Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1930)

Winnie Wows 'Em [ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 71 ] "Some of the critics thought I was too rough and rowdv as Mabel. Gosh, I know girls just like her—the life of the party. When they get going at the party they start tearing the furniture apart and rip buttons off your clothes. I've never thought I was too good to be above criticism. A good critic knows his business. If he gives me some constructive criticism I analyse it, and if I think he's right, I change my act. "What do you think? I'm getting fan mail. Couldn't you die? The letters are from kids and the old fellows. I can tell. Why doesn't Winnie get a break from the young bloods? They tell me that I will get basketsfull pretty soon. I wanted to know what kind of baskets. There are little ones and big ones." ALMOST everybody in the Warner Brothers organization claims to have been the one to pick Winnie for a winner. She says that Roy Del Ruth is the correct Columbus. When they were casting for "Gold-Diggers of Broadway" everyone was selected but Mabel. Somehow they couldn't find just the person to do the hard-boiled and good-hearted chorus girl. On one of the coldest and most disagreeable days of the California winter, Del Ruth went into a projection room and requested to see all the short subjects on hand. Reel after reel w as run off to no avail. At last he got up to leave. "Wait a minute," called the man in the projection booth. "Here's a can that says 'Winnie Lightner.' " The reel was run. It was a short subject Winnie had made two years ago, called "A Song a Minute." Del Ruth knew that he had found his Mabel. The wires were kept hot. Winnie was tied up with a vaudeville contract, but difficulties were straightened and she was on her way to the Coast. Only one thing happened to mar her happiness in Hollywood. Her mother died during the making of the picture, and when Winnie returned from the funeral her first line was "I feel like a dish of frog-legs." From tlfat line she went into a comedy song. Del Ruth offered to postpone the song for a week, but Winnie was too good a trouper to hear of it. But she cried when the picture opened in New York. Her mother could not see it, and she had seen every show that Winnie had done, and had read everything ever written about her. Winnie is absolutely sold on Hollywood. After years in vaudeville, and living in hotel rooms, it seems perfect to have a big house with lots of closet-space, and with clothes in every closet. It costs her $685 a month and she is paying S.S50 for an apartment in New York, but she thinks it's worth it. California climate agrees with her fifteenmonths-old son who is beginning to say "dada" and "ma-ma." To prove that she is an inveterate movie fan herself, the baby's name is Richard Barthelmess Georgine Holtry. Dick is her favorite actor. Winnie wants to stay in pictures. Vaudeville has palled on her. "It isn't like it used to be," she explained. "I've played on bills with the Duncan Sisters, Valeska Suratt, T. Roy Barnes, and wonderful dance acts. But now vaudeville is just the same. It opens with acrobats. The second spot is a couple of hoofers. Third is a guy with a violin. Fourth, a skit. And so on. The scenery is fierce. An old rag hung up with a few rhinestones on it, and they think it's swell. And a few trick lamps which the girls in the act made in a Cincinnati hotel. " Her rule in vaudeville was always to leave her audience wanting more. She didn't give encores. What she did on the stage she did fast. Some headliners stay on until they have to be wheeled off. Not Winnie. The same philosophy prompts her to be wary about signing a long-term contract with one studio. She doesn't want to be taken for granted. Y\ 7LNNIE was quite hurt about a recent in** terview in one of the Los Angeles papers. It seemed that the writer had made Winnie out to be too tough and rowdy. "I may not be a Vassar graduate," she complained, "but I don't talk out of the side of my mouth and say 'dese, dem and dose.' " So, please don't think Winnie is hardboiled. She isn't. She's one of the most genuine good sports in Hollywood. But, I'm telling you, Winnie, if you ever try to be a lady (Hollywood version of the word) I'm going to go out to your house with a shotgun. What a thrilling motor dive looks like from behind the camera battery. In the white oblong is the shot as it will seem on the screen. But alas, as you can see, the raging torrent is only a tame tank, and the cameras and mikes are busy. A scene from a new Charlie Chase comedy 92