Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1941)

Act of Providence (Continued from page 29) include what she called "a brief, dramatic sketch" at the end of each discussion of feminine pretties. She discovered she liked to read lines. So she hied herself to New York, where she succeeded in acquiring a succession of not very impressive stage roles. The best of these was the part of Kay in the road show of "Dead End," which brought her to Los Angeles and a screen test. When the test was approved and she had secured an agent and was given a contract to read, she developed a serious case of jitters. She still didn't know exactly what she wanted to do with her life. And here was a plan, written out in black and white, which might decide everything for her — for better or for worse. "I didn't know anything about pictures," she says. "I didn't know whether I'd like them or not. That piece of paper seemed to suggest that if they liked me they could keep me for seven of the best years of my life. If they didn't like me, they could throw me overboard at the end of any old six months. I had to think it over." Natural ambition, native caution and feminine instincts all combined to confuse her. So she stalled. She wrote down a lot of questions which she told her agents she wanted to have answered before she signed. One or two of these will tell you a good deal about what kind of person she is. The first one was, "May I marry at any time I want to — and have as many children as I want after that?" She chewed her pencil a while after she wrote this down and then added, "No punches pulled on the answer to this one, please!" The second question was, "Shall I be asked to pose for a lot of pictures in bathing suits or something? M-G-M may as well know now that I'm not the type!" She wasn't fretting about the amount of the salary offered or how much work she would be required to do. She was trying, in her inexperienced way, to safeguard her rights as a person, an individual. THE questions were answered to her ' liking so, feeling rather important and even a bit pampered, she signed on the dotted line . . . and found herself at once in one of the most thorough dissecting rooms in the world. The studio was anxious to know just what it had acquired in this new property. She set herself to study this new job as she had never studied for her Bachelor of Philosophy degree. One of the first things, aside from the usual routine grooming of a potential star, was the art of getting along with people. "I found out that it wasn't any use trying to remember whether you'd met a person before you spoke," she says. "The thing to do is say, in the breeziest possible manner, 'Hi-yah!' or 'There you are!' You see, they don't know whether they've met you, either." She had enough good hard common sense to try to learn from anyone who was willing to teach her. There was the important director who became interested in her after she had been in pictures only a short while. Said he, "Now, Ruth, you'll have to develop some special quality. Some definite, individual thing which sets you apart from other people. It isn't enough just to be able to wear clothes and speak lines. You have to have something special." "I'm a businesswoman, I hope," she says. "And I wanted to get along in this business, now that I seemed to be stuck FEBRUARY, 1941 TANGEE FASHIONS FA\? One of the rarest and loveliest reds of them all, Tangee RED-RED is the happy result of eight years' research . . .a true red that accents the loveliness of your lips and the whiteness of your teeth. Apply it... and notice the difference! Tangee REDRED is held captive in a cream base. It goes on smoothly, stays smooth for hours. ..and helps end that dry, "drawn" feeling. Wear Tangee RED-RED, with its companion cosmetics: the matching rouge and your own shade of Tangee's famous face powder. Tangee ...REALLY STAYS ON! Another Tangee lipstick— THEATRICAL RED . . .a bright and vivid shade with the same famous Tangee cream base. Matching rouge, of course. G9