Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

/ // o c1 a ^ ' n e IL ill} I /i e C^P e r s o u a I i { MOT DON P D CT QJ [RE CLASSIC • Talks • THE drama of Lon Chaney's life fulfilled the requirements of tragedy. It was a drama of pity and terror. Born of parents who could neither hear nor talk, he was able to speak to them only in pantomime. Leaving school at the age of nine to care for his ill mother, he was only beginning his self-education. A circus contortionist, a comedy dancer and actor in small stock companies, he was eventually stranded in California. Too poor to return East, he wandered to Hollywood. Always an experimenter with make-up, even in his scene-shifting days, he produced such startling effects, when the opportunity came, that they called him "The Man of a Thousand Faces." And the title was a handicap. I'ntil his appearance without make-up in "Tell It to the Marines." the critics were loath to call him a great actor. Before the critics, the public sau rlic genius behind the masks. Idolized beyond most stars, he never became wealthv. He shunned publicity and poses. Wealth, as compared with sincerity, meant nothing to him. A creator of grotesques, he was grotesquely oblivious of the effect on his frail constitution of some of the fiainful harnesses he wore, of some of the make-up rluiiiicals that he breathed. One of the most eloquent of actors, all but one of his pictures were silent. And that one cost him his life. Last mfinrh, it was our sad fortune to publish what was destined to be the last magazine interview he ive an interview that told of his little-known lendship for society's debtors. It was titled, "An• her Lon Chanev." It was an unfortunate and ironic title. I here is ' orher I on ("han«'\ I here ncxcr will hv another. R OME had its Mscenas, Hollywood has its Howard Hughes. And a royal spender he is. Didn't he go to every possible trouble, and to every possible expense, to make "Hell's Angels" a great spectacle.' But it was the picture, not the story, that cost him money. The story, unless Hollywood is mistaken again, came from the bargain counter; he economized in the wrong direction. MARY PICKFORD and Arch Selwyn, New York stage producer, apparently got together and had a nice little chat. They announced that the party of the first part would star on Broadway this winter for the party of the second part. Now Mary announces that she has changed her mind, is going to film "Kiki," instead. Or isn't she? Or is she.' Heads we win, tails vou lose. FRANCES DEE, an extra girl, is spotted by Maurice Chevalier, and becomes his leading lady. Roy Radabaugh, a struggling young local sculptor, is given a chance to change his name to Ricnard Cromwell and become Torable David. .'\' personable voung film salesman, renamed Kane Richmond, will be the champion of "The Leather Pushers." Wayne Morrison, carrying some scenery past Raoul Walsh, is persuaded to become John Wayne and the hero of "The Big Trail." Sounds easy, doesn't it' Accidents :vill happen, even in an unemployment center like Hollywood. The approximate ratio is: once in ten thousand times. ALL is milk and honey now at Fox, for Janet . (laynor has returned. And just in time, too. Maureen O'Sullivan had almost been made into a starring partner for Charles Farrell. \s for the vivacious Maureen, it would look as if the luck of the Irish has deserted her. (^n the other hand, she now mav have the chance to be herself a very different personality from the wistful Janet. 2.?