Value of Make-Up

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1076, 13 September 1930, Page 27

Value of Make-Up

AID TO FILM SUCCESS Many Stars Naturally Plain WHY are there so few “home-grown” British film stars? , , . an J i; true that screen actors and actresses horn and recl m . e British Isles lack those qualities which make for success in filmdom? This can hardly be so. The strength of the English contingent m Hollywood speaks for itself. The disconcertingaspect ot the question is that it took foreign film producers o appreciate their true ability, foreign cameramen to find the best in their faces and figures, and foreign make-up experts to make the most of their faces and to render them presentable for the camera.

Antal recently, few people in Britam had more than an elementary idea of tile art of make-up, claims Lena Purcell, a British make-up expert. Even today the importance of the make-up expert is not. generally realised. My experience in England and America has shown me that a good make-up contributes at least 50 per cent, toward Hie average star's success. Good film direction and camera work can supply another 40 per cent., while the natural intelligence and acting ability of the star account for the remaining 10 per cent. These are figures which may astonish the average film-goer, but they are not exaggerated. A FAVOURED FEW * Of recent years we have heard much of the “photographic ability” of this, that, or the other film star. This means, I suppose, the ability to reproduce well on a photographic film or print. A favoured few possess this quality naturally. To the vast majority who do not, it can be given. The make-up expert, aided by suitable photography, can make the plainest features appear beautiful, provided, of course, that no actual facial disfigurement exists. It is not generally known that there are less than a dozen stars in the whole of filmdom who can claim to be naturally beautiful. Take, for instance, the case of

Rudolph Valentino. When he emigrated to Hollywood, it was realised that his personality was eminently suited to the screen. But his olive complexion make him appear too much like a negro on the films, and there was no known coloured paint which would have given him a natural flesh tint. Did this discourage the Hollywood experts? Not in the least. For two whole years they experimented with various colours, and eventually hit on a shade of yellow which gave him a normal appearance. Valentino used this colour for ever afterward, and. as the world knows, became the greatest screen personality of all time. COLMAN “A FAILURE” If Valentina had tried for work in England, he would never have got beyond his preliminary tests. Ronald Colman, who has established himself in the front rank of screen actors, was told by a British producer that he was a “photographic failure.” In such a manner was the cream of our screen talent driven to seek success on foreign shores. Tho enormous extent to which American film stars rely on the make-

Up expert for their success is demonstrated by the fact that many of them dare not go into the streets of Hollywood without their make-up for fear of passing unrecognised. MAKE-UP A CULT in the United States, of course, make-up has become a cult, not only iu film circles, but with the public at large. College girls, shop assistants, domestic servants, and old and middleaged women all endeavour to make themselves more attractive by the use of cosmetics. The reason is not so much mere vanity as absolute necessity. America enjoys a very different climate from that in England. We grumble at our temperate weather, and sigh for the extremes of heat and cold which prevail in the United States. But it is those very extremes which ruin the skins of American women. The system of central heating in America, also, has a terribly drying effect on American skins. The schoolgirl complexion as we know it is almost non-existent in the land of the dollar. The skin of a middle-aged Englishwoman is at least ten years younger than that of an American woman of the same age. But, English or American, no girl need fear that her plainness will debar her from film fame. Why, even so celebrated a beauty as Betty Compson has a snub nose!