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Jean Arthur came mighty near being released by Paramount. The studio folk said she was too cold and too restrained. Here Miss Arthur tells how she proved they were all wrong.
By FRANK THOMAS
Too NICE
That's What the Studio Said About Jean Arthur Until They Attempted to Fire Her
O CENE: The palatial office of B. P. Schulberg, one
^ of the Big Moguls of the Paramount Studio. I^J Cast: Mr. Schulberg, Jean Arthur, in person.
Plot: Mr. Schulberg has sent for Miss Arthur for the purpose of firing her.
Of course, he was very nice about it. Because Mr. Schulberg is a nice person and so is Miss Arthur. Nice people do even disagreeable things in nice ways. Ordinarily Mr. Schulberg would not want to fire anyone. But the reports sent to him by various producers, directors and cameramen were that Miss Arthur was undeniably nice and pretty, but that she was also cold, unemotional, didn't have any fire, was encased in much the same shell as the deck of a battleship and that she couldn't act for sour apples.
There seemed to be nothing else for Mr. Schulberg to do but tell this too-nice girl that she was through. A difficult job, but then Mr. Schulberg is really a Prime Minister and understands the handling of delicate situations.
TN his very best diplomatic corps manner he broke the ■*■ bad news to Miss Arthur and waited for her to take it ir. a nice way. In other words to smile politely and
walk out, preparatory to packing her trunk and going places away from there.
But Miss Arthur did nothing of the kind.
Instead, she blew higher than a kite in a March wind. She behaved more like Pola Negri than any really nice girl should.
She pounded on the desk. She cried. Not nice, ladylike tears of regret, but big, excited tears of rage. The gal was mad. She informed Mr. Schulkerg that they didn't know what they were talking about. She could act, she said, if anyone ever gave her a chance. That was all she ever had been given to do, and apparently all she ever would be given a chance to do, was to "sit around and look nice." That while she might be a little nice by nature, she wasn't as nice as all that.
Mr. Schulberg, wise hombre that he is, sat silently and watched this "nice girl" emote. Which she continued to do.
MR. SCHULBERG'S office became the setting for a first-class temperamental scene. Not the first — • not by a long way — but certainly the most unexpected. Words he had intended to speak froze on Mr. Schulberg's lips. Being a judge of acting, having developed
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