HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20221, 3 February 1934, Page 24 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

By MOL LIE MERRICK. HOLLYWOOD, January 5. Discoursing on the possible quality of a picture before it is made is always a hazardous—if not a downright foolish business; but when Ernst Lubitsch makes “ The Meriy Widow ” it should be, according to all estimates of beauty and capability, one of the outstanding films net only of 1934, but of all time. Not only is the Franz Lehar music divinely lovely, the story and its glamorous setting one to intrigue a prosy America desperately fighting its way back to prosperity through a mass of code regulations and by-laws, but the presence of Maurice Chevalier as Danilo and of Jeannette MacDonald as Sonia should be the finishing touch. Ernst Lubitsch is the supreme director for the film-musical. He is the only one of the Hollywood school who did not steal bodily the entire technique of Rene Clair when it came to applying music to gelatine entertainment. Lubitsch has a style peculiarly his own; he has a delicate, ironic humour possessed by few. He has an instinct for tempo—for ridicule and romance, and he uses them all effectively. He revolutionised American musicals with “ Monte Carlo,” ai?d he should cap his own record with “ The Merry Widow.” Lubitsch is not a tall man. He has a rather interesting face with the dark, mocking leer of a creditor. He keeps his face tilted to the right side in a sarcastic manner. His eyes are extremely tragic, but he has an elfin look about the mouth. Lubitsch is always smoking what seems to be an expensive cigar, but isn’t. Prefers Solitude. There is one star in Hollywood who doesn’t have to go to night clubs, or parties, to have a good time. His idea of heaven is to drive towards the hills when the day’s work in the studio is done—and, mounting towards those far purple peaks, to come out on the shores of Toluca Lake—to his- own home. The part of that home he loves best is not the cosy hearth, the bar, the dining-room that looks over a vast tree-dark valley—but a Louis XV. bed which epitomises for him all the luxury this world can offer. The man is W. C. Fields. . . He had no place to sleep for thirteen years, no bed of his own from the time he was eleven and ran away from an unhappy home to become a tramp juggler until he was twenty-four. Fields went around the world many times, eating fitfully, sleeping in box cars, on park benches, in haystacks and outhouses; but he had the wide far freedom of the skies—the peace of twilight—the 3®®®®®®®©©®®®@®®®®®F

comforting silence of the stars after a wretched childhood. Only one unhappy aftermath: W. C. Fields, one of the most successful comedians in pictures to-day, is always haunted by the fear that some twist of fate may leave him bedless again. Perhaps nobody in the world is so much a part of the silences of nature and the beauty of solitude as this man whose exquisite comedy sense is almost unequalled. He has never taken on another family since that schism fifty years ago when he parted with his relations and went into the hazardous adventure of living without guidance from his elders. To-day his hacienda with the beautiful broad bed has few visitors. Most of these are old-time thespian friends who visit Hollywood from time to time. A lone man-of-all-work looks after W. C. Fields—pays his bills, takes his telephone calls, and is under orders to make himself as inconspicuous as possible when the master is at home. The tramp juggling days have left some unusual traits with this man. He never eats breakfast—an occasional pot of weak tea —but never a meal. “ I just lost the habit.” he tells you. “ Anyway, breakfast makes me mentally sluggish.” When there is no studio call he goes to the nearest golf course and plays alone—sometimes all day long. His luncheon is a salad without dressing. His dinner never includes pastry or "bread. “Am I watching my figure?” he roars with laughter. “ Comedians don’t need figures—why worry about ’em?” Fields believes that over-feeding and certain types of" food contribute to mental sluggishness. The urge to travel which took him in the long ago to England, France, Germany. Southern Europe, Scandinavian countries, the Balkans, Africa, Australia, the Samoan Islands, Hawaii, the Philippines and South America no longer tempts him away from the proverbial cat's spot near his own fireside.

“ I wouldn’t take a million dollars for my private reveries of those travels,” he says; “many of them so heartbreaking—but I wouldn’t retrace my paths through life for ten millions.” He is a conscientious comedian. When a script is finished which contains a role for him, he invariably takes it home and spends infinite hours seeking in every way to improve the humorous content. Mary’s Pranks. As one who interviews—or attempts to interview—Hollywood celebrities from time to time, may I say that some of their antics are beginning to give me a “ mild pain in the neck.” “ America’s Sweetheart ” —our Mary Pickford —is practically inaccessible in Hollywood. You have to break down the palace guard and mollify the Lord High Executioner to get our little heroine to make a few milk-and-water statements through a press agent or in his presence. Then, suing Douglas Fairbanqs for divorce, she boards a trans-continental train and secures herself in the fastness of her drawing-room, but emerges to talk with the Chicago Press representatives and to give interviews in New York. Mary has something to sell in New York just now: affability—a personal appearance campaign in the theatres—and may not return to the gelatine village for some time to come to do any professional work; if, indeed, she ever makes a picture again. It seems a harsh sort of thing to ignore the Press who deal with you from day to day in such a cavalier manner. This is said out of no personal animus—l didn’t care whether I talked to Mary or not, since I am of that group who believe that, in the progress of cinema she is merely tradition and history by now. (Copyright by the “ Star ” and the N.A.N.A. All rights reserved.)