Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1930)

This is "The New Fay Wray" as she looked in "Behind the Make-up" Another "new" Fay — this time as Bancroft's lead in "Thunderbolt" Above, the Fay of "The Wedding March." Is this the Old Fay? Below, one of the latest "New Fay Wrays." Fay in "The Texan" jhiL' NeW"-^ Wray: ? PERIODICALLY the bright boys in the Paramount publicity department who rack their Hollywood-weary brains to find new and sensational stories on the people under contract to their studio, draw you aside and coniide, with the light of creation in their eyes, "Just wait until you see such and such a picture. You'll be amazed! Fay Wray has the lead and she's absolutely different! She s marvelous! She isn't the sweet and simple child any more. She's lierv, sophisticated, brilliant!" This has been happening on an average of three times a year for the last four years. The bright boys insist, further, upon telling the world that there is an amazing discovery on the lot who always turns out to be your own poor little harassed heroine. Fay Wray. It was in "The Legion of the Condemned" that the public and press realized the possibilities of this beautiful girl. She and Gary Cooper made as charming a pair of lovers as the camera has ever recorded. They were youth and spring and romance and all the other things song writers rhyme about. It was said that they were to be .o-starred. But something hap Press Agents May Dream — but Fay's the Same Sweet Crirl Then there was, also, "Thunderbolt." Fay was cast as Rilzy, the hard-boiled gangster's moll. It was a rough and ready George Bancroft film. "Ah-ha," said the Paramount publicity boys, as if they had never once thought of it before, "wait until you see 'Thunderbolt.' You'U see something amazing. Sure, Bancroft's work is good. So is Dick Arlen's; but the big surprise is Fav Wray. She is absolutely different, a new F"ay." And they trotted away to their typewriters to tell the world all about it again. "Thunderbolt" was finished and released. Things sort of quieted down for a while when suddenly there emerged upon the horizon— yes, you've guessed it— a new Fay Wray! This time the name of the picture was "The Texan." It was a Gary Cooper starring vehicle and— could you believe jt? — .pay was cast as a Spanish girl. Yes, sir, a real Spanish girl. Hottamale! Well, this time this was it. Sure enough, said the publicity boys, you'd never imagine it, but there was to be a new Fay Wray. "The Texan" was made and released. was said that they were to be .o-starred. But something hap ■ u i, -r^ i,.,,. pened something that shot Gary to stardom and kept Fay XT^^^' '^'''''^'^^ ""°"^*'' '" '^'^ P"^"""" f k" t .U W^rvalerdi^ng woman. Since then the press agents have had iN appeared she has given a good, .sincere performance But aU nothing to call her but "the new Fay Wray." ^^ the waves of excitement that eddied and swirled about he^have They said it when Fay was cast in "Behind the Make-up." They wrote reams of copy and one story in particular called "Tlie Transformation of Fay Wray." They credited this startling change in the girl's character to the fact that she had but recentlv married the dashing, handsome, smartly dressed writer, John Monk Saunders. They declared that the sweet, pleasant little girl who had made the usual genuflexions to sadism in \on Stroheim's "The Wedding March" had become a poised brilliant woman of the world— a Madame de Stael for ~S:ESS^ By Kathcnne Albert -^^"sH^rS ^S Si"" the waves of excitement that eddied and swirled about her have not, in the slightest degree, touched the woman herself. To the Paramount publicitv department she has been a new discovery in each and every picture. To you and to me and to Fay, herself, she has remained the same. Everybody, it seems, has tried to make of Fay all the things that she isn't. A photographer tried it when he said he had discovered her, a poverty stricken little country girl in rags and tatters (fancy going about in a tatter!) and had introduced her to Hollywood. Now the truth of the matter is that