The SCREEN and its STARS

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20260, 21 March 1934, Page 3

The SCREEN and its STARS

'J'HE COMEDIAN, Will Rogers, held up a production recently while he unashamedly confessed that smoking a pipe had made him sick. It was the first time that he had smoked, on the screen or off. HOWES, the comedian, has taken a vow never again to appear on the stage while making a film. He will do both types of work alternately. COUTHERX CALIFORNIA beauty specialists state that Sylvia Sidney has the most beautiful face on the screen to-day. Her features, they aver, have the perfect symmetry necessary for beauty. From the tip of her chin to her hair line is exactly three times the width of one eye; and the space from her lower to her upper eyelid is exactly the same as the space from her upper eyelid to her brow. Her face is just twice as wide as the length of her nose, thus forming a perfect oval. TAN KIEPURA, the young Polish * tenor whose recent picture, “Tell Me To-night,” proved a success in England and America, has now completed his 1934 contract arrangements with Carl Laemmle. He will go to Hollywood next year with a contract for four films, the first of which will be “ A Song for You,” -with Joe May directing. It was originally announced that Kiepura would make “ A Song for You,” with Marian Nixon as leading lady, in Paris, but production difficulties made this impossible.

JULIUS HAGEN is negotiating for Claudette Colbert to go to London to star with Conrad Yeidt in “ Bella Donna/J WEST, the star who made curves famous, has refused an offer (believed to involve a “ sensational ” sum) to appear in a British film. A HOLLYWOOD report states that x Lilian Harvey will return to Germany after she has made one more picture. This star, who was born at Mu swell Hill, London, and rose to fame in Germany, recently announced that she intended to marry the German actor, Willy Fritsch. OORDON BARKER* the most famous impersonator of Cockney corned}' roles on the screen, is not himself a true Cockney. He has lived with them, studied them and played them in innumerable contrasting styles, but he admits that even now he doesn't know all about them. Moreover, the declares that not only is he incapable of making up a piece of Cockney humour, but that he can never remember Cockney stories; not even the funny lines or jokes in the many Cockney roles he has portrayed. This, he insists, is clear proof that he is not a real Cockney. “ I’ve often been asked why I find the portrayal of Cockney parts so fascinating,” Harker said. “ I think it is because there is the rock-bottom, under-dog wisdom of the ages behind his wit. A Cockney will never make fun of a weakness in a person.”

( )UT OF several thousand girls listed in Hollywood as available for chorus work, hardly more than 300 will fill the strict requirements of the modern motion picture. WITHIN the* past *yeaV, Greta Garbo, the Swedish enigma, has rejected offers that would have earned her £52,000. These are the offers, all bona fide:—Life-storv interview for a national, magazine, £SOOO. To say one word, “Ilello!” over the radio, * £2OOO. A series of ten other radio broadcasts, £30,000. To appear on the New York stage for one week, £IO,OOO. To endorse a popular cigarette, £SOOO. THE 'SCREEN *FAT*E of Evelyn Lave will depend on two tins of film material taken from the new talking picture, “ Princess Charming,” and rushed from England to Hollywood. The contents of the tins will be inspected by Irving Thalberg and Ernst Lubitsch, and on the result of that inspection hangs the possibility of Evelyn Lave being invited to play opposite Maurice Chevalier in “ The Merry Widow.” Thalberg recently cabled to his friend Alexander Korda, and asked him to make a test of Evelyn Lave in accord with what Lubitsch would require. Evelyn Lave could not be released to make this test, but the Gainsborough Studios offered extracts from “ Princess Charming ” instead. JJENITA HUME, the clever English actress, who is now in Hollywood, thinks that her figure has contributed largely to her American success.