Talking Screen (Sep-Oct 1930)

When the Fans Propose answered the letter and he has instructed the Paramount Fan Mail department to ignore it also. Constance Bennett's mail brings many invitations, acceptance of any one of which would make her a wife. Most of the letters are from fortune hunters but many are from wealthy ^men who have been won by Miss Bennett's beauty and sophistication. The strangest was that from a man who has spent his life to date in traveling over the world. He declared in his letter: ". . . you have plenty of money. Why not quit work and see the world and really enjoy life? Let me guide you to every 'nook and corner, where the strangest sights are to be seen and the most unbelievable peoples. I require very little money for myself — I've always managed to get along although I have nothing. You could travel in any style you want with your wealth." Needless to say. Miss Bennett isn't so anxious to see the world that she'd marry a man she had never seen to guide her. Td rather join the navy!" she laughs. A 'WOMAN in Austria wrote to Clive Brook a letter containing just one sentence. It was: "I love you and if I come to Hollywood will you please marry me?" A man in the eastern part of New York recently proposed to Nancy Carroll through the mails. He wrote saying he is the son of the president of a big Navigation Company. He asserts that his family is worth well over $3,000,000. He is twenty-eight years of age, five feet nine inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. He has brown hair and eyes and a ruddy complexion. He lives part of the time in Honolulu. At the end of the letter, he says: "and if you won't marry me, my dearest Nancy, oh, please do send me at least one little photograph !" "All the boys in my class bet me I wouldn't write a letter to you and ask you to become my wife," came a note to Sue Carol from a college sophomore in an [Continued from page .53] Eastern college. "I bet them and here is the dirty work — will you, my dear Miss Carol, marry me? Answer yes or no." Sue, of course, had no use for two husbands, being already married to Nick Stuart, so she answered "no." But she was greatly amused over the letter even if not so pleased that a young man would propose to her on a bet! FRANCES LEE, little Christie comedienne, received a unique proposal from a gentleman who later turned out to be a lunatic! His letter was rational enough at first but when she did not reply, he became quite abusive. After a series of weird threats as to what would happen to her if she dared refuse to marry him, Frances had the man looked up and found him esconced in an asylum cell in a Tennessee home for the insane! Perhaps no girl in pictures has received m.ore proposals than Alice White, largely because she is one of the very few girls in films who has never been wed, and plays in pictures that bring out her personality and real self. Alice numbers among her proposals by mail letters from nearly every country in the world. But a Chinese Priest dwelling in Hong Kong, China, wins the prize packet. This official (Priests are officials in China) offered to come to America after his bride and to 'thereafter shower on her silks and jewels such as only could be found in China." She would have servants beyond number and would have nothing to do but pour tea and sit for the benefit of her Chinese husband, who would also sit and do nothing but feast his eyes on her all day long. AFTER a recent article appeared ia the ^ papers saying that Charles Rogers was looking for a wife, he received hundreds of proposals. Which, at that, was perhaps only natural. One girl wrote and said she was very fat but could cook and mend and would like very much to marry "Buddy"! George K. Arthur has the most amusing story to tell about proposals. Seems that right after he played in a certain picture in which he impersonated a woman, he heard from a farmer in the middle west. "Can't fool me," wrote said farmer, "I saw that there gal with me own eyes and fell m love with 'er! She wasn't you, George K. Arthur and you know durn well she wasn't. She was a real gal and a durn good-looker, too. If you will oblige by putdng me in touch with this gal I won't forget it. I want to marry her and am willing to deed the ole farm to her as my wedding gift! " Then there was a young man in Hollywood who wrote Mary Brian letter after letter proposing that she marry him at once. He tries now to see her at the studio and even at her home. He seems to be very much in love with her and is very insistent. But, naturally, Mary doesn't know him and never communicates with him in any way. A STRANGE proposal of marriage was received -by Janet Gaynor from an admirer in Egypt who assened ability to project his astral body to any given point! If she will meet with certain conditions, the writer of the odd letter proposed to pay her a nice, friendly little spiritual visit, so that they might become really acquainted. If she is blonde, the conditions were needless, he wrote, but his spirit refused to communicate with brunettes and if Janet was dark she'd have to disguise herself by wearing a white costume and by binding a white towel around her hair ! Thus disguised she'd be able to see and hear his spirit at an hour set by cablegram and judge the Egyptian's qualifications as a husband. Should the decision be favorable, her admirer declared he would come to her in person even though he had to swim the broad Atlantic to do so ! At The Premiere people who never will be able to overcome stage fright when talking, so are radio talkers born, not made, says Freeman Lang. "Conrad Nagel is a brilliant radio speaker," he told me. "Johnny Hines, Ruth Roland, Ben Bard, Monte Blue, Irene Bordoni, Edmund Lowe, Lilyan Tashman, George Bancroft, and Buddy Rogers always have something interesting to say. "Cecil DeMille makes the most gracious speech — always apropos ; Sid Grauman is humorous. Jack Oakie, Al Jolson, Fannie Brice and Marie Dressier always have wisecracks that set the crowd roaring. "Mary Duncan and Norma Shearer can be depended upon to say something nice, also Billie Dove. Aileen Pringle seldom comes to premieres, but makes a charming little speech when she does come. Ronald Colman's delightful English accent makes a hit. And the crowds go wild when Andre de Segurola [Continued jrom page J J] bursts into song." IUPE VELEZ is another highlight of a _y first night. Lupe is so tiny she has to climb up on the microphone stand — just broad enough for her slipper toes. She usually gives a greeting in Spanish, later dancing down the arc lit walk kissing her hand furiously to the yelling crowds and making them sweeping bows. "I recall, too, Charlie Chaplin's premiere of The Circus, as something to write about. The opening took place at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, exotic picture palace of wide renown. When Charlie arrived, his small figure was obstructed from the crowds especially eager for a glimpse after his long absence from the screen. They set up a howl, refusing to be appeased until Sid Grauman linked his arm in the comedian's and paraded him up one side of the thronged block and down the other, the spotlight following." ON THIS same night. Freeman Lang went up in an airplane, which encircled the theatre while searchlights of varied colors played on it, and broadcast to the crowds below. "Half an hour later," he told me, "I was announcing from the forecourt of the theatre, having changed to evening clothes in the taxicab that raced me from the airport to Hollywood. I got quite a kick out of it!" The broadcasting of these opening nights brings Freeman Lang almost as heavy a fan mail as a movie star's. Recently, he received a letter from the wife of lighthouse keeper who told Lang how gratful she was for the relaxation and the glamour brought into her solitary, isolated life by his word pictures of movie premieres. 84