ATTACK OF CHARM

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 175, 9 July 1932, Page 7 (Supplement)

ATTACK OF CHARM

ACTRESSES VISIT COMMONS. London, June 24. A number of actresses and producers visited the House of Commons to plead with members, at a meeting, to agree to legislation permitting the opening of theatres on Sundays. Miss Violet Vanbrugh, who wore a yellow costume and fashionable hat, won cheers from members when, appealing to the British sense of fair play, she urged that theatres should have the same privileges as cinemas. Mdlee. Alice Delysia preferred the French method of appealing to gallantry and flashed her entrancing smile on the hitherto solemn members, who declared later that such a delightful French accent had never been spoken in Parliament anywhere before, and they rather liked it. Major Proctor unchivalrously asked whether Mdlle. Delysia and Mbs Vanbrugh believed in Sunday dog and horse racing and general "Coehranisatlon” of the Sabbath. This drew a spirited retort from Mr C. B. Cochran, th< theatrical manager, that he staged nr thing more demoralising on Sundr than McCormack or Kreisler. h' Cochran added that the Sunday opci ing of cinemas had made the antic ' • celluloid-minded. ’»

Miss Nancy Price concluded the car for the theatres, declaring that the stage had mothered the cinema. “The films take our plays and give us earboe copies of our artists.’*