Motion Picture Herald (Sep-Oct 1948)

NATION'S SHOWMEN SELECT THE STARS OF TOMORROW by WILLIAM R. WEAVER Exhibitors 9 Elections Combined Vote Circuit Independent of Exhibitors Exhibitors Exhibitors 1. Jane Powell 1. Cyd Charisse 1. Jane Powell 2. Cyd Charisse 2. Angela Lansbury 2. Mona Freeman 3. Ann Blyth 3. Celeste Holm 3. Ann Blyth 4. Celeste Holm 4. Jane Powell 4. Cyd Charisse 5. Robert Ryan 5. Robert Ryan 5. Robert Ryan 6. Angela Lansbury 6. Ann Blyth 6. Eleanor Parker 7. Jean Peters 7. Doris Day 7. Celeste Holm 8. Mona Freeman 8. Jean Peters 8. Angela Lansbury 9. Eleanor Parker 9. Eleanor Parker 9. Dean Stockwell 10. Doris Day 10. Richard Widmark 10. Jean Peters Hollywood Editor JANE POWELL, the Judy of "A Date With Judy" and the captain's madcap daughter in the forthcoming "Luxury Liner", is the Number One Star-of -Tomorrow, according to MOTION PICTURE HERALD's eighth annual poll of exhibitors. The Stars-of-Tomorrow poll, established in 1941, is MOTION PICTURE HERALD's mid-year companion canvass to its 15-yearold Money-Making Stars poll, the trade's oldest and universally accepted yardstick of talent values. Both polls are conducted by mail ballot and reflect the findings of theatre operators, both independent and circuit, in direct and constant touch with the public that speaks its mind in unmistakable dollar language. Only One Male Star This year the poll installs the gentler sex in nine of its Top Ten placements, and names as its sole selection from the sterner division the able but decidedly unglamorous Robert Ryan. This apportionment of honors indubitably denotes a unique and proba bly very important characteristic of taste and preference in this third year of peace, but precisely what that characteristic is remains a matter for individual interpretation, for MOTION PICTURE HERALD polls deal only in the indisputable facts. One of these seems to be, beyond question, that the distaff side has the box office situation well in hand. In the seven preceding years the ratio ran as indicated in the following list of winners: Last year's poll elected Evelyn Keyes, Billy De Wolfe, Peter Lawford, Janis Paige, Elizabeth Taylor, Claude Jarman, Jr., Janet Blair, Macdonald Carey, Gail Russell and Richard Conte. The Top Ten of the 1946 poll were Joan Leslie, Butch Jenkins, Zachary Scott, Don DeFore, Mark Stevens, Eve Arden, Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, Yvonne DeCarlo and Robert Mitchum. Winners of the 1945 voting were Dane Clark, Jeanne Crain, Keenan Wynn, Peggy Ann Garner, Cornel Wilde, Tom Drake, Lon McCallister, Diana Lynne, Marilyn Maxwell and William Eythe. The 1944 leaders were Sonny Tufts, James Craig, Gloria DeHaven, Roddy McDowell, June Allyson, Barry Fitzgerald, Marsha Hunt, Sydney Greenstreet, Turhan Bey and Helmut Dantine. The 1943 poll was led by William Bendix, Philip Dorn, Susan Peters, Donald O'Connor, Anne Baxter, Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, Diana Barrymore, Gig Young and Alexis Smith. Van Heflin, Bracken in 1942 In 1942 Van Heflin, Eddie Bracken, Jane Wyman, John Carroll, Alan Ladd, Lynn Bari, Nancy Kelly, Donna Reed, Betty Hutton and Teresa Wright took top honours. The winners of the initial poll, 1941, were Laraine Day, Rita Hayworth, Ruth Hussey, Robert Preston, Ronald Reagan, John Payne, Jeffrey Lynn, Ann Rutherford, Dennis Morgan and Jackie Cooper. Miss Powell, this year's Number One, was born Suzanne Burce in Portland, Oregon, and first exercised her soprano voice at the age of 7 as star of a children's radio program. At I I she started taking singing lessons, and at 12 she had her own program, broadcast locally. A year later her parents brought her to Hollywood to see the sights, and one of these was a radio station where Janet Gaynor, as mistress of ceremonies on the Hollywood Showcase program, selected her as one of six contestants chosen from the audience. She won the contest, was signed next day for the Chase & Sanborn airshow, and a week later was screen tested by MGM, which gave her a term contract and promptly loaned her out to play the lead in "Song of the Open Road", a film also featuring Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, her radio companions, and the late W. C. Fields. First Was "Holiday" Miss Powell's first film for MGM was "Holiday in Mexico", a Technicolor comedy starring Walter Pidgeon, which played widely and well in the 1945-46 season. Her next was "Three Daring Daughters", and this was followed by the currently showing "A Date With Judy" and the impending "Luxury Liner". She is five feet tall, weighs 95 pounds, has dark brown hair (Continued on following page) MOTION PICTURE HERALD. SEPTEMBER i I, 1948 1 1