The New Movie Magazine (Jan-Sep 1935)

RE-VAMPING THE STARS No matter how beautiful they are originally there isn't a girl in the world that the studios can't improve upon and make more beautiful and glamorous than you'd ever believe By KATHRYN WHITE WHEN it comes to beautiful gals, the movies are just like men . . . First they see her, and want her. So they begin to make love to her. They tell her she's beautiful and wonderful and magnificent and just the kind of gal they've always been looking for. They tell her her hair is like spun gold and her teeth are like pearls and her eyes are like stars. They tell her the way she walks is grand and the way she talks is gorgeous, and, in short, that everything about her is just simply perfect! And they keep on with that line, and with all sorts of pretty-worded propositions until the poor gal just gives in and says yes. And so they sign her up for life, or something. With men, it's marriage; with the movies, it's a contract on the dotted line. And anyway, whichever it is, they've got her. And so what? Why, then they go to work on the poor honey, and they tell her that everything about her is all wrong. They tell her her hair is blah and her teeth are haywire and her eyes are lopsided. They tell her she walks like a swaybacked horse, and talks like a cow. In short, that everything about her is wrong, all wrong. And so, they proceed to remake her — to make her all over. Or try to, anyway. And if you don't believe it, ask any beautiful gal who has said "Yes" to the movies. Ask Margaret Sullavan. Or Josephine Hutchinson. They know. So does Garbo, because they did it to her. And Shearer. And all of them. Ask them. Ask Ketti Gallian, that luscious little French dame Winnie Sheehan signed for Fox, over in Paris, and whom they've been making over for almost a year, and who's so darned mad about it that she says her mother won't ever forgive them for what they're doing to her. When Fox signed Ketti, it was after telling her how utterly perfect she was, and how long they'd been looking for somebody just like her. Those eyes, uh! That honey hair, ah! Those curves — ooh la la; Them teeth — bay-bee! And Ketti signed on the dotted line and came to Hollywood and WHAM! First thing they sailed into was the hair. That honey color that got Sheehan all dithery just wouldn't photograph honey color, so they lightened it a half-dozen shades and changed THAT. The wardrobe department looked at the curves that had thrilled Sheehan, and said they were lovely, BUT! And Ketti had to go on a diet, and eat spinach and spinach and spinach and a lot of fancy things with glandular something or other that raised the dickens with the curves and changed THAT. And they sicked a masseuse on her who slapped and pounded her once or twice a day on the youknow and changed THAT, too. And the way she talked — oh my, oh my! It sounded swell in Paris but lousy in a micro Above is Norma Shearer in pre-studio days; right, the Norma you see today. Look at Garbo as she arrived from Sweden, compared with the Garbo styled by studio experts. Dietrich offers a less startling contrast. Beauty was visible, just under the surface. But Joan Crawford was another matter. Can you recognize her in the old photo? The process of re-styling still goes on. Josephine Hutchinson, before and after. phone, they told her. And so for hours a day she was tutored in proper American pronunciation to combat her cute French accent and that changed THAT. Then they went to work on her face and even changed THAT I They shifted her eyebrows from where Dame Nature had put them, to somewhere 'way up near the hairline, and they looked at her lovely round cheeks and decided that she ought to have a caved-in look like Dietrich's face, so they yanked a flock of wisdom teeth and molars and changed THAT. And finally, after weeks had run into months and months had added up to almost a year, Ketti Gallian, who didn't look, act, sound like the Ketti Gallian Fox had originally signed, blew up on the set one day and yelled: "I am sick of this. I can't stand any more of this! They signed me because they thought I was pretty — and now look what they've done to me! I don't like the way I look — and my mother will never forgive them for spoiling me!" But it's not really that Ketti isn't as beautiful as her mother thinks; it's just the darn business of lights, the shadows they cast, AND the camera that causes all the trouble. She IS beautiful . . . just as beautiful a? Mr. Sheehan, her mother and all the Parisians who saw her on the stage thought her. But that doesn't mean a thing when the camera goes to work. The gals shouldn't be so bitter, and the public should not assume that they are not gorgeously lovely creatures simply because a few things have to be done to 'em to satisfy that old demon . . . camera. You'll see Ketti in Fox's "Marie Galante." But the Ketti Gallian you'll see in "Marie Galante" will NOT be the Ketti Gallian Mr. Sheehan saw and signed in Paris. KETTI 'S not the only one. Ah, no. Consider Margaret Sullavan — Margaret says she never was sold on herself as a beauty, until the movies told her she was one. This time, it was Universal Studios, and in New York they sang the same tune into Margaret's ears — "you're wonderful, you're perfect, you're just the type we've been looking for," and all that sort of thing. "So I took a look at my face in the mirror," said Margaret, "and I said to myself: 'Well, Sullavan, maybe there's something there that you've missed. Maybe you've got that ephemeral thing or what-do-you-call-it that is Beauty.' "And so I fell for the song and dance, and I signed with Universal. And wait till I tell you what they did to me . . . "The first day I was in Hollywood, they looked me over — the make-up boys and the cameramen and the executives and the directors and the yes-boys and the no-boys. And whatever it was that was so beautiful when they wanted to hire me, they now wanted to change. "They began with a mole on my left cheek. In New York, they'd told me that that was the clincher — that that was the mark of beauty. So they took it off! That was the first sacrifice. " 'You have to have new teeth,' they said, next. 'Yours need repairing and straightening anyway, and so we might as well take out that whole upper row, there, and give you a nice new plate.' " But Margaret would have none of that. She stood her ground, and so they compromised on a shield — one of those fake fronts that fits over one's real teeth and (Please turn to page 67) The New Movie Magazine, February, 1935