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Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1930, Page 10 (Supplement)

i NEW ZEALAND ACTOR.

1 SUCCESS IN LONDON. 1a * -

The following is from the Sydney Sl Lanee Fairfax (the New Zealander who was ... last here in “The Desert Song”) appears to have made, a big ecoop in London, and run off with the mince pies. A cable came through a day or two ago to announce that he hail signed a fat contract to appear as leadino’ man at .Drury Lane in the Chri6tma6°production. /This seems to be the only occasion on which, an unknown actor has seemed a leading part in London without a try-out or previous experience. He confesses m a private' letter that the first day ho went out to look for work in London he felt the same sinking sensation as when facing an audience for the very first time. Where to turn? Whom to break in upon first? Even with the best of letters managers are hard to 6€ " ' WHAT HAPPENDED.

What happened was this: He met an old friend from Australia in the Strand, and was 'there and then directed to knock at the outer portals of the. exclusive, Lionel Powell, who is manager for the top-notch musical start, booking Melba, John McCorack, Chaliapine, and the rest of the : Truly Great. Friend from Australia, who knew Powell, gave him the open sesame to the golden gate of his sumptuous office. Powell behaved in a becoming manner to a stranger from afar, but mentioned that there was a good deal of competition in London. Mr° Fairfax had better prepare a vaudeville act,, and be ready to show it somewhere where, if it went over, managers, might be induced to go and i . this newcomer from Australia. The act prepared, a private audition was arranged for the Queen’s Hall, an 4 , it happed. Powell .grew more polite. “Come/, and see me in the morning,” he said. When morning came h> had tea laid out for two, ..and a typisf.bt.b ... take notes, and. he invited Lance, 'Fairfax to stand by—or sit ;and sip-his tea —-while he dictated, the folletter' to C. ,B. Cochran and, with variations,. to Sir Alfred Butt and Sir Oswald /' • . t '-. : “Dear C.B.,— Yesterday I heard Lance Fairfax(Bihg, and he has a magnificent voice, easily the best'on 1.116 stage in this country. As you know, I don’t usually . write like'this, but I advise you to: heab him .sing, as he is a distinct find, and/Sviil .soon be snapped up.” It Sir .Alfred Butt, who did the snapping. -A'/,.,/‘ / ' NO.NEED TO CRY. ■ BESSIE LOVE’S ROLES. “Goody—l don’t have to cry!,” This was Bessie Love’s immediate re-, action, when she, first was 'shown the script -/“Good? News,” the. screen adaptation of th'e stage’success. ■ “Boy, that sure was ‘good news’ to me,” said. Bessie, in a recent interview., “I thought I’d never get .over the "weeps after the success of ‘Broadway Melody.’ I love to laugh and to make -people laugh, but it has always seemed in motion pictures that my heart'had to be broken and. I had to start crying'all over the'-place. . / . “When I/'aid ’‘Broadway Melody’ I hoped I would be funny. Then at the opening night everyone applauded when I crie<l°in that dressing room scene and I knew I was lost. ' • “The jiext thing that I did was ‘The Idle Rich.’.My big scene yas- a crying commotion again. Everyone, seemed to have the ‘poor little Bessie’ complex. People actually felt > sorry for me, honestly—even my friends. Then there was ‘Chasing Rainbpws? Ah, but before I got ray man I had.' to. have my heart broken all over again. A, big crying scene? You may be sftire of that! /"i ■ 7 .’ . . “Before that I had made, another theatrical picture called ‘The Girl in the Show.’, And did I cry and carry on? Yessir, my poor little heart was stamped on again) and I had to sob right through at least three hundred feet of film. - > ü ßut now that I can go through a whole picture all. happy and gay, maybe I will have a chance to lay aside my lachrymal glands, goodness only knows how they’vq been overworked!” NO DECEPTION! ; . 'SOUND FILM METHODS. ' /? Sound film producers no longer permit ’ their’ stars to go through the motions;-of .singing -while an off-stage prima donna supplies the notes, according to George Lewin, of/the ParamountPublix Corporation, who addressed the convention of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers at the Hotel Pennsylvania. Mr. Lewin said that voicefaking -was definitely a thing of the past, °and assured motion, picture audiences they now heard the actual voices of the screen performers. He' admitted, however, that the studios practise a great amount of “dubbing,” or substitution of artificial /ound for original. This was done, he asserted, to make for veracity, remarking . that , .natural sounds frequently caused’' theatregoers to doubt their authenticity. “Every studio,” he declared, “has stacks of.sound tricks on file, ranging from thunder storms to the chirping ot a cricket. Some of these are authentic sound reproductions; others are merer ly synthetic; Almost everyone has seen service in ■, several pictures.” ' A ; demonstration of the value of the motion picture to medical science was made by C. A. Morrison, of the Eastman Teaching Films, Inc., Rochester, when he projected upon the full-size screen a picture of the human vocal chords in action. “

The picture was obtained through a special attachment to an ordinary motion picture camera, by which' the lens, together with an .illuminating appliance, could be extended down a person’s throat to the larynx. The appliance, Mr. Morrison said, was perfected after two. years of study and experiment, and now was being used by Dr. Clyde A. Hcatly, of the University of for a series of pathological experiments.

“JOURNEY’S END” IN JAPAN.

AN ORIENTAL INTERPRETATION.

Sheriff’s play, “Journey’s End,” has reached Japan? It \Vas produced at the Hongo-za Theatre in Tokio by an allJapanese east trained at the Little Theatre of Taukiji, Tokio, an institution formed to produce current plays of other nations by Japanese casts. The Japanese troupe, of course, added some touches not in the original script. When Osborne held up the book, “Alice in Wonderland,” during the progress of the play, the students and members of the axidience recognised the allusion — for ‘‘Alice” is still a best-seller in Japan. K. Tomoda was Captain Stanhope, making the war-racked hero something of a gigolo; ' T.' K'osugi was the fat Trotter, played along buffoon lines. One distinctly Oriental interpretation was that interpolated in the scene with the German prisoner, the sergeant-major kicking the trembling Teuton many times.