The SCREEN and its STARS

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 708, 8 March 1933, Page 3

The SCREEN and its STARS

XOVARRO seldom ventures into public. He rarely goes to night clubs, is very chary of public acclaim and generally surrounds himself with so many guests when he attends a concert or theatre that autograph hunters seldom find an opportunity to approach him. His is a true shyness and dread of being the centre of curiosity. Novarro entertains lavishly in his huge home in the Berkeley Square district of Los Angeles, where his entire family live and where his own apartment is a perfect example of Spanish Gothic beauty, or in his new modern house atop a Hollywood mountain. This new house boasts one of the loveliest music rooms in the film colony. five successful years in Hollywood, during which he has played in thirty-six film comedies. Wee Georgie Harris, who played in revue in Australia some years ago, has returned to England to make his first film in his

own country. “In Hollywood we u r ed to laugh at the British film industry.” he told a London paper, “ but I am amazed at the strides that are being made. The English studios I have seen are as up-to-date and well equipped as any in America. I went to see ‘ Jack's the Boy,’ prepared to sneer, but I came away astonished. It is as good a comedy as any ever made in Hollywood. In Hollywood there are hundreds of British actors and actresses living from hand to mouth on occasional small parts. Nearly all of them would like to come back, but they lack the fare.” Wee Georgie is only 4ft 6in tall. He used to be a variety artist in England. Mack Sennett visited England looking for a man with a funny face, and took Georgie to America.

I QAUSTIC COMMENT on Hollywood ; women has been made by Bobby j Arnst, whose romantic marriage to Johnny Weissmuller, former swimming expert and now a film star, was follow- [ ed by disillusionment and divorce. ! Bobby was a Broadway actress when f she married Weissmuller. She charged her husband with extreme mental cruelty, and though still professing to love the athletic star of “ Tarzan of the Apes,” had yet sufficient sense to be cynically amused at his collapse from grace. “ You take a big kid like that and shove him into the company of the sharpshooting women of Holly* wood, and it’s like sending your country cousin to a pick-pockets’ convention,” she ruefully remarked. “ Give the kid a physique like Johnny’s and it’s like throwing a fatted calf to a cage of lions. Those Hollywood beauties are practised. They are as quick into action as a fire brigade. They see a man coming t,p the steps, and before he can ring the door-bell they have pasted on a pair of ‘phoney’ (false) eyelashes, shellacked their eyelids, and stoked up their perfume. It was all real to Johnny; if he couldn’t see through their make-ups you couldn’t expect him to see through their conversation. They hung upon him and told him how wonderful he was, and he just rolled his eyes once and Hollywood had him. He was putting coconut oil hair and straightening his eyebrows before you knew it.”

BOOTH, who was the blonde heroine in “ Trader Horn ”, has been ill for some time, suffering from tropical complaints contracted while working in Africa on that film. JT IS RUMOURED in Hollywood that the engagement of Charles Chaplin, the world famous comedian, and Paulette Goddard, his new leading lady, will be announced shortly. JEANETTE MACDONALD laughed at the rumours of her engagement to her screen partner, Maurice Chevalier. She has announced that she is affianced to Robert Ritchie, of Philadelphia. WILBUR, in taking part in 8.1.P.’s “llullo Radio”, the film which will introduce wireless stars to the screen, lias combined his first love of film acting with his more recent career before the microphone as the well-known animal mimic. This sturdy New Zealander, who was brought up on a sheep station, and abandoned electrical engineering for the sea. arrived eventually in distant Los Angeles. Here he began a film career, and actually played six parts in the first full-length film ever produced. This was the famous “ Tilly’s Punctured Romance ”, starring Marie Dressier and Mabel Normand, which achieved the ambitious

length of six reels. Wilbur also played in films with Charles Chaplin and Roscoe (“ Fatty ”) Arbuckle, among other well-known stars, before returning to serve in the war with the New Zealand contingent.