BANKRUPT ACTRESS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1930, Page 9

BANKRUPT ACTRESS

MURIEL STARR'S FAILURE

GOING TO "TALKIES" NEXT

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 13th February.

At the height of her popularity, when she-was the heroine of many a stage play which thrilled audiences throughout .Australia and New Zealand, Miss Muriel Starr must have been on tho wayto making a fortune. Now her private affairs are to come before a curious public by way of tho Bankruptcy Court, for she is one of tho victims of the success of tho American talkies, and all the money she possessed has gone in.the losses she suffered since she has conducted a company under her own management. Her last Sydney season was a complete failure.

"Whore are my Sydney audiences now?" she asked the other day, just after she had filed a statement of affairs, showing a deficiency running into £3000.' "They used to be tho most wonderful in the world." She is now appearing in suburban halls, fighting a gallant fight for the legitimate stage, but it is a losing fight all the time. The talkies still hold tho stage of public popularity: Still, she is not an old woman by any means, and she is still beautiful. And what is more important, she still has that catch in her voice which earned for her the sympathy of her admiring audiences in years gone by. Therefore, as soon as she can untangle her affairs—that will take her two months at least —she/ will go to America and see whether she can break into the talkies, and so get some of her own back.

"What could I do but go bankrupt?" she asked, pathetically. "My cast has been fine. They have stuck to mo. But we' have been beaten. We are not wanted any more. I thought maybe the public was tired of light stuff, so I put on <The Enemy'—a, beautiful play. But they did not want that. ■ This war has been fought and won from the comfortable seats of the cinema theatre, and you can't blame anyone for that. Tho public might have helped a woman on her own. They might have supported an old favourite. But they forget so soon. I have been dogged with bad luck for the past eighteen months, and tins is the finish. I can^t go on any longer." ' Still another stage show has failed in Sydney. This was the Richard Bellairs Company, which was playing j"Divorce" at the Grand Opera House. "Divorce" ran for a week to very poor houses, and on Saturday night at the end of the show Bellairs said that lie could not carry on any longer. The talkies had shouted "You're out of work" for another fifty Australians. In a speech from the stage ho strongly denounced the talkies. "Why can't Australians give their countrymen a chance?" he asked. "They are driving their own people to unemployment. It is pitiable the support we have received. We have tried to give you clean comedy with a first-class company, but we have failed. Last week Mr. Marlowe closed down the pantomime and put 110 persons out of employment, all because Australians would rather patronise American canned drama than Australian plays. It is not that Australian plays are not good. The plays that cannot get a good house here are having a long run overseas. Instead of keeping their money here Australians seem anxious to give it to America, which gets 70 per cent, of the gross takings of the'talkie shows." The audience sat in silence as Mr. Bellairs went on. "Hundreds of,actors are starving," he said. "An actor, once he is fbrced out of business must starve. He has no other avenues of employment." ■ Meanwhile the streets oC Sydney ring with orchestral music. There aro little groups of musicians on tho sidewalks and ono of their number rattles a collection box. A notice informs the pedestrians that they aro musicians who have been force*! out of 'imploy»wnt by th» talkies. ;