SOCIAL ENTITY OF SCREEN

Southland Times, Issue 23649, 26 October 1938, Page 2

SOCIAL ENTITY OF SCREEN

PROBLEMS FOR THE “JONES FAMILY” SHIRLEY DEANE’S DUAL ROMANCE The “Jones Family” has become a peculiar social entity. The actors all take their characterizations seriously and their screen work is reflected in their private lives. Florence Roberts, grandmother of the troupe, is prone to give grandmotherly advice, which the younger members accept. She once told Kenneth Howell, the 19-year-old Jack Jones of the series, that happiness comes in doing the things you want to do whether they are wise or not, so the minute he had a vacation he ran off to Europe and spent what little money he had saved.

In ordinary pictures, members of the technical staff take care of accidents and first aid. But when Billy Mahan (Bobby . Jones, aged 5) burned his finger, Jed Prouty slapped him on the back and told him to buck up and be a man, while Spring Byington, his screen mother, applied some medicine. Shirley Deane, who portrays the eldest daughter who is to be married, has kept the troupe in a turmoil trying to keep her screen and her real life romances separated. Her contract has expired, and it is likely that she will be dropped from the series, but before the expiration she had every one confused. She was to marry James Gleason in a picture and the director thought that a regulation house wedding would be awfully nice. Miss Deane objected and demanded a garden wedding, because, she said, she was engaged and wanted her real marriage to be in her home.

One night Prouty took the entire “family” to a preview, but Miss Deane was not permitted to go with her fiance because the public might not like it. So her husband-to-be took Gleason’s fiancee, and Gleason and Miss Deane attended in keeping with characters.