IDEAS OF STARDOM

Taranaki Daily News, 22 June 1935, Page 20 (Supplement)

IDEAS OF STARDOM

ACTORS ALTER ATTITUDE. LONG PROFITABLE CAREER BETTER. The facts of life for actors in Hollywood have undergone a revision of late, along with some of the other “eternal verities,” including the necessity for a large element of sex and other “boxoffice attributes” in motion pictures. So far as the actors are concerned, the greatest change in their ideas concerns stardom. A few years ago those who thought they. heard the Lorelei songs of the cinema went out to Hollywood to become stars. There were tales of .fabulous salaries, riotous living, fun and idolatry for motion picture stars. The idea was to make a lot of money and get out at the peak of a career. The whole idea was extravagant, and it took a few years for some of the Hollywood idols to learn that they had been living up to their names and didn’t have any retirement money when the prearranged date for said withdrawal from mundane labours came along. Besides, they were getting older and their earning power was decreasing in the distressingly inverse and perverse way it has with age and motion picture players. So, first of all, the old Hollywood idea was proved wrong and the people of the cinema began to take stock. The first thing a good number of them decided was that stardom, while it couldn’t be dispensed with entirely because of the producer’s need for selling points, was riot very desirable. Then, too, so many people have gone from Eastern stages to Western studios of late that a different type of personnel has grown up with the talking picture. The stage people, much as they wanted success and much as they would be proud to have their names in 4ft electric light signs, were inclined to be conservative. The credo was, “You’re a star for only a short time, but character players go on for ever.” During the past year particularly the desire for a long, profitable career has proved more worthwhile than a short, dazzling one to dozens of prominent screen personalities.