale rises rapidly, and that £25.000 will have added an extra four per cent, to the tax on the whole of her income. Mae West, who has received several British film offers, and at least one

from Sir Oswald Stoll, to make personal stage appearances, told me she’d just love to see England some time, but she said “No.” One offer from London invited her to name her price. She's good

at that, but nothing would tempt her. Edward G. Robinson. told me he wanted to work in English pictures because he believed that in London, traditional home of great drama, hearthstone of a great artistic cosmopolis, the true artist would find refreshment after the restrictions and ardours of Hollywood. ' All he wanted was the right story. He hadn’t .been able to find one for some time in Hollywood. This purely cultural consideration undoubtedly will result in more and more of Hollywood's most intellectual and art-sensitive stars and players turning towards England. Whether they will include a big sprinkling of Hollywood’s most glamorous screen personalities seems in doubt. Have you noticed how few of Hollywood’s biggest stars are creatures of the stage? How many of them are “onetrack” screen artists, with no stage experience or aspirations? Such stars, quite properly, are grateful to the American film system under which the formulae for their successes were first compounded, and are attached to Hollywood, where alone, as they fear, the syntheses for those successes lie locked away among Hollywood’s commercial tricks and secrets. However, the time may come \when interchange of high-paid stars will be a simple and not a financially embarrassing system. It may not be for some time yet, -but one can only hope that it will not be delayed too long.