Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1931)

_L/in Clcl _/i_ n d J ohn Her hobby is eating and she can bark like a seal THIS "debutante" Fox star is going to cause a mutiny among Hollywood women. Her hobby is eating. When they see her, 5 feet, 4^ inches, maintaining an unvarying weight of 108 pounds on two double scoop chocolate ice cream sundaes each noon, two chocolate bars at frequent intervals during working hours, and a repeat on the sundaes for dinner, then pink skins turn a jealous green. But Linda Watkins has a swell sense of humor. Her wit flashes as brightly and unexpectedly as a divorcee's engagement ring. And, unusual attribute, she can laugh at herself. Her laugh is famous. It barks like a seal. The comparison is accurate. So accurate that director Al Santell threw her a fish every time she laughed while making her first picture, "Sob Sister." Nor did the broad hint stop her. She only barked the louder. Her family is impeccable. Her uncles include: Lord Brougham of England; Professor Michelson, father of the philosophy of light; Major Arthur Radcliffe Dugmore, painter and sculptor; and Williams Watkins, inventor of the automatic fire alarm. You'd know, seeing this impressive list, that she has money. She has. She went to private schools. Because she didn't like being a lady of ease, she entered the Theater Guild School, in the same class with Marguerite Churchill and Sylvia Sidney. Because she magnetizes success, Linda appeared immediately in ("The Devil and the Cheese," was featured in "The Ivory Door," and had other stage successes including a season with Blanche Yurka in high-brow Ibsen. She's afraid of the screen and refused point blank to attend a public preview of her picture but saw it alone. She came from the projection room looking as though she had been to a wake. "I'm terrible," she wailed. But she wasn't. "Sob Sister" (Linda plays the hard-boiled girl reporter) has already made her thousands of screen friends. In Hollywood she's invariably the life of the party. She usually seats herself right on the floor and proceeds to be the focal point for a large and admiring group. Her favorite drink is a concoction of orange ice cream and cream, shaken together. G He can play the piano but he won't play golf I YE John Arledge a perfectly strange piano and in no time at all he'll make it sit up and say, "Poppa!" He can do more with pianos than Mr. Heinz can with pickles. But that's not strange. You see, ever since Johnny's childhood— that was down in Crockett, Texas, where Papa Arledge was a wholesale grocer — music has been his hobby. It still is — and his only one. He started learning to play the piano, and incidentally the pipe organ, when he began saying da-da, and he's never stopped practicing. That's how he broke into pictures. It certainly wasn't his face. Johnny doesn't think much of that face. He always figured it'd get in his way for a screen career, so he hoped for a chance at grand opera. Instead, he drifted to California with a stock company, and in the course of events found they needed a nifty piano player to do the "Rhapsody in Blue" number in Universal's "King of Jazz." He got the job. And from that, his step into his current contract with Fox is just one of the usual Hollywood up-from-the-ranks stories. John (they call him Johnny, for short) Arledge is his real name. He first bawled his defiance at the world on March 12, 1907, down there in Crockett. Dad wanted him to follow in the grocery business but Johnny wasn't interested. HE'S one of the sweetest dispositioned lads in Hollywood. "A sort of he-Janet Gaynor," somebody characterized him. One of the first things you notice about him is his swell Southern drawl. With it goes a Southern charm of manner. He's quite ga-ga over Una Merkel. When those two get together, it sounds like all Dixie let loose. He weighs 140 pounds, and although he doesn't look it on the screen, he's only two inches under six feet. His hair is light blond and wavy, and his eyes are that interesting gray-blue. He hates biographies and too heavy reading, but if you give him Hemingway, or Maugham, or Walpole, he'll like you for life. Yes, he smokes, but moderately. He likes swimming and tennis, and thinks golf is blah. And do the girls like him? Do they! 59