NOT AS THEY SEEM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 940, 9 December 1933, Page 24 (Supplement)

NOT AS THEY SEEM.

Dietrich Has a Fat Face— Zasu Pitts is Pretty.

Marlene Dietrich has a round, fat face. The hollow features and the high cheekbones are not given to her by Nature. They are achieved by clever make-up and lighting. Zasu Pitts is really a pretty girl and not at all the woebegone creature pic-ture-goers see on the screen. Mae West, the buxom star of “ She Done Him Wrong,” is slim and not nearly as tall as she appears. These surprising facts were revealed recently by Messrs F. C. James and G. H. Anderson, who have returned to Australia from Hollywood, where they have been engaged in making-up film stars with Max Factor.

Motion picture actors and actresses were seldom seen on the screen as they really were, they said. Some of them were much more handsome in real life —and others were not so handsome. It all depended on make-up, one of the major arts of film production. In Hollywood, at present, the basic purpose of make-up was to obtain colour harmony by the use of lipstick and rouge, on a powder foundation, to give natural tone to facial features. The photographic value of an. actor’s features was enhanced or marred by the use of cosmetics.

If the make-up was not skilfully handled, the effect was garish and freakish, and faces assumed a pasty appearance on the screen. Make-up was as important as direction and photography, and it "was one of the major costs of film production. When Messrs Anderson and James were in Hollywood a month ago there were no signs of the American film in-