Hollywood Studio Magazine (October 1966)

CURRENT EVENTS, TOPICS and GOSSIP fron, HOLLYWOOD By LAURETTE MACK T HE latest expression in Hollywood is “Horse and Buggy”—meaning a girl with long hair. Wallace MacDonald goes on record as the first motion actor to refuse to enact a villain role while wear- ing the uniform of a soldier in the U. S. Army. Irene Rieh has entirely recovered from her recent Oper¬ ation for the removal of her tonsils. Walter Hiers has just signed to make a new group of two-reelers for Christie. Marian Nixon was selected as “mascot” for seventeen Tennessee movie houses. Miss Nixon, by the way, has just signed a five-year contract with Universal. Duane Thompson is among the first of the 1925 Wam- pas Baby Stars to win a big role. She is Charles Ray’s leading lady in “Some Pun’kins.” Düring the filming of “The Golden Cocoon”—which has a boarding house setting, the following “rules” were placed on the dining table in one of the sequences: Every man for himself. The longest reach gets the best Service. Sharp elbows must be padded. Meals R. S. V. P.—Rush in, sit down, victual up and pass out. “Away with corsets,” says Evelyn Brent, who was re- cently elected chairman of the “No-corset-never-Club,” formed to do away with that perilous apparel. On top of this comes Louise Fazenda’s admission that she wears ’em. Lilyan Tashman has startled Hollywood by recom- mending that all blondes with vampire ambitions bob their hair. One of the screen’s most successful sirens, she says long hair looks too innocent to contribute to suc¬ cessful vampire portrayals. The oldest film fan in California and Marian Nixon, one of the youngest leading ladies in motion pictures, re- cently met, exchanged sallies and became friends. The fan is Eliza Schultz, almost 100 years of age. Miss Nixon met her while on location near Lone Pine, a town in Owens Valley, California. Miss Schult^, de- spite her age, enjoys flapper pictures and Westerns. Rudolph Valentino’s first United Artists production will be “The Bronze Collar,” a romantic story of Cali¬ fornia in the days of Spanish rule. The Valentino medal for screen acting has been award- ed to John Barrymore, star of “Beau Brummei.” Norma Talmadge ran a phenomenal race, being second. Norman McLeod, the chap who draws the funny lit- tle figures which augment the titles of the Christie come- dies has been signed for another year by Christies. “Snap it up, you big goof! Show a little life! Act like you know what it’s all about.” These virile admonitions were being hurled at a dis- couraged looking “Private” in a Company of extras being put through the manual of arms on the Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer lot. “Why do you ride that particular man so hard?” some one asked the tall drill-master who was playing a bit in Director King Vidor’s picture “The Big Parade,” now being made, in which John Gilbert and Renee Adores are featured. “Well,” said the man who was drilling the perspir- ing crew. “That guy used tö be my top Sergeant in the army and I was just a buck private in the rear rank. One of the most elaborate and beautiful scenes ever filmed is to be “shot” for the Hobart Henley production, “Nothing to Wear,” now in the process of production for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is the Cinderella Ball—a vision of the heroine Katherine, played by Norma Shearer. The ball is to be photographed in color. The ladies in waiting are to wear wigs of pale blue, shell pink, orchid and Nile green matching their gowns which are to be bouffant model and made of the richest of silks and satins. - An intensive course in cigarette smoking was given Estelle Clark to enable her to play the role of Mayme in Hobart Henley’s production of “Nothing to Wear” for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Miss Clark has never indulged in the increasingly pop¬ ulär vogue of feminine “smokes.” Can you teil when you are failing to talk interestingly? Lack of this sense has taken success from hundreds who both talk and write, according to Cecil De Mille on whom torrents of words have been flooded in an effort to “seil” stories and other propositions to the cinema. “If a writer telling me his story can’t make his story so interesting that I will forget to fill and light my pipe,” says De Mille, “the story won’t interest the public. “David Belasco has perhaps the best of all tests as to whether a story would bore the general public, its ulti- mate consumer. He hears all plays sitting atop a six- foot stepladder. He is so acutely uncomfortable that if the playwright can keep him from wriggling—it’s a great play. I’ve thought of introducing this plan into my own affairs. Cecil B. DeMille has now completed his new Organiza¬ tion. He has signed Leatrice Joy, Rod La Rocque, Jetta Goudal, Vera Reynolds, Robert Edeson, Lillian Rieh, Robert Arnes, Edmund Bums and Helene Sullivan. Marie Prevost and Kenneth Harlan have started work on “Bobbed Hair,” at the Warner Bros. Studio. This is the first picture they have appeared in together since they first met. Incidentally, it was in this first picture that they became acquainted, appearing then as a young married couple that resulted in their later marriage. Continued on Page 31 28