Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

66 Photo by Boris ■ Phyllis Haver keeps her feet on the ground, without being flat-footed in so doing. A BLONDE is either born or beauty-parlored. Phyllis Haver is a natural blonde. Her blue eyes have a blondey stare, her personality has brunette activity. There's enough Irish in her to bubble humor, and enough Wall Street to speculate i profitably. Phyllis is vivacious and good company. She revels ' ..^-^ in a whoop-de-da time. But she keeps her feet on the ground, without being flat-footed in so doing. People interest without dominating her. She's fleeting without being annoying. She has a few friends who have been friends for years. These girls stuck by her during her lean years. She explored the depths of adversity during that period. It is easy to be popular when one keeps open house and entertains lavishly. Hollywood has no memory. It lives in the present. It trembles for the future. Phyllis learned that during her famine years. Curiously enough, the knowledge didn't embitter her. At heart she is a fatalist. Things are, or they aren't. Some years ago when she, Richard Dix, Mae Busch, and a group of players made "The Christian," every one in it, except Phil, achieved immediate success. Phil's performance merited attention. None was accorded her. Being overlooked must have, hurt, but Phil skips it by with a casual, "I guess it just wasn't my time." Shortly after this she underwent an operation. Up the Ladder In recounting the recent success of Phyllis recalls her early experiences and reveals many and tern By Dorothy The doctors warned her against dieting. She accumulated weight, but obeyed orders. She gained and gained and gained. The scales shot to 150 when she stepped on them. She couldn't get work. Finances were precarious. She went to New York to play in a picture. Because she was overweight the critics singled her out for a slashing paragraph or two. Phil returned to Hollywood fired with an inflexible resolution. Doctor's orders or not, she would diet, and diet she did. For three months she lived on vegetables. Avoirdupois melted into curves. She shaped into 125 pounds. To-day her weight varies between 125 and 129. She's an interesting combination of instinct and practicality, of small-town-ness and shrewd sagacity, of naivete and comprehension. She has the grace to mind her own affairs and the discretion to see that no one else minds them. She'll kid about the rise and fall of stocks, in which she has cleaned up a snug sum. She'll tell you what glorious times she and her gang have when they go week-ending on Don Lee's yacht, i She'll explain that Don Lee is a big Los Angeles automobile man. She'll tell you she started with Mack Sennett, some fifteen years ago, at twelve dollars a week. Her disarming" frankness is her armor against the more curious. Beneath Phil's infectious animation there sweeps a strong restlessness. She lacks the introspective depth to be moody, but there is restlessness. It may be remoteness. It may be the shadow left by hardships. It may be disappointment in discovering that on the other side of the horizon is only repetition. It may be the stinging slap of criticism that slows down every person given to vivacity. I don't think Phil has any inhibitions. She usually does what she wishes. She may have regrets. She may have uncertainties. She has lived too fully to escape either. But despite these undercurrents, life is her plaything. After Phil had dieted from 150 to 125 pounds, she still found it difficult to get roles. Fox wanted a hard-boiled type for "What Price Glory?" The role was "small — a bit, really. It was offered to Phil. Without hesitation she accepted. That characterization of hers in "What Price Glory?" landed Phil smack on her feet. That she was unanimously applauded convinced producers the Haver girl had possibilities. Producers are like children. They can't be told ; they must find out. Because they so seldom find out is one reason Overweight once kept her off the screen — think of that! why many of them still consider the public at twelve years of age, mentally.