NEWS OF THE TALKIES,

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18342, 30 May 1931, Page 17 (Supplement)

NEWS OF THE TALKIES,

Norma Talmadge Retires. According to the Sydney Sun, Norma Talmadge has retired from the Alms. Mary Sends Love to Australia. “From my heart, love to the Australians, whom I regard as most devoted friends,” said Mary l Pickfocd (Mrs Douglas Fairbanks), interviewed by a Sydney Sun representative. “The cup they bought with pennies and gave me is among my dearest possessions. “As a Canadian, I feel the greatest affinity with Australasians, and long to visit them." , Married and Divorced In Month. Betty Compton, the 24-year-old musical comedy and Aim star, has had one of the briefest marriages and quickest divorces in , history. - She married Edward Dowling in New York on February 16, and obtained her divorce in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on March 21. • Her petition was based on grounds of cruelty, personal violence, and refusal to provide maintenance. j “Over tho Hill” as a Talkie. Mae Marsh,’ well known'' to the silent Alms of years ago, is to emerge from retirement to play the principal feminine role in w ‘Over the Hill."' Miss Marsh (now Mrs Louise Lee Arms and the mother of three children) has been living in the hills of Flintridge, not far from Pasadena:. She is now 34 years old. Her screen career dates back to the early Biograph days. She had a featured role in “The Birth of a Nation." The cast • assembled to play with ’her includes James Kirkwood, Howard Phillips, Gerard Stewart; Donald Dillaway, Cecelia Parker and Nat Pendleton. - : - ' ' ' Tho Pola Negri Divorce. '-,i: Pola Negri, the Aim actress, who was-granted a divorce in Paris recently from Prince Serge. Mdivani on the ground of desertion, intends, so she says, henceforth to remain maritally, free; - '-■■■ .. ■' V Prince Mdivani, in dramatic contrast to this announcement, no sooner heard of his liberty than he declared his intention of immediately, surrendering it to Miss Mary McCormic, the; operatio singer. , , < , “Such a wonderful woman as Miss McCormic,” he proclaimed, “deserves a grand wedding, and she is going to have it.” Miss Negl says she will always be the Prince’s friend. Hollywood Seeking English Players. Hollywood is once more on the “shanghai” trail. Madeleine Carroll seems to be a particularly magnetic target, for Frank Joyce, of the Joyce and Selznlck Corporation, Hollywood’s biggest agency, is extremely busy engineering deals to transplant her to Hollywood. We saw Hollywood strip Berlin of talent in the silent, days, severely stunting the growth of the German Industry, and we hope that she is not trying to do the same thing In England (says a London paper). Tom Walls’ Throe Ambitions. Tom Walls, the popular manager of the Aldwych Theatre Company, has -three ambitions which have yet to be realised. The flrst and most, cherished Is to see a healthy grandson before departing this life; the second is to retire at 55; the third Is to train a Derby winner. Not many people know that Tom Walls has a son, who has just left Harrow and is about to enter Sandhurst. As for the last two ambitions, he is still well on the pleasant side of 50, and has a remarkably efficient racing stable.

The Opera House, New Plymouth, was opened -as a house ..on Monday night. The equipment is the product of De Forest Phonofllms, Ltd. Provided an Unexpected Laugh. Mischa Levitzki, notable pianist provided his unseen audience in thru Stales with an unexpected ' laugh al the conclusion of his broadcast in Melbourne, says a Sydney paper. After he had obliged with half a dozen encores the “mike” was switched over to the artist’s room in the hope of getting a brief speech. Mischa was apparently unconscious of the microphone’s proximity, for, clear as a bell, came the pianist’s gay remark: “Well I’ve earned one, I guess. I. haven’! had one all day.” But Mischa unkindly left his radio 2 audience t. speculate as to the nature of the mysterious “one.” Connection with Drury Lane Severed.! Sir Alfred Butt's Interesting association with Drury ( Lane. Theatre came to an end last month, when he resigned his position as chairman and director of the company. This follows his termination last January of the managing directorship. At the annual meeting of the company last September Sir Alfred stated that he was considering certain proposals which, if they matured, would, probably .preclude his remaining -as managing director after the termination of his agreement. Sir Alfred had been chairman of Drury Larre Theatre since 1919- and' chairman and managing director since 1925. Mr Sidney Smith, who has been, associated with the company since 1883, and has been a director for tho last 25. years, has also resigned. At one time Sir Alfred "controlled no fewer than eight theatres In London —Drury Lane, the Palace, the Empire, the Gaiety, the Adelphi, the Globe, the Queen’s, and the Victoria Palace, in addition to a very large circuit of provincial theatres. There is every prospect, It is said, of his being associated with another big commercial enterprise. Sir Alfred’s regime at Drury Lane has seen that fine playhouse restored from something of a "white elephant," which it had become after the decline in popularity of the old spectacular melodrama, to the principal home of bfg-scale musical plays. Ex-Kalser’s Sister as stage Heroine. The German newspapers announce that Mr Maro Connelly, the American playwright, is writing a play about the late Princess Victoria of SchaumburgLippe, sister of the ex-Kaiser, and Alexander Zubkov, the young Russian with whom she fell, in love. At the age of sixty-one the Princess, then a widow and leading a lonely life in her palace at Bonn, startled the world by announcing that she was going to marry Alexander Zubkov, a ymfng Russian, a one-time dish washer at a restaurant. The folly of Zubkov and .the cruelly of the SohaumburgLippe family brought the Princess to ruin. She had to leave her palace ami live in lodgings; and she was forced to divorce her youthful husband. When she died, in November, she was broken in body and spirit M the sufferings which a false step brought her. Jfl There is certainly drarJHH material in this story from real UmHIH