Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

Checking On By Frederick Their Comments James Smith J INDA DARNELL became a featured name with one picture. The movies do these things with the speed of a super hot-house. Extras into stars happen all the time. And they're always surprised at what they encounter. It seldom is as they pictured it. Says Linda: "Where, oh where, is that life of expansive ease to which movie stars supposedly fall heir the moment they move into the charmed circle? On April 8th I celebrated my first year in Hollywood. No matter what else happens to me in the future, I'll always count this year as the most thrilling and important in my life. Yes, I'm perfectly willing to admit that I've been extremely lucky. No one knows it better than I. When I think of my good fortune, consider that there are hundreds of others equally able who will never have the same opportunity, I don't feel proud. I feel meek and humble. "Where, I would like to be told, is that large and luxurious life I used to read about? Where is the leisure? Where the caviar and champagne and orchids? Not that I care for them, but they seem to typify what I mean. "What I'm getting at is that my fancies and day dreams don't seem to agree with the facts. I've done less lolling and more work since I came out here from Dallas a year ago than ever before in my life. "I've found that being a movie star is almost a 24-hour-a-day job and you can't let down for a moment." ^ ^ ^ Any job is hard work, say I, bestirring myself from a siesta beside my typewriter. You haven't encountered more than a fraction of it yet, Linda. Worries over roles, worries over what the public thinks, worries over criticism — they're all ahead. Only a few stars survive. They're the hardy folk, the Crawfords, the Davises, the Gables. The boys and girls who can take it. And whisper, Linda — don't feel too meek and humble. Those emotions never photograph well. ^ sjs 3fi T SAT beside William Powell's bathing pool in Beverly Hills with Bill and his bride, Diana Lewis, and his pal, Dick Let's see if the stars really mean what they have to say Left: Says Linda Darnell, "I've found being a movie star is almost a 24-hour-aday job and you can't let down for a moment." Below: Mrs. Bill Powell insists, "I think I can make Bill happy." Barthelmess. Bill looked very happy, so did Diana. Said the bride — "I think I can make Bill happy. With any sort of break I know I can. I know that Bill is famous, that he has been about, that he has had his kicks from fate — but I think I can help him. "Don't forget that I come from a family of old stage workers. Dad and mother were theatrical folk through the years. My sister, Maxine, has had her share of success in musical shows, on the air, in night clubs. I grew up back stage, I got my first real break in pictures back in 1937, but that came after false starts, hard work with the Pasadena Community Players, singing, like Maxine, with a band. "I think I have a better chance of making Bill happy than a girl who hasn't' worked her way up out here, who doesn't know Hollywood and understand it. Besides, I'll be too busy myself to be demanding. And, since I'm far from a star, that temperament stuff won't get inside our front door." You'll see Mrs. Powell in Eddie Cantor's "Forty Little Mothers." You know something of the Lewis-Powell romance. They met at a studio party, they were married four weeks later. Remember, when you watch Diana with Eddie Cantor, that she has been a hard working little film actress for three years, that everybody out there likes her. Remember, too, that Powell is one of the colony's most popular stars. Then you can join Hollywood in pulling for their happiness. JDETTY FIELD is one of the film finds & of 1940. You saw her as the high school charmer with braces on her teeth in "What a Life," as sleek Lola Pratt of Booth Tarkington's "Seventeen." Most of all she astonished everyone as the sexy wife of the ranch foreman in "Of Mice and Men." Betty, who has been on the stage since she was fifteen, thinks she can take Hollywood or let it alone. Because: "That thing they call glamour can get you if you don't watch out. Get you in a corner — a nice luxurious corner— and keep you there. I want no part of it. No Hedy Lamarr stuff for me, no Ann Sheridan oomph. I don't want to be the idol of Princeton or of Harvard. I want to act. "I don't want to be a perpetual ingenue, either. I don't want to keep on playing the little girl who inspires the hero to go out and do great things. None of that, either. I want to do things myself. I want to act. "I'll have to watch myself more than ever in Hollywood now that folks have noticed me. I want to get some real roles. More like the bad girl who was strangled by big, hulking Lennie in Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men.' Maybe you've gathered that I want to act. Declares Betty Field, "I'll have to watch myself more than ever in Hollywood now that folks have noticed me. I want to get some real roles." "It's hard acting in Hollywood. Or, rather, it's hard getting a chance to act. The movies want to keep you pretty and charming. You have no chance to control your acting, unless the director and the cutter let you. Now, on the stage — But you've guessed that I want to act. Yes, I like the stage better. You're on your own. It's up to you." As I write Betty is acting behind the New York footlights in Elmer Rice's hit, "Two On An Island." But she is due back in Hollywood in midsummer to play with Fred MacMurray in "The Duchess Rides High" unless plans change — and movie plans shift frequently and fast. A pleasant little actress with possibilities is Betty. But she shouldn't be too hard on the movies. I'm willing anytime to balance the acting of the New York stage against the acting in the films — and I'll stake anything that Hollywood wins. Even with nasty old directors and cutters doing their worst. Even with films knee deep in glamour. 10 Silver Screen