GARY COOPER’S LEAD

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 May 1942, Page 6

GARY COOPER’S LEAD

“SERGT. YORK” MAKES £1,000,000

Campbell Dixon, London Daily Telegraph correspondent at Los Angeles, reported:— Gary Cooper, who made his first hit in “The Winning of Barbara Worth” 17 years ago, is credited with having made more money for his producers last year than any other player on the screen. “Sergeant York,” “Meet John Doe” and “The Westerner” were all big money-makers, and his public has never been greater. He is followed by the team of Abbott and Costello, slapstick comedians, who were unknown a year ago. Universal Company discovered them just when a dispute had deprived them of the services of Deanna Durbin. The gross receipts of their four farces totalled over £1,500,000. Clark Gable, with “Honky Tonk,” “They Met in Bombay” and “Comrade X,” is third, and Mickey Rooney, Bob Hope, Chaplin, handicapped by having made only one picture, Dorothy Lamour, Spencer Tracy, Jack Benny and Bing CTosby follow in that order.

The year’s most successful films were: “Sergeant York,” which has taken £1,000,000 in the United States; “The Dictator,” which earned £650,000 in the United States and £350,000 in Britain: “A Yank in the R.A.F.” “Caught in the Draft”; “Philadelphia Story”; “Dive Bomber”; “Charley’s Aunt,” a new version, with Jack Benny; Two Mickey Rooney films, “Men of Boj's’ Town”; and “Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary.” Several conscientious objectors are reported to have Withdrawn’their objections to service- after seeing “Sergeant York.” It tells the story of the Tennessee Isolationist who reluctantly went to the last war and proved America’s greatest hero.