AGEING FOR THE SCREEN

Evening Star, Issue 23325, 22 July 1939, Page 5

AGEING FOR THE SCREEN

MASK AIDS MAKE-UP MAN “ How do they do it?” is the question frequently heard anent the remarkable job of ageing done by screen stars for their parts. Helen Hayes, as Victoria Regina in the stage play of that name, Anna Neagle in the films ‘ Victoria the Great ’ and ‘ Sixty Glorious Years,’ Norma Shearer in Mario Antoinette ’ are among outstanding examples of young women who have successfully and convincingly grown old for their part. The wizardry of make-up by which these ends are accomplished, remains, however, a stage and studio secret. But there is no secret as to’ the method employed by Columbia make-up artist to age Fay Bainter, who in 1 The Lady and the Mob,’ departs from her usual youthful-mature roles to play -a really old lady. In walk, in voice, in mannerism, Miss Bainter’s ageing is of course, a matter of her own flawless acting technique. Much of the credit for her appearance as Mrs Leonard, the old lady who buys an armoured car and puts 1 to flight a gang of racketeers who are terrorising her town, 'is due, however, to Bill Knight, head of Columbia’s make-up artist department, and a veritable wizard in his profession. Knight’s first act, long before the picture started, was to make a life mask of Miss Bainter’s features. The mask, of highly sensitive plastic,

caught every line of the player’s face. Tinted in life colours, it was a perfect likeness. Then Knight went to work on his mask. A keen student of physiology, he estimated the degree to which the facial muscles might change in a quarter of a century. With deft, laborious brush strokes he put himself in the , place of Father Time. The mask became the future Miss Bainter—a woman handsome, aristocratic, gracious, with the years bestowing more of the look of mellowness and wisdom than giving any indication of infirmity. With the mask as his model, it was necessary only for Knight to transfer the art of his brush to Miss Bainter’s face. And Miss Bainter had only to look in the mirror to see how she will look 25 years from now. Since the star is of the typo who will age gracefully, this preview of the future held no terrors for her. ROMANCE OF TELEPHONE ‘STORY OF ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL' It is hard to realise that one of the indispensable articles in our modern life, the telephone, came into being only 63 years ago. The instrument is so taken for granted that the stirring romantic drama behind its invention is little known to the many millions of people who use and depend upon the telephone daily. Yet the miracle of the telephone is one of America’s most thrilling stories. It is stirring in its simple human drama of a man of genius and the courageous woman who stood always at his side, of a love so great that it inspired this man to endure ridicule, privation, and hunger to achieve his dream of spanning continents with the human voice.

In Darryl Zanuck’s production of ‘ The Story of Alexander Graham Bell,’ another immortal character joins the motion picture gallery of the great. In this production, shortly to be released by Twentieth Century-Fox, Don Araoche portrays Bell, with .Loretta Young as Mabel Hubbard, out of whose deafness came the inspiration for the telephone. Henry Fonda is soon as Thomas Watson, Bell’s invaluable aide and most ardent admirer.