ACROSS THE FOOTLIGHTS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1934, Page 20 (Supplement)

ACROSS THE FOOTLIGHTS

STARS AT WORK AND PLAY. LATEST NEWS FROM EVERYWHERE. Sketches for Hobby. Mary Brian makes a hobby of sketching. Although she has never’ studied art, she is quite clever with her pencil and amuses herself by sketching the various members of the cast between scenes. She adds these sketches to a constantly growing collection. Raquel Doesn’t Inhale. They may satisfy some girls—but Raquel Torres has never smoked a cigarette in her life. She’s never tried one, has never had the desire, and never intends to. She claims that

smoking, at its best, is nothing more than a habit—and it’s just as easy to cultivate the refraining habit! He Knew! Darryl F. Zanuck, who believes much of his success as a producer is due to his ability to direct his stories to the mass public, sent Sam, the studio barber, to the preview of his latest 20th Century Picture, “The Affairs of Cellini,” to get his reaction. Sam came back to shave Zanuck,and report: “It’s a swell comedy, but the ordinary movie fan ain’t got my education —he won’t know who this Benvenuto Cellini is.” Zanuck disagreed and offered to bet the price of the shave that the first man passing the barber shop door would be able to identify the great goldsmith-lover who is the hero of the story. The first passerby was the janitor. Zanuck asked: “Do you know who Benvenuto Cellini was?” “Sure,” replied the janitor, “Frederic March.” “The Iron Duke.” Mr. Arliss’ picture is moving smoothly ahead and the first gentleman of the screen is very pleased with the progress. One thing especially has delighted him and that is the magnificent settings of

Alfred Junge. Hollywood sets, according to Mr. Arliss, are vast and stupendous, but they lack personality. It is here that Gaumount triumph, for in all the settings that their art director devises there is that something that makes them live and not appear as a mere wooden shell surrounded by arc lights. Miss Ellaline Terriss, grand dame of the stage, has made an appearance in this film as the screen wife of George Arliss, the Duchess of Wellington. Hollywood’s Busiest Girl. The busiest girl in Hollywood is taking a vacation. Ginger Rogers’ total of 18 featured roles on the screen in the past year sets an all-time record. So, when she completed her role with Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell and James Dunn in “Change of Heart,” the vivacious Ginger started to rest for six weeks. Her idea of resting is to spend two of those weeks in New York, seeing all the shows there are to see, and then to return for eight or ten hours of tennis a day with Lew Ayres—after which, she feels, she will be ready for another year before the cameras.

The screen’s toughest actor is not the least bit tough. But that is only one of the many contradictions that go to constitute the freckled “Jimmy the Gent,” a Warner Bros, picture. In “Jimmy the Gent” he talks in hard, brittle fashion. Away from the camera he speaks softly, in almost soothing style. He is accepted as Hollywood’s “tough guy,” and his chief studies at the moment are the piano and singing. He is “tough,” and he was launched upon his career as a female impersonator! That was in “Fitter Patter” in the long ago on Broadway, and he followed that job by taking a role as a “roughneck” in Maxwell Anderson’s “Outside Looking in.” James Cagney, who punches several persons in “Jimmy the Gent” and some in practically every picture he makes, has rarely had to use his fists in real life. In “Jimmy the Gent,” Jimmy has the role of a man who digs up false heirs to collect fortunes from unclaimed estates. The picture is based on a rollicking comedy romance bv Laird Doyle and Ray Nazarro and adapted to the screen by Bertram Milhauser.