"GATE-CRASHING"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21254, 6 August 1932, Page 11 (Supplement)

"GATE-CRASHING"

ENTRANCE GAINED TO STUDIOS YOUNG ASPIRANTS' RUSES The ingenious ways in which aspirants to talkie fame attempt to force their way into picture studio 3 were outlined recently in a British film journal. There was the case of the young man who entered the sacred portals hidden in a laundry cart. He slipped out when the van stopped near a studio door and eventually found his way into the office of Thomas Bentley. He was the wrong type or another bit of audacity might have had .a remunerative reward. A man with a brown bag presented himself at the doors of the Gaumont Studios. " I'm Doctor Sanders," he announced. " I've been sent to attend Miss Smith, who has been taken ill. May I go through ? I know my. way." He was an actor who had heard that a doctor's part was going- in & certain film. He got it. Norman Lee, one of Elstree's leading directors, said recently that he. is often •pounced on by people who seem to materialise from the studio shadows. "No one knows how they get in or where they come from," ho observed. " I usually retreat to the nearest office and wait till they've nobbled someone else. The gatemen are always on the job, but there is no limit' to the cunning of the film-struck." Herbert Wilcox, chief of the British and Dominion Studios, can tell a dozen tales of the audacious people who have crashed his gates. Some stayed and some were ejected. It depended upon their ingenuity and Mr. Wilcox's mood. He is appreciative of " go-getters," being one himself. A " newspaper reporter " found ho difficulty in being escorted to the publicity offices on his faked credentials. The publicity chief not only took him to the " floor," but introduced him to Director Sinclair Hill. " Mr. Hilll," began the interloper, " I'm not a reporter at all —I'm So-and-so who played in So-and-so. Let me | give you a test. . . ."

Sinclair Hill was too used to this kind of thing "to be very surprised. A beautiful: young girl dressed herself as a depressingly plain stenographer, and, saying she had been sent from a bureau, got "into the offices of a film magnate. Before he realised it he was being talked to by a plain young woman who was rapidly undergoing a metamorphosis bofore his eyes. Whether or not he gave her the chance she. pleaded for is not on record. At the Gainsborough Studios a young gentleman, in overalls, tool-laden, announced that he had a job of work to do in the boiler room. He was found later acting a mechanic's part in a scene. They didn't eject him; be happened to be a type they needed. He could have got the job without subterfuge had he known. A certain star found a new chauffeur in his car one morning. " Your man's ill," explained the smart young man at the wheel. " I'm his cousin. Here are my credentials. May I carry on till ho comes back ?" He " carried on," but not at car driving. Ten minutes after he pulled into the studio grounds lie went looking for Director Frank Lloyd. His audacity won him a job in a sea picture. He had heavily bribed the chauffeur to go sick to give him this chance.