"GATE-CRASHING"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 190, 13 August 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

"GATE-CRASHING"

ENTRANCE GAINED TO STUDIOS. YOUNG ASPIRANTS’ RUSES. The ingenious ways in which aspirants to talkie fame attempt to force their way into picture studios were outlined recently in a British iilm jour nal. There was the case of the young man who entered the sacred portals hidden in a laundry carl. He slipped out when the van stopped near a studio door and eventually found his way into the office of Thomas Bentley. He was the wrong type or another bit of audac

ity might have had a remunerative re 1 ward. c A man with a brown bag presented s himself at the doors of the Gaumont Studios. “I’m Doctor Sanders,” he an- c nounced. “I’ve been sent to attend c Miss Smith, who has been taken ill. c May I go through? I know my way.” 1 He was an actor who had heard that a t doctor’s part was going in a certain a film. He got it. Norman Lee, one of t Elstree’s leading directors, said re- f cently that he is often pounced on by i people who seem to materialise from the f studio shadows. 1 “No one knows how they get in or o where they come from,” he observed, ti “I usually retreat to the nearest office t and wait till they’ve nobbled someone I else. The gatemen are always on the c job, but there is no limit to the cun t ning of the film-struck.” a Herbert Wilcox, chief of the British a and Dominion Studios, can toll a dozen t tales of the audacious people who haw 1 crashed his gates. Some stayed and some were ejected. It depended upon 1 their ingenuity and Mr. Wilcox’s mood. « He is appreciative of “go-getters,” be- s ing one himself. j A “newspaper reporter” found no t difficulty in being escorted to the pub t licity offices on his faked credentials, i The publicity chief not only took him < to the “floor,” but introduced him to < Director Sinclair Hill. “Mr. Hill,” be- ( gan the interloper, “I’m not a reporter t at all—l’m So-and-so who played in 11 So-and-so. Let met give you a test. .”!> Sinclair Hill was too used to this 11 kind of thing to be very surprised. Il A beautiful young girl dressed her ’ self as a depressingly plain steno- 1 grapher. and, saying she had been sent D from a bureau, got into the offices of a 1 film magnate. Before he realised it he i was being talked to by a plain young t woman who was rapidly undergoing a 1 metamorphosis before his eyes. Whe- i ther or not he gave her the chance she ‘ pleaded for is not on record. At the Gainsborough Studios a young i gentleman, in overalls, tool-laden, an I nounccd that he had a job of work to < do in the boiler room. He was found ! later acting a mechanic’s part in a scene. They didn’t eject him; he hap ‘ pened to be a type they needed, lie < could have got the job without subter fuge had he known. A certain star found a new chauf |. four in his car one morning. “YourD man’s ill,” explained the smart young 1 man at the wheel. “I’m his cousin. Hero are my credentials. May 1 carry on till he comes back?” He “carried on,” but not at car : driving. Ton minutes after he pulled i into the studio grounds ho went look ing for Director Frank Lloyd. His : audacity won him a job in a sea pic ture. He had heavily bribed the chauf ! four to go sick to give him this chance. : “Unashamed” has t»een selected as , lhe final title for the Metro-Goldwyn Mayer film with Helen Twelvetrees. Robert Young and Lewis Stone in prom inent roles. The new picture is an original for the screen by Bayard Veilloi. the famous playwright of “The Trial I of Mary Dugan,” “Guilty Hands," “The Thirteenth Chair.” Lois Wilson, who appears with Billlie i Dove, in “The Age For Love." Howard ! Hughes production, has quit the stage for good, and will remain in pictures i indefinitely. The brilliant actress made I this decision following her success in j "Thu Ago For Love,” which she regards as her finest portrayal, on stage and screen. Miss Wilson prior to the . change from silent to talking pictures, i left the movies, in which she made a ’ tremendous hit. for the “legitimate." j On the stage she made h brilliant re . cord, and at one time had deter 1 mined not to return to pictures. But [ in March of this year, she was lured | back to the screen to play a part in ; “Seed.” That single role brought her! more popularity than half a dozen stage j parts, and brought her also the oppoi i tunity to enact another great role in “The Age For Love.”