HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20477, 1 December 1934, Page 28 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

BY MOLLIE MERRICK. HOLLYWOOD. November 5.

John Gilbert gives promise of making the most sensational come-back of the so-called down-and-outers of the screen. Harry Cohn has approached Gilbert for a second picture to follow on the heels of “The Captain Hates the Sea." It is to be made aboard ship, with the same atmosphere which made Gilbert’s come-back picture a “ hit.” Gilbert himself, sensitive, shy, nervous and ever prone to under-estimate his ability, wouldn’t go to see the finished film. lie sent, instead, three friends to tell him just what they thought of him and of his story. They reported that they felt he was good all right, but that the story was slow, etc. The actor was plunged into the depths of despair. Next morning there broke upon his gloom the murmur of applause. He began to feel perhaps he’d picked the wrong three to report to him; they may have been too eager, too concerned to give a fair estimate. This picture drew down a landslide of enthusiasm for the actors, the producer and the director, Lewis Milestone. If Harry Cohn and John Gilbert get together—and they had some differences during the making of the picture which ran into a threatened lawsuit— Gilbert will come into his second comeback film under the best possible auspices. Cohn-made pictures are breaking all records in America. The Grace Moore musical film. “ One Night of Love.” is running a full month in houses which usually rate a split week. “It Happened One Night ” was awarded a prize as the best picture of the year and put Clark Gable back into the high place from which he had slipped. Tired of Eeing a Gentleman ! “ I’m sick and tired of being a gentleman.” said Herbert Marshall. The remark, as an opener, had all the hallmarks of being a vital declaration of independence. One had immediate visions of Marshall, eaten with regret because he had not retaliated on John Monk Saunders when that worthy saw fit to strike him in the dark, as it were. One visualises Marshall in a number of situations—telling the director off, for instance—or telling autograph hunters off when they swarm about him, and he only wishes a quiet httle luncheon with the lady of his heart—or even telling off the righteous members of the British colony, who think he should have no heart at all, only a head and plenty of English spit and polish. As Marshall stood there, immaculate in white linen coat, brown and white checked trousers and a loosely tied brown scarf about his throat, the idea of such a figure going berserk had its provocative possibilities. Then the illusion was despoiled for Marshall announced:

“ I don’t know how this all started, but since I’ve played in pictures they're determined to brand me as a suave gentleman. It’s a compliment I disapprove of. You see I don’t think I’m suave at all. To me the term implies artificiality ... a studied pose, and I’m damned if 1 am artificial. Neither am I aloof, «,s has been said, secluding myself with a small group of friends. The fact is, I know o.nd associate with many people. “ I don’t mind playing the sauve gentleman or the polished gentleman, so long as he has revealing moments when he can show that basically he can burst through to show, let us say, intestinal fortitude. One reason why 1 like my present role with Greta Garbo is that although he is a nice gentle fellow, he can and does, become beautifully angry.” Now what is really at the bottom of it all, is that Herbert Marshall would like a crack at some roles that aren’t routine. He’d like something that isn’t as much like the role he played before as one piece of ticker tape is like the next piece. In short, contemplation of his various motion picture heroes, is so all of a sameness that Marshall is seized with a great ennui. Its like trying to find one friendly strand of spaghetti in a bowlful. Try and catch the temperamental hang of a piece of spaghetti. “ When I was beginning,” Marshall tells you, “ I played butlers, soldiers, counts, sailors, and the fore legs Of a horse and even a coat rack.” You see, in the beginning Herbert Marshall had no idea of becoming an actor at all. When he graduated from St Mary’s College, in Harlow. England, he became an articled clerk for a firm ot chartered accountants in London. He had difficulties with adding and subtracting so they sacked him. When he realised that as a clerk he was a dismal “ flop ” he got a job as assistant stage manager with a theatrical troupe; and he passed most of his time travelling in and out with the road companies, playing every part back stage except that of actor. Marshall’s job was abolished when the company had to retrench so he got one as a butler with “ The Adventures of Lady Ursula” company. Two years of playing with this company landed him in London. Cyril Maude saw him and wanted him for the role of Ernest Heron—the very nervous man—in “ Grumpy.” Marshall was so nervous that he impressed Maude as acting the part to perfection and forthwith w r as hired for the tour of the United States and Canada. At least that is Marshall’s story; that part about being so nervous and so on. Maude’s story is just that he is one of the best actors ever seen. And, come to think of it, that story about being nervous brings us back in a vicious circle to the fact of being a gentleman. Somehow or other, such shyness in describing one’s talents belongs more to one’s idea of a gentleman than to one’s established opinion of an actor; and so inevitably to the conclusion that perhaps, in his role of sauve gentleman, Herbert Marshall isn’t so miscast as he’d have you be-

A Prelude to Fame. When Josef von Sternberg signe 1 Lionel Atwill for a leading role in the Marlene Dietrich picture, mutual friends of the two men recalled ar interesting episode in the life of the director. Ten years ago von Sternberg was known as Joe Stern and was assistant director of a stage play being presented in New York. Lionel Atwill was the star. The show was being run in the conventional duM fashion common to all plays of the moment. Nobody seemed to realise that something interesting might be done with it except the little assistant stage director —but the high and mighty were too busy to listen to him. After listening to Joe Stern, Atw»ll decided that here was a genius for direction. He interceded to have some of the effects which von Sternberg thought o\it used in the play, and its subsequent success he always attributed largely to the original and unique stage business suggested by the then unknown }-oung assistant.

| To-day, von Sternberg, the mouse of | ten vears ago, is one of the most pow- ! erful directors in motion pictures. It I has been said of him that he never I remembers his friends. This story alone proves that to be a libel. All things beine equal and the artist being fitted for the role, von Sternberg apparentlv would rather remember his friends than not: but he is too much the artist to cast for friendship’s sake alone. (Copyright by the “ Star ** and the N.A.N.A. All rights reserved).