Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1929)

Four Babes in the H Alexander Gray E lives on one of Hollywood's most exclusive hills and if you didn't know that he had just rented the house you ^might suppose he'd been living in it all his life, so settled he seems to be. But that's the sort of person Alexander Gray is. His mother and father and baby live with him and, although he still feels that the cinema is just a long rehearsal and he's still amazed that people do as good work as they do when the grand finale of a moom pitcher is often shot before the introduction, he's signed a long term contract with First National and has completed the lead opposite Marilyn Miller in "Sal.y." With that out of the way, he is now busy on "No, No, Nanette." There have been several steps — somewhat unrelated perhaps — in his career. He started out to be a business man. He had always sung, but concerts didn't pay. A job as advertising manager for a motor truck company brought in a good-sized weekly salary. Yet that didn't make him entirely happy. Alexander couldn't forget his sharps and flats and he suddenly found himself in a Ziegfeld show where he warbled about pretty American girls and lovely Hawaiian girls and elegant Chinese girls. Unlike most young men who do this sort of work, ."Mexander could hit a grace note as well as look handsome. So he left the revues and tried his luck on the musical comedy and operetta stage. HIS first speaking and singing role was in '"Sally" and that was followed by other successes, including "The Desert Song," which really made him famous. Then Warners got Marilyn Miller's name on the dotted line for "Sally " and then came her request that Gray be her leading man. He's a good looking lad of medium height, with blue eyes and light hair. The eyes are grave, for tragedy came into his life when his wife was killed in an accident in January. His charming mother keeps the home together and makes him happy. 65 * Vivienne Segal "r I 'HIS," said Vivienne Segal to an important New York I producer, " will be your last chance to hear me sing!" Some ultimatum! She was all of sixteen years old and had sung only in amateur operettas in Philadelphia. The manager, who was anxious to get away to an important engagement, had asked her to return the next day. But Vivienne wouldn't listen to any such thing. No sir! She'd sing — or else. It's just that attitude that brought about her success in "Blue Paradise," "Three Musketeers" and "The Desert Song" on the stage and has now prompted Warners to sign her to a long term contract after "Song of the West" and "Golden Dawn." \'ivienne's mother had wanted to be an actress. But her family was shocked, so she determined that Vivienne should choose a theatrical career. They went to New York for a weekend. Nobody told them how hard it was to see managers, so they saw them all in one day. And Vivienne sang. What could the managers do ? There was no stopping her. When the producers told her that she'd hear from them shortly she was frightfully downcast and quite sure that she was a failure. Two weeks later a wire from Lee Shubert brought her back to New York. She was told to watch three performances of "Blue Paradise" and to learn the lines and the songs in it. Four days later she opened in the musical comedy in New York, and was a sensation. "If I hadn't been so young and foolish I couldn't have done it," she said. SHE was what Broadwayites call "a natural." She stepped into her first leading role at sixteen and she's been stepping into them ever since. The camera shows her as a lovely graceful girl with a beautiful figure, but misses the transparency of her skin and the radiance of her light red hair.