Motion Picture (Feb-Jul 1932)

CrosspateJi fathe 11% . . . laughing at breakfast XlE cussed at his razor . . . and he stormed at the coffee and he kicked the cat off the front porch. No one dared to speak to father before breakfast. But thank goodness at last he found a way to end his indigestion. Dr. Beeman certainly gave us a godsend in Beeman's Pepsin Gum. A delicious gum with pepsin to tone up the system. We all have our irritable times — just a touch of indigestion will spoil the best disposition. Often a package of Beeman's will help. Chew Beeman's every day. The flavor is delicious. C/iear BEEMAtt'S PEPSIJV GUM ESPECIALLY MADE TO AID DIGESTION The Real Reasons for Ann Harding's Divorce! {Continued from page 41) a picture of marital contentment. And yet, even then, they had decided to divorce each other, as several remarks later showed. Harry Tells of "Humiliations" THE talk turned, naturally, to their three years in pictures — years that had meant the gradual loss of Harry's identity in the shadow of Ann's undreamed-of success. " I have worked in only four pictures during the three years we have been in Hollywood," Harry said, "and I was so heartsick over my prospects that a month ago I would have been willing to tear up my part of the contract and call it quits. I tried to get them to release me, you know, many times. That was before I was assigned a good part in 'State's Attorney.' Then I thought that perhaps my chance had come." With Ann interposing soft-voiced comments and explanations, the whole story came out. For more than two years, Harry Bannister had devoted himself to looking after Ann's affairs, always hoping that his own opportunity to show what he could do in the movies might come. For two years — disappointments, postponements, humiliations. Then suddenly Irving Pichel, borrowed from Paramount for a big part in "State's Attorney," was switched to director of the picture and Harry Bannister was given his role. " If he had been allowed to keep it," our correspondent says, "there would never have been any thought of divorce." But Harry Bannister was not allowed to keep it. After he had worked two days, Pichel was ordered back into the role, a new director was assigned — and Harry was left out of the picture completely. He had been patient under disappointment before, but this time he could bear no more. After all, Harry Bannister was reckoned a good actor on the stage and he is a proud man. He went to the studio officials and he pleaded with them, as if for his very life. "Don't do this to me!" he begged them. "You can't do this! It's my chance. I've w.iited for it a long time. You know what it means. People will say I couldn't play the part — " The Thing That Decided Him THEY agreed to think it over and advise him of their decision. The result of their deliberations was relayed to him by a secretary of one of the executives. They assured him that they would issue a statement to the newspapers, saying he was too ill to play the part. "I was to lie low around the house for a few days," Harry said bitterly. "Brilliant, wasn't it? I don't mind saying I hit the ceiling! This was too much. I told them that if such news were released, I would personally summon all the reporters in town to my house and tell them it was a lie!" But there were further "humiliations" to come, Harry added. A favorite method of persuasion when studios wish to end a contract, or to bring a player to terms, is to cast him in an obscure role. The great Garbo was once slated to play the part of a maid servant to another star, for example. The studio promptly cast Harry Bannister — the actor who had dared to argue — in what amounted to an extra s part in A nn Harding's new picture. No doubt they expected that he would refuse indignantly to play it, and they would have grounds for ending his contract. At least, this was what Harrythought. Bannister, however, did not refuse to play the part. " You can't get out of my contract in that way," he told them. "I'll play extra parts — I'll scrub floors if you tell me to! The only way I will release you is for you to buy my contract." And on Saturday, he told our correspondent with a sort of fierce joy, his contract — calling for approximately twelve hundred and fifty dollars a week until May, 1933 — had been settled for a substantial sum. (The amount is believed to be forty thousand dollars.) And thirty days before, he would have been happy merely for the opportunity of tearing it up without a cent of compensation! Just pals now When this photograph was taken, Harry Bannister and Ann Harding were putting across the idea that they were good pals, as well as Mr. and Mrs. And now they are "just pals" — and nothing more. You can't tell from their poses here which one had just beaten the other at tennis (on their own hilltop court). Just as no one can be sure now which really had the devorce idea first. Couple Promised "More News" THE correspondent for Motion Picture Magazine spoke of writing the story he had just heard, but Harry begged him to wait. "In a couple of days, you'll have a better story," he said. "There^ will be more news then. I'm not privileged to say what it is until a few details are straightened out." "Yes, you'd better wait," agreed Ann — and she smiled at Harry. They talked on, of various things, using 72