Nils Asther Back on Screen in America

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

Nils Asther Back on Screen in America

Once more Nils Asther is on his way to screen stardom.

Some six years ago Asther, then at the height of his popularity as an American screen star, went to England to act in a picture. One led to another, and to another and these led to stage plays. His stay stretched into six years until the war curtailed British stage and screen production. Asther then returned to the United States, where he thought the fickle public had forgotten him. He made plans to appear in a stage play he had purchased, and was about to leave Hollywood for' New York when he received a call from Universal studios to play a role with Kay Francis and Brian Aherne in “The Man Who Lost Himself." Though Asther had sent his baggage to New York, he remained in the film city just to play the part. Hollywood producers immediately began to swamp him with screen offers. Nils Asther was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. When he was 16, he played his first screen role. Stage engagements in Sweden followed and he rapidly became one of the most popular leading men of that country. In America, he soared to the top of his profession as a screen star, and appeared in such well-remembered pictures as “Sorrel and Son,” “Cardboard Lover,” “Wild Orchids” and “The Bitter Tea of General Yen.”