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

MODERN SCREEN ROMANTIC ROMERO (Continued from page 29) Mercolized Wax Cream is the complexion lightener that aids, hastens and supplements the natural activity of the skin in flaking off dull, lifeless, over-pigmented superficial skin. You then see revealed the smoother, softer, lovelier true skin — your own natural complexion. Get a jar of Mercolized Wax Cream today and try it. Choose Saxolite Astringent A DELIGHTFULLY pleasant and refreshing astringent. Dissolve Saxolite in one-half pint witch hazel and pat briskly on the skin several times daily. Try Phelactine Depilatory REMOVES unwanted hair from face quickly , and easily. Skin appears more attractive. Sold at all Cosmetic Counters Stops Perspiration Annoyance. Destroys body Odors. Instantly effective. More for your money. Drug, Dept. and 10c Stores. for a girl to order anything more expensive than cinnamon toast and tea, and if she did, she was never invited again." There must be honor among glamor girls in those matters, too, for though Cesar still takes out girls whose expensive whims are far beyond his income, figuratively speaking, they stick to the cinnamon toast and tea. AFTER graduation, his father's friends got him a job as runner for a Wall Street bank. He lived alone in a little hall bedroom and continued his double life. At night he was the perfect dancing partner at innumerable debutante parties, while by day he tramped around Wall Street with a pouch full of valuables shackled to his wrist. This being handcuffed to a mail-bag, for practically nothing a week, was what got Cesar down. It was inevitable that a boy who could dance that well wasn't going to see much of a future in Wall Street. He was ripe material for a girl friend who itched to go on the stage and urged him to become her dancing partner. They worked; they rehearsed, and at last they were engaged for a spot in a musical show. Cesar gave up his job, and sent word to his family that he had gone on the stage. They were staggered. So was the audience. The act lasted exactly one night. But Cesar now had his foot in the door of a theatrical career, and wouldn't remove it. He worked hard on new routines, changed partners several times, and finally, after a long heartbreaking siege of ups and downs, became a successful ballroom dancer. He was featured at all the smartest night spots, among them the famous old Montmartre — which is where producer Brock Pemberton saw him and gave him the lead in the road company of "Strictly Dishonorable." That tour was Romero's start as a legitimate actor. Shows on Broadway followed, and then M-G-M's screen test which brought him to Hollywood and a long series of villainous roles. Cesar's swarthy coloring, and particularly the bony structure of his face, give it a sinister cast, but when you look closely you see that his eyes are kind; his mouth, gentle. On the day I talked to 'him he looked positively spiritual, because he was wearing a beard. It was grown for his role as a dirty but benevolent Mexican in "Cisco Kid," but seen without the serape and sombrero, it made him look as if he might perform miracles. The tragedy is that no one will cast Cesar in the kind of role his sympathetic personality deserves. Even at Fox, where he is now under contract, more often than not he gets parts that don't do his popularity any good. But the protests are mine, not his. Cesar doesn't feel sorry for himself at all. "I'm grateful to be earning enough to take care of my family," he said, "so my father has no more worries. They are all out here now — my mother and father, two sisters and a brother. They don't live with me. Oh, no!" He shook his head with a laugh. "I've lived alone too long to be able to live with my family again. But they have an apartment in the same building. I'm very happy to be able to take care of them and have them with me. THE greatest disappointment I've had was not getting the part of Dr. Saffi in "The Rains Came." I wanted it terribly and I think I could do it well. But they won't give me a chance. Tyrone Power's going to do it. He isn't the right type for the part, but I'm not a great star and I'm not box-office. That's the sort of thing that can happen to a man when his bony structure is against him. TROUBLED TROOPER (Continued from page 35) "friends" whispered, "You can't leave now, Merle, they'll all think you're drunk!" Merle sat up all night at her desk, writing and pouring out to a friend in England her bitter impressions of this dreadful town and its cruel people, and praying she would never be like them. But she's long ago forgiven them for that night. She knows it was only the velvet hand in the iron glove that Hollywood extends to all newcomers who are likely to be tough competition. Now, with her equable disposition and ready laughter, Merle has become one of the town's « favorite daughters, accepted alike by local royalty and studio help. "I'm never temperamental," she said. "I don't give any trouble to anyone. I feel that all the people I work with . have their jobs to do, and I have no right to make it difficult for them. Anyway, the day of temperamental stars is over. You only find a few who still behave badly. "But nothing makes me madder than to have people say that acting in pictures is easy because you can keep on doing a scene until you get it right. That isn't so. On the stage you rehearse everything for weeks. Here we do it a few times at the most. And the longer you do it, the more your inspiration vanishes, and the stiffer you get. A few actors improve with every take, but most of them freeze and get wooden. "But the worst of all is the strain of having so many things to think of at once. In the death scene in "Wuthering Heights," for instance. In the first place I had to stay on just a certain spot, for the camera. Then I had to remember to keep my face well in view of the camera, and not let it be cut off by Laurence Olivier's shoulder. Also I had to think that off at just a certain point in the distance was the crag I was supposed to be looking at. And I had to remember my hands — to move them very "weakly, because I was dying. All that in addition to remembering the dialogue, and trying to give a good performance. You can imagine how confusing it is !" Life must be pretty confusing altogether for a girl in Merle's predicament. It's an awful strain on the emotions to be leaving home and going home at one and the same time, to be doomed to eternal nostalgia. But now she has married Alexander Korda and perhaps will find her hilltop in the sun. Teeth Hard to Bryten? Thousands who prefer tooth powder are changing to this special powder — Iodent No. 2. Use one week. See teeth sparkle br.yter — or money back. 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