High School Mistress’s Rise to Fame

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21971, 24 May 1941, Page 12

High School Mistress’s Rise to Fame

Students of Kansas City High School had an unusual experience when they were invited to a special preview of “The Tree of Liberty" in the local theatre, for starred with popular Cary Grant in the film was their former school teacher, Martha Scott, who foisook the teaching profession to go on the Broadway stage, and later to a Hollywood career that promises to oe one of the most brilliant of recent years, for in only her second film, Miss Scott has been acclaimed the most promising new discovery of recent years. After graduation from university, Martha taught at the high school for six months, but decided she was not suited to this profession, and left Io join a play company on tour through the Western States. Later she played Shakespearean roles with a leading stock company at the Chicago World’s Fair, and then went to New York where she was heard in a nightly presentation of ghost stories produced by another youngster, Orson Welles, who also has jumped to fame. About this time, the Broadway producer, Jed Harris, was casting “Our Town,” for which, because of its unusual theme, neither he nor the author held out great hopes. He decided Martha Scott would make an ideal Emily in the production, and not only was she a sensation, but the play enjoyed ah eminently successful season, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, in the year of Steinbeck's “Of Mice and Men,” and other great plays. While lh New York for an evening, Hollywood producer Sol Lesser saw “Our Town” and, entranced by the acting of Miss Scott, went backstage after the show and gave her a film contract.