Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

27 Pi Luck loneer s laic Although May McAvoy blazed the talkie trail for Hollywood stars, hordes of newcomers are now dangerously crowding Sentimental Tommy's sweetheart. By Ann Silvester MAY McAVOY and the covered wagon have much in common. They've taken the bumps, shouldered the dirty work, and eased out the rough spots for those who followed in their tracks. Only their destinations were divergent. The grand old buggy trekked over a continent to settle a new world. May trekked through the first dialogue film to unsettle a whole industry. And what thanks did they get, May and the wagon ? They were promptly forgotten in the rush of improvements and innovations that inevitably follow in the tracks of pioneers. The iron horse supplanted the wagon, and with history repeating itself, a horde of Broadway babies with imitation British vowels are dangerously crowding the future of Sentimental Tommy's little sweetheart. "It's hardly fair," remarked May, dryly, but with an upward tilt to her gentle mouth, seeming to understand the whims of an ungrateful profession. The simile of the pioneer isn't borne out in May, physically. She is too freshly youthful and delicate, her skin too clear, her tiny stature too fragile. If it weren't too hackneyed a phrase, "a Dresden doll" would fit her nicely. But that's a bit motheaten. A powderbox figurine might be more to the point — and slightly more original. She wore red the day she lunched with me, and there was a vitality to her words that equaled her costume. "I'm tired of being idle, because certain critics didn't like the first Vitaphone picture I did," she said. She wasn't exactly complaining. "I was the first Hollywood player cast in a talking picture. That was 'The Jazz Singer,' made more than a year ago. Everything was so rawly new. There was no time to prepare ourselves for either the production or the outcome. The tempo was speed, speed, speed. The producers were in the wildest haste to get the new toy on the market. "The Vitaphone was far from being the clear recording machine it is now. It has made wonderful strides in a year. But at that time there was a slightly scratchy effect, which did nothing toward improving the human voice. Of course I was thrilled to do the picture. I jumped at it. before I realized what comparisons I was letting myself in for. I thought it would be perfectly clear to every one, as it was to me, that the picture was just an experiment. Miss M c Avoy has a delicacy o f form and feature barely equaled in Hollywood. Photo by Eussell Ball Miss McAvoy will not attempt to learn stage English, because she believes in the "natural" accent. "But imagine my surprise to find, after the release of the picture, that I was being measured with the same rod as Ethel Barrymore, Jeanne Eagels, and even Jolson himself. Some of the critics realized my odd position, and made allowances for it. But not many of them. The majority carefully pointed out that my voice sounded weak and untrained, in comparison to Jolson's. It struck me as being rather funny." Again that little smile of May's, which seems to understand and question at the same time. "What voice in the world wouldn't sound weak compared to Jolson's? He is conceded to have one of the richest, deepest, and most appealing voices on either stage or screen. It's tremendous. Fairly rings in your ears, long after you've left the theater. Coupled with it's natural vibrancy, years on the stage have strengthened it. Even with the marvelous strides made by the various 'phones,' no voice lias equaled Al's. And yet I, without One whit of stage training, must equal his range and vibrancy in my first attempt at speaking, or suffer from the critics! "Following 'The Jazz Singer' came 'The Lion and the Mouse.' in which I was teamed with another stage veteran. Lionel Barrymore. After that came 'The Terror,' Continued on oagi