Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

57 A Timely Rescue Just when Robert Ellis was about to fade into obscurity after years on the screen, the talkies discovered that he had just the voice that was wanted for "Broadway," so now he flourishes anew. By Helen Louise Walker IT is a lot of fun to be in Hollywood just now, while everything is in a state of hysterical upset over talking pictures. Fun, I mean, for the mere observers. The participants in all this appear to find it somewhat nerve-racking. Pictures, B. T. — Before Talkies — had grown pretty stereotyped. Stories were written according to formula. Stars were "discovered," or created in much the same fashion. The lead in a picture was always a beauteous youth or damsel, and by that token if you weren't a star by the time you were twenty-five, the wise ones would have told you it was no use to struggle any longer. Producers were looking for youth ! — youth ! — youth ! Talking pictures have changed all that. It has been discovered that it is often much nicer to look at beauteous youth than to listen to it. It has been discovered, also, that if people are going to do their acting right out loud, it is really better for all concerned if they have at least some small notion of how the thing is done. Dismayed executives are casting about with a wild look in their eyes for people who can talk into a microphone as if they meant it. At the present writing, youth and beauty are lather drugs on the market. All of Which, while it is a little bit hard on the youngsters, is pretty dandy for a lot of experienced troupers who, having spent years and years learning their jobs, were about ready to be discarded. Take Bob Ellis. Perhaps I shouldn't be so informal in introducing him. Take Robert Ellis. Bob had a lot of stage experience before he entered pictures and settled down to the weary grind of playing juveniles. He knew how to act, but he was handsome. So he went on and on as a leading man in those stereotyped roles, which gave him no opportunity to do anything but walk around and look nice and embrace the lovely maiden in the fade-out. Finally he began to edge into those late thirties which mark the time when a chap tapers off a bit on the handsome-boy roles, and begins to drift into the slightly jaded society-heavy type of thing. In the day of silent pictures that meant the beginning of the end. Roles became fewer and farther between. "Just when I began really to know my job," says Bob, "just when the years of work and study and experience were beginning to mean something, I faced the fact that I was about through in pictures." Bob's marriage to Vera Reynolds three years ago in Paris had been kept a secret because of a clause in Vera's contract with Cecil DeMille which forbade her marrying. She was having some unlucky breaks, too. So the pair decided that when Vera's contract terminated and their marriage could be announced, they would chuck pictures for a time — perhaps forever — and have a holiday. They had even engaged passage for Honolulu. Photo by Treullch Vera Reynolds married Robert Ellis secretly, because her contract with DeMille forbade matrimony. When — sifig ! — talking pictures 'burst upon us. Even then Bob didn't realize what it would mean to him, and when he was called to make a test for Universal's expensive and much-discussed production, "Broadway," he wasn't particularly excited. But "Broadway" is an all-talking picture, adapted from a most successful stage play, and Bob found that the part of the wicked heavy in the piece was just his meat. He found himself, moreover, after the test, with a nice, juicy contract staring him in the face, with the dotted line invitingly prepared for his signature. "Well! Well!" said Bob, or words to that effect. And he obligingly signed the thing and the trip to Honolulu was postponed indefinitely. The wise ones are saying now that he is one of the best bets in the industry. Bob, who was through six months ago and ready to chuck pictures for good and leave Hollywood forever ! Just between you and me, Hollywood is going to find a lot of buried treasure among its own troupers, now that the ability to act is more important than profiles. It is a bit amusing to note that, despite all the scurrying about on the part of producers to sigm up stage actors and singers and things, the most notable "discoveries" in the new medium to date have been two people who had Continned on page 108