HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18798, 29 June 1929, Page 25 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

(CONTINUED.) his family and his friends at his own ! home when they assemble there to dine. And that home is just ten minutes from the theatre and twelve minutes from the studio where Horton is under contract. The busiest chap in Hollywood hasn’t turned into a machine. He’s the most likeable and human man in all of movieland. Norma Talmadge’s First Talkie. Joseph Schenck, who has been 'recorded as against talking pictures, returns to movieland and finds his fac:ory about to put ut two of the 100 per cent talking dims. His wife, Norma Talmadge, is preparing to launch into her first all-talkie. If there is a moral to this tale it probably is: Say what you will and do what you may, you can’t kill off the talkie. A local comedian appeared in what he described to me as the “ most feeble cinematic effort it had been his experience to see made.” When the picture was finished and he saw it in preview he sighed and prepared to turn his face to the wall. Gilbert Roland will not play the lover in h forthcoming Ncrma Talmadge all-talkie. He will be the villain, instead. The story is one of American life, and is the first in many years to take the veteran star into her own medium. Her characterisations have been foreign ones, for the last five pictures, at least. The story, a tale of fast-moving metropolitan life, was decided upon after two scripts were rejected—a story by William J. Locke, for which he was brought -to Hollywood from the Riviera, and which was discarded subsequently, and “ The Sign on the Door,” a wellknown stage play. « All in a Talkie Day! I was walking along one of the larger studio lots when a sharp hissing sound assailed my ears. “ What’s that? Oh, that's Warner Oland learning to hiss,” explained my guide. “ Has he been made a talkie critic?” “ N*o, but he’s playing the part of a Chinese in a talkie, and they’ve got an old Chinese in there teaching him to draw in his breath and give the effect of deep satisfaction.” 55 55 55 Mae Murray Signs Contract. Mae Murray is surviving the Hollywood revolution with her customary good fortune. She has just signed a contract for 7500 dollars a week. In this day pictures are advertised as bigger and better, but salaries, as any star can tell you, are apt to become smaller and smaller. Mae Murray has been in the game a long time. Disagreeable people with a penchant for remembering ages credit Mae with quite a number of summers. But she has preserved her girlish figure, and a certain element for the public which is not really analysable. She is a Princess—one of the Mdvanis, Pola Negri’s brother-in-law, in fact, being her husband. She has a blonde baby who figures largely in her private life. And she has a happy faculty of acquiring all these things at the precise moments when publicity is needed. Along the Boulevard. Significant absence of those ladies who hitherto contributed to the bizarre quality and colour of this main thoroughfare. They are all home practising a new art, with set faces. It is do or die this trip for the silent goddesses of yesterday. Nigel de Brulier walking along in the sunshine. Years of playing prophet-ascetic roles have given him a saintly tread. Junior Laemmle arriving at a cafe for luncheon. Surrounded by sycophantic circles. This boy wonder of production has money to spend. And while you have you are never alone in Hollywood In which respect it is pretty much the same as other places. Colleen Moore in a sailor suit with kilted skirt and blouse. The type worn by children of twelve a score of years ago. Little hat turned up all around.

Billie Dove on a bicycle, rounding curves at high speed. Flattening the body curves in so doing. The Dove uses bicycling purely for reduction And she has a number of the girls pedalling in the morning as a result As a matter of fact Billie Dove has one of those figures which permit of extravagant eating, and yet retain their slimness. Mary Brian, a plastic beauty, who looks as if mother’s apron strings were not far away. Buddy Rogers with he side chops of ftv years ago. and -ouser pleats. Adolphe Menjou -what’s going to appen to him now hat an artist has o be something of i booth and a Bar ett. with a little ight-rope walking mind reading, high diving, soft shoe dancing and monologue on the side? Adolphe isn't bothered. ’Tis whispered that he has put a dime a day in his bank. If talkies create rain he can just run away and live on the proceeds of his art. Two Vikings in scarlet skirts and silvered armour walking side by side down the main thoroughfare. Inspection fails to reveal a sign or other advertising device. Probably just strolling home from a day's work. The I lolly wood of yesterday" saw many such types all painted up for work on the sets. Better dressing rooms and the custom of many studios of collecting employees in buses have done away with some of this. But the town reverts to the old way of doing in early morning hours Then you see thin little creatures with hideous yellow make-up standing in ballet skirts that are scarcely hidden by their straight little near-wool coats. Or gaunt genties who give the effect of being strangers to that after-thanks-giving-dinner feeling, in immaculate

evening clothes at 7.30 of a morning. Waiting for a Culver City bus. It must be bad enough to start out at that hour, but couple the fact with the necessity for lugging a make-up box. Pile on the misery of a box lunch at the location noon hour. Add the innumerable re-touches to the make-up, and then imagine returning to a cheerless room around seven or seven thirty. Think twice before you give the c man notice. Whatever you do, extr ing it in Hollywood is far worse. An an extra girl's sentiments: I have the lure of Garbo, I have the Gay nor pout. The trouble’s with directors. Who rimuly don’t find out.