SCREEN & STARS

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20342, 27 June 1934, Page 3

SCREEN & STARS

\yiXIFRED SHOTTER is back in London .with a healthy tan on her face and the sign of recent mosquito bites on her wrist. She has been to West Africa to see her army officer husband. QLARK GABLE has returned tousled. and rueful from his holiday tour of Eastern U.S.A. He vows that his next holiday will be spent in a desert. Enthusiastic theatregoers robbed him of twenty-four practically new silk handkerchiefs in New York, twentyseven coat buttons in Baltimore, and the sleeve of a dress shirt in KansasCity. QUARLES FARRELL* who was recently teamed again with Janet Gaynor, left Hollywood last month on a visit to England, where he will make a picture. Farrell, who was accompanied to London bv his wife, Virginia alii, is to be the hero of a modern “ Cinderella ” story, tentatively entitled “ Beauty Ball.'’ It will be directed by Monty Banks, and is the first of six productions by a new British film concern, Vogue Productions. These films, together with six to be made this year by John Stafford Productions and six at the Welwyn studio, mark the reentry into the producing field of the pioneer firm of Pathe. The firm has recently undergone reorganisation following the appointment of W. J. Gell as managing director. Fifteen pictures are to be made in Hollywood for Pathe, and an English representative has already gone there to supervise the production from the English point of view. “Jane Eyre’’ and “The Woman in White ” are to be two of these films. The whole output represents an expenditure of approximately £500,000. Charles Farrell became a free-lance actor a year ago because he was dissatisfied with the parts he was given. He has just finishgd “Change of Heart.’’ co-starring with Janet Gaynor, with whom he achieved fame in “ Seventh Heaven.**

JJEBE DANIELS recently celebrated the twentieth anniversary of her first screen appearance. She is thirty years old. :: 'JHIE LATEST in bridge comes from Irene Dunne, RKO Radio star, who plays bridge in Hollywood with her husband in New York. They make each play by mail, and at times it takes as long as- four weeks to finish one game. STORY has been bought by Paramount for Mae West, at the request of the star. It is entitled “Me and the King,” by Marcel Ventura and Alexis Thurn-Taxis, and is scheduled to go into production as soon as “ The Queen of Sheba,” Mae’s next for the studio, is finished. Mae herself will write the scenario for this film. _ m a JJOUBEN MAMOULIAX, the director who has restored the prestige of Greta Garbo by making a brilliant job of her new picture, “ Queen Christina,” at one time earned only £1 a week as a clerk in a London office. That was ten years ago. The directors of the company met to consider what they could do to help a young refugee to make a start in England. They decided to offer him a position as a junior clerk at £1 a week to tide him over his immediate difficulties. Young Rc-üben soon showed that his knowledge of the Russian theatre and of European art and literature in general made him an unusual kind of junior clerk. He worked conscientiously at his minor duties, but there came a day when he told his employers that he had been invited to produce a new plav at the St James’s Theatre. It was “ The Beating on the Door.” That show decided young Rouben. Some weeks later he was off to try his fortune as a play producer in New York. The next time he went to London he was famous, and he produced “ Porgy ” at His Majesty’s. To-day he is among the world’s six best directors, though he has made fewer than a dozen films.