A NEW STAR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 280, 25 November 1937, Page 3

A NEW STAR

PLAYS OPPOSITE FRED ASTAIRE, SUCCESS OF ENGLISH GIRL. When you see the Hepburn film, “Quality Street,” don’t look at the “star” all the time, says a London writer. Study instead the blonde girl playing the smallish part of Charlotte Parratt. That girl is destined to be a frontrank “star” in the very near future. Her name is Joan Fontaine. Note it. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made seven films together and each film garnered for its producers a million pounds of the world’s money. Some months ago it was decided to split the fortune-spinning, feet-twink-ling team, at least for one or two pictures. A new romance had to be found for Astaire. A hu.idred tests were made. Joan Fontaine, almost unheard of, won the coveted part. Eighteen months after she first faced a movie camera, Joan is now playing opposite Fred on equal terms. When you see the posters for “A Damsel in Distress.” her name will be in type equal in size to that in which Fred’s name is displayed—bigger than the title of the film. It is only her fifth picture. To-day Joan Fontaine celebrates her twentieth birthday. Already her Hollywood career is a story that for, romance and deserved success hss had few parallels. Her parents are English, resident inf Tokio. Joan was born there. She' spent some years at a boarding school in San Francisco and returned to a finishing school in Tokio. Then she went on the stage, mainly in Shakespeare, but finding her scope limited in Japan she shipped to California. Her sister was already in films but had changed her name to Olivia de Haviland. You've heard of her. Within a month Joan was playing her first part on the American stage. Jesse Lasky saw her and gave her a contract. In two weeks she was in “Quality Street.” So well did she seize her chance that in her second and third picture she was the leading lady. Only one in fifty leading ladies ever achieves high status, but Joan became a “star” in her next film. It will be exciting to watch this experiment, interesting to note whether they kiss before the camera. Astaire and Rogers have not done so in their seven pictures.

American in Susse .. A new play that attained some success in London was “Lovers’ Meeting,” produced at the Embassy by Margaret Webster, whose authoritative direction was largely responsible for the enormous success of “Richard II” in New York. The authoress, Gladyi Hurlbut, is an American, but she displays a remarkable knowledge of England rural counties by making her scenes of Sussex charm. Transatlantic eyes saw that distinctive county in many of its most beautiful phases in “Lovers’ Meeting,” and an excellent cast did full justice to the situations. The members of the company included Barry Jones, Marda Vanne, Gina Malo (the little soubrette who was such a success in “Viktoria and Her Hussars” with Oscar Denes, the plump Danish actor) in her first “straight” part.