Manicurist Suddenly Jumps] Into Prominence

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 241, 8 July 1938, Page 18

Manicurist Suddenly Jumps] Into Prominence

ARLEEN WHELAN is en route to stardom to-day, bewildered and a little frightened. She was a mani-curist-in a Hollywood barber’s shop. Not often is an unknown _ cast in the leading part of her first picture as Miss Whelan was when 20th CenturyFox sent her before the cameras in Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventureromance, “Kidnapped.” Not once inmany moons does an unknown play opposite such a star as Warner Baxter, who is- co-featured with Freddie Bartholomew in the film. When H. Bruce Humberston was in Pat Regan s hairdressing saloon on Hollywood Boulevard having a haircut he heard: “Manicure, sir?’’ Humberstone recognises screen personality because that has been his business for many years. He watched Arleen as she went about her work. ' Pat Regan bad to explain to his dubious employee that Humberstone actually could back up his offer of a screen test at 20th Century-Fox, and gave her a day off. Although the silent test preceded a scheduled sound test, Darryl F. Zanuck engaged her as soon as he saw the first rushes. In less than 48 hours he was launching plans to cast her opposite Baxter in “Kidnapped.” which tells the story of a rebel leader and a heroic girl in a land aflame, loving as recklessly as the times, and of a valiant lad torn between loyalty and the law.

PHARLIE McCarthy, the ventriloquist’s dummy who appears in “The Gol'dwyn Follies” with his creator and “voice,” Edgar Bergen, is known in the United States as “the favourite character of radio.”