FILM STAR'S VISIT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22464, 7 July 1936, Page 11

FILM STAR'S VISIT

ME. VICTOR JORY

WORK IN AUSTRALIA

ZANE GREY PICTURE

Loud-speakers resounded over the harbour yesterday as a party of local film people on board a launch welcomed Mr. Victor .Tory, well-known Hollywood motion picture player, on his arrival by the Niagara en route to Australia, where he will play lead in the Zane Grey production "Rangle River." Mr. Jory and his wife stood at the liner's rail and waved back greetings across the water. They were equally pleased when the voices gave place to the strains of "Hacre Ha" from a gramophone record, and said that the music reminded them of welcome songs they had heard at Honolulu and Suva.

Dark-haired, six feet tall and 34 years old, Mr. Jory has a cheerful, unaffected air that should win him many friends in Australia and later in New Zealand, for he intends to spend a trout-fishing holiday of three weeks hero on his way back to California. He is looking forward very keenly to his stay in the Antipodes, and particularly to seeing something of the Great Barrier Reef, where many scenes in the film will be "shot." He is under contract to Columbia Pictures, which is undertaking this, the first American-Australian film production, in co-operation with National Studios, a Sydney company. Plans for Picture It is expected that he v will be kept busy for about 10 weeks at studio work in Sydney, in addition to the time spent at the Great Barrier Reef. Later he hopes to visit Tasmania for a fortnight. The picture, which is estimated to cost £20.000, will be directed by Clarence Badger, who passed through Wellington recently on his way from Hollywood. According to the last information received by Mr. Jory, the feminine lead is to be taken by Nancy O'Neill, an English actress, and the rest of the cast will be Australians.

Mr. Jory, who was last seen by Auckland film-goers in Reinhardt's "Midsummer Night's Dream," has been in motion pictures for four years. Before that, from the time that he left college at the age of 17, he was on the stage, for the most part in stock companies. Mrs. Jory, who was formerly Miss Jean Spurnev, acted with him during most of that period, but she has not appeared in films. They have been married nine years—"quite a long while for Hollywood," Mrs. Jory says with a smile —and have a six-year-old daughter named Jean, who has been left in California. Their home is at Pasadena, a. dozen miles from the film centre. New Order In Industry

Speaking of the motion picture industry, Mr. Jory said that the day of lavish spending was over and the companies had settled down to a new order of things. It was rare nowadays for a film star to hold his place for more than five, or perhaps seven, years. This was unfortunate, because the demand for new faces and new voices robbed the screen of both talent and experience. The exchange of players between Hollywood and Great Britain promised to lengthen the "life" of those stars who gained a footing in both countries. British films had won an assured place in the American market since the remarkable success of "Henry VIII.," which had received the American award as the best picture of its year. Mr. and Mrs. Jory were welcomed at the Town Hall yesterday afternoon by the deputy-mayor, the Hon. B. Martin, M.L.C., in the absence of the Mayor, Mr. Ernest Davis, who is indisposed.