Modern Screen (Dec 1938 - Nov 1939 (assorted issues))

MODERN SCREEN lirplane, was interested in aeronautical ngineering, too, but my inaptitude for nathematics queered that attempt. Though 've made models of plans and gliders, my pproach has been instinctive rather than nethodical, and you can't be emotional in our attitude toward an exact science. "Everything I've done, or tried to do, has een actuated by a sort of wish complex. studied music at prep school, just as my nother, Ida Schaeffer, trained for the 'Met.' Its, it's the obvious conclusion that I got iiy voice, such as it is, from her. I sang n the radio, but was also an adagio dancer i vaudeville on the Southern circuit. I Dured with jazz bands before going on the lusical comedy stage and finally had the reat good fortune to be with Beatrice .illie in 'At Home Abroad.' So, you see, 've always dabbled.'' It crossed my vagrant mind that young Ir. Payne might have looked up to Rudy rallee, or some other crooner and band ;ader, as an ideal. "I've never even thought of jazz leadrs," he stoutly protested. "I don't share lie adulation paid them, all this talk you ear. Perhaps it's because I've seen so luch of them. I've been around musicians nd band leaders a good deal. It's all just trick. I think jazz, so far as working at : seriously is concerned, is a waste of time, nd after my kid experience I shied away rom it. "But I did get a big kick out of playig the band leader in 'Garden of the loon' and a jolt out of watching the scenes uild together. First of all, it gives you a ood feeling to be entrusted with a good art. But now it's a case of my finding ut just what particular kind of guy I want 3 be. Hollywood is the Mecca of the semirtistic, and therefore a bit confusing. What lollywood has given me is interest and loney — and that, of course, is a great deal. But I still feel I want something more." In a naive attempt to be helpful, I brightly suggested he might want to be a star. "No doubt being a star is pleasant," he patiently surmised, "but it is not a necessity, at least with me. I shall not break my heart trying to be one — it's not worth it. • A star becomes something not quite human, and I don't want to be a freak." His revolutionary point of view was nothing if not original. But what, then, could he possibly want to be? T ATER I should like to get into the *— ' production angle. I am interested in people, not stars, in naturalness, not artifice. A person learns how. to act, I believe, in watching people, not by watching other actors. The fact is that the lifeblood of pictures is based on types, not on performances. Yet there is no reason why pictures can't be just as experimental as the theatre is today. Everything now written for the theatre points to pictures, both plays and music. "All I knew about acting before coming to Hollywood was playing Laertes in "Hamlet," Henry Something-or-Other in another Shakespearean tragedy, and Captain Absolute in 'The Rivals' at the Lab Theatre in Morningside. But I did learn something about music in a Shubert musical repertory company on the road. "They brought me out here to sing, but didn't let me do anything of that sort until this studio gave me a break — and I'm certainly thankful to them. Though I like what I'm doing, I shall not stay in pictures for the rest of my life. I should like to indulge a lot of whims, travel, for one. That's not in the least unusual, probably pretty trite. But 1 never mean to be an idler. There's such a thing as having too much fun. Eventually I want to do research in English literature. That interests me." There spoke good common-sense. But was this jazz-boy of the screen, after all, going academic on me? That would never do. Maybe a cigarette would work a change. No, he had never smoked. No bad habits. This was wild Hollywood ! "Hollywood's no different from any other place where people work for a living," was his opinion. But surely its girls didn't run to pattern ? "Girls here," he granted, "are intelligent, and all of them interesting in one way or another. In fact, one of them interested me so much that I proposed to her a week after we'd met. I've now been married nearly a year and a half to Anne Shirley." Sounded romantic. But did the youthful Benedict whose good looks could easily cause widespread heart trouble in the feminine world ever feel that his married state might ruin screen romance? "Never even thought of that," said the fast worker outside the cinematic vineyard. "And if my bosses ever said any such thing to me I'd tell 'em to jump in the lake." With, the water cure assured to possible anti-martfal producers. Air. Payne turned to the brighter side-of Hollywoodian matrimony, saying, "Oddly enough, previews^ of my wife's picture, 'Mother Carey's Chick^ ens,' -anti 'the one I was in took place on the same night, and both seemed to get by. Anne went to mine, instead of her own, and wired fne to Florida about it. What she safSr made me very happy but, naturally, she ^was a little prejudiced." Waiving fjjsj undue modesty, I ventured to.remark it>must be pleasant to have two hits in one family. fej "Yes," he grirmed, "the Payne faniiiy is doing all right." Good boy! NeVei^sjjnd the man^in^the moon. It's ^tMat young fellow on the other side of it who" will bear watching. Famous Art Model tells of thrilling beauty this new shampoo reveals in her hair [f dull, dry-looking hair dims your glamour and charm, spoils the effect of your new coiffures . • . Try this easy new way used by Miss Helen Hansen, famous Art Model, to reveal the true loveliness of her hair. 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