Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

54 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 1 sign itself, but also to learn about sewing and pattern-making. The ideal educational background, she thinks, would consist of a couple of years of fashion schooling, a year or two of training in commercial art, and a year or two of pure art. “Attractive, natural figures, sketched in correct proportions, help tremendously in ‘selling’ the costumes you put on them,” she says. She also urges those who Kathleen Kathleen Norris, author of 70 novels and 200 short stories, not to mention many other writings, is now turning out five soap operas a week, Monday through Friday, for the CBS morning serial, A Woman’s Life, based on experiences in her own life. Prolific Mrs. Norris is finding it no trouble at all to write 260 radio playlets a year. She finds her fan mail “highly stimulating and somewhat terrifying.” In the following letter to the editor of the GUIDE, Mrs. Norris comments on the soap-opera battle, on the difference between radio-writing and fiction-writing, and on her reaction to her new work : RENT 16MM FILMS SOUND AND SILENT For Teaching, Recess and Entertainment Most of Our Films ore Also For Sole Write for Information NU-ART FILMS, INC. 145 WEST 45th STREET NEW YORK 19, Y would design to study their history. “Understanding why certain types of costumes were popular at various times in different countries is a requisite of fashion work,” she insists. “For instance,” she explains, “nowadays, the comparative freedom of women’s clothes is a manifestation of our stage of civilization. Just as women have attained more freedom, so have their clothes. “In the days of King Arthur, Norris on the Soap Opera Kathleen Norris Dear Dr. Lewin: I am a newcomer to the mysteries of soap opera, but I’ve found myself deeply interested in the little controversy that has been going on about it. I’ve been doing scripts for “A Woman’s Life” only since April, but already I’ve learned some of the reasons that make this sort of work different from magazine-serial and novel writing, and when I say with all humility that I hope in time I can master it, it is with recognition of a new art, and I believe a very important one. In magazine and novel stories, one men wore armor for a very good reason — t o protect themselves from the thrust of a sword. As swords disappeared from daily life, so did the armored clothing. Visored working caps came into existence with the machine age, to protect workers from dust and scraps that might fly off a machine in motion. “By all means, study your history books if you want to be a costume designer for the movies!” Battle of takes a chance on the reader’s fancy; pel haps misses the point, disappoints an ardent fan. In radio the fans leave you in no doubt. “You keep Barbara straight!” said more than forty letters last week. I find this highly stimulating and somewhat terrifying. I will keep Barbara straight. In a novel she might have wandered far from paths of safety — not on the radio. It touches me that listeners take these stories seriously; it seems to me a great advantage that they do not wait for the leisure moment when they may pick up a book — to some of those listeners that moment never comes! — but that I come to them instead. If as an older woman I have learned hard lessons, I can put those lessons into serial radio-story form, and perhaps reach some girl who is doubtful, or worried about the same problem. And if some day a busy, tired woman glances at the clock and thinks with pleasure, “in a few minutes ‘A Woman’s life’ will come on,” I will have my reward. Because the much-abused “soaps” have not always lived up to their unlimited possibilities for influence and good is not a reason why they may not do so. Best regards — Cordially, KATHLEEN NORRIS Palo Alto, California June 2, 1945