Hollywood (1942)

,s YOUR D^uw«n*of ..figur^fitn«s £» thit „„ f^;;„r. HTSET If, however, your bosom is smaJIcrthan-Average, you'll find Maiden Form's •"Adagio" brassiere just rigjnt. Send for free Styl« Booklet F: Mi. den Form Brassiere Company, Inc., New York. . Mm.mMi'H'j'.'ii'j.'iimMEa PREMIUMS GIVEN FACE ABOUT SIZE OF DIME Ladle*! GlrUI Lowly Watch**, other premium* or Ca*h GiM-n-OIVC FREE PICTURES with While CLOVE RINE Brand SALVE for chaps and mild hums sold to friend* at 35c a hex (with FREE Picture! tend amount nuteil In catalog. 47th year. Bo First. Write for starting order Salve, Picture*, and Calahn: %ont on tru^l. WILSON CHEM. CO.. INC.. Oept. 30-6, TYRONE. PA. FREE ENLARGEMENT Just to get acquainted with new customers, we will beautifully enlarge one snapshot print or negative, photo or picture to SxlO inches — FREE — if you enclose this ad. (10c for handling and return mailing appreciated.) Information on hand tinting in natural colors sent immediately. Your original returned with your free enlargement. Send it today. GEPPERT STUDIOS. DepU 945. Des Moines, fa. Take a Tip from Hollywood. TRY manoe GLOVER'S Mange Medicine ■with massage For Beautiful Hair FOR SALE AT ALL DRUG STORES | Van Johnson looks like a cross between Nelson Eddy and Mickey Rooney, and added to that he has a smile that would be worth a million votes to a politician. If you've seen him as the towhaired, breezy young soldier in The War Against Mrs. Hadley you know what we mean. He's good news to a movie public hungry for new male faces to replace the vanguard of Gable, Stewart, et al who have retired for the duration. Like all other well-stacked young American men, Van's career may be terminated at any time by Uncle Sam, but in the meantime his M-G-M bosses, fresh in a whoopla about him, are preparing for the emergency by cramming him into a string of films to keep the Johnson personality beaming on the screen as long as possible. In spite of a booting he received when he first came to Hollywood a year ago, Van takes his booming status at the studio with the aplomb of a bellboy walking a dog. "I always wanted to be an actor and I knew I would some day, even if it meant growing pink whiskers to get a part," he explains with a half-moon grin. "When I was a kid in Newport, Rhode Island. I was Hollywood-struck. The other fellows cut out pictures of baseball players; I nicked photos of film stars and pasted them on my wall. In school I was the dope who sweated over the class plays while the others were making the honor roll." Much to the chagrin of Johnson senior, a worthy purveyor of real estate who wanted his son and heir to follow It took Van Johnson to explode the old trudition that understudies never get a break. He's in M-G-M's The Human Comedy in the line. Van packed up for New York with his high school diploma still wet in his pocket. No subdivision in the community was so attractive in his eyes as a stage set, and no sale of property was as desirable as a berth with a Broadway show. He left without parental blessing or financial aid. This necessitated pulling in the belt for Van. He lived in a hole in the wall in Greenwich Village with three other young actors and they made up the lack of space by sleeping in shifts. "Didn't mind it a bit," says Van. "We felt like starving Barrymores — all for our art, you know." Nerve and bad lighting got him his first job. One afternoon he walked into a rehearsal of New Faces to see a friend in the show. The director waved a signal for the members to go into action and Van calmly headed for the stage with them. "If the theater hadn't been so dark, I would have been spotted and tossed out," he recalls. "As it was, no one bothered me and I became part of the cast." That started him off. His salary disappeared in singing and dancing lessons, and between times he applied for every role available on Broadway. "I would try out for the lead and end up as understudy. Everybody told me understudies never stood a chance. The star would rather go on half-dead than miss a performance. You could just hang around hoping and praying for a break that never came. They tried to convince me that not pnly was it practically impossible to get the chance, but it was a long, cold day when an understudy ever made good — the competition with the star always worked to disadvantage. "To earn my keep, the director had me dancing in the chorus. This wasn't what I wanted but it By M A Y DIMM Oil. 48