The New Movie Magazine (Jan-Sep 1935)

Compare Eve, our first lady, with the gals of the present. Adrian is probably the most valuable studio asset. I have the feeling his sense of humor occasionally gets the upper hand. Sometimes the birds of his plumage turn out looking like turkeys. Warner Brothers, by contrast, is masculine. About the only beautifying treatment a girl gets there is a grapefruit facial by cosmetician Cagney. Yet they house the most beautiful women in Hollywood: Mary Astor and Dolores Del Rio. I don't know Miss Astor but I can say Miss Del Dio is a natural, more beautiful in person than in celluloid because more delicate and her coloring can't be equalled by technicolor. She wears a little makeup but it's slight, sophisticated and accentuating. Ruby Keeler and Kay Francis are naturals too. Certainly Kay, in the flesh, doesn't need any gumming up or camera glamouring. And Marion Davies Illustration by 0. 8. Ho/comb has it all over her screen reflection for naturalness. Personally I rather favor Warners where men are muggs and women look the way they photograph, or better. Of Hollywood it may be said, as Aileen Pringle says of California: Everything for the body, nothing for -the mind. With such concentration on externals there isn't much thought left for acting. Emotion isn't pretty — another of the Creator's mistakes. So Hollywood confines it pretty much to batting of eyelashes, a few drops of glycerine and slight twisting of lips with a view of good teeth. When old Mrs. Pat Campbell was pestered for her opinion of a star's acting ability she finally roared: "I think she's marvelous. I never knew an actress who could think of so many different ways of doing her hair." As Hollywood's formula for beauty becomes more patent it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish individual beauties. In the production of "Dames" a host of dancing girls wore masks of Ruby Keeler's face. As an assistant director remarked, this did not seem to change them in the least. They all looked alike before, no expression. Some people lacking artistic discernment exclaim the same of the actresses. I admit I am sometimes confused, connoisseur though I be. There is one, however, whom producers have failed to remodel and upon whom technicolor will play no tricks. She suggests comfort rather than beauty and I have an idea this weary world is in a mood for her. I know I am. I refer to Louise Beavers, colored, whose hearty genuineness in "Imitation of Life" should put her white sisters to shame. Acting is easier for her than for white folks. She can concentrate on feeling. She hasn't the distraction of wondering if her nose is shiny. She knows it is. Even our little men must pat the proboscis with a powder puff. Only Stepin Fetchit is excused. Mother Hollywood insists that washing the neck and ears is not enough; her boys must be Fauntleroys. Time was when you might have cried sissy at a man who went for mug embellishment. You wouldn't now. Not with wallopers like Jack Dempsey, Johnny Weissmuller, Georgie Raft and Killer Gray submitting to plastic surgeons for remodeling. There's no sense letting a cauliflower ear or an Oriental nose stand between a man and his money. Undraped males playing Tarzans, Ben Hurs, Roman gladiators, or footballers under showers, must be depilated from cheek to shin. Women do not like a King Kong complexion, producers say. Wally Reid found that out years ago. The handsomest of all screen Apollos, he contemptuously compared himself to a Follies Girl. Determined to be an actor, he characterized a backwoodsman role by wearing a scrubble of beard. Exhibitors screamed of diminished receipts. Feminine fans didn't find him kissable. Ramon Novarro sympathized with Wally's disgust when compelled to shave his legs for Ben Hur. Previously he had been remodeled by Rex Ingram, a sculptor first and a director second. Rex made Ramon shave his eyebrows apart where they met above the nose, insisted on squaring his sloping shoulders by placing little pads under his coat, and ordered risers built in his shoes so as to give him height. Alice Terry, Rex Ingram's wife, sympathized with Ramon. Alice is probably the most beautiful woman the screen ever reflected, and she is more beautiful in person. That didn't stop Rex from improving her. He decided she should be a blonde. So she wore a wig. Her figure, perfect to the eye, was too ample for the camera. She submitted to a masseur who pounded her and hung sand bags across her until one day an earthquake hit Los Angeles and Alice scattered amid sand down six flights of stairs. In high indignation Venus Terry faced adoring Rex and screamed. "Ever since you chose me for this role you have been making me Or, for tha-* matter, compare the present Joan Crawford with the earlier one. over. Did you pick me for the type because I was so different?" Recently Hollywood's beautiful women were asked to vote on Hollywood's most beautiful men. Ronald Colman won overwhelmingly. It's a good sign of women accepting men as they are. Ronald is forty-five and resorts to no beautification apart from the make-up still insisted upon for the camera. And among the ten handsomest males I note my old favorite James Cagney. I never realized Jimmy was beautiful. Even Mae West, who told me she considered him the most desirable of Hollywood males, chose him not for beauty but for the old animal in him. I suppose that eventually a freckleremover will make Jimmy perfect. But why can't we take nature? The girls and boys are a lot nicer as they are. The Neiu Movie Magazine, March, 1935 29