Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

But during that time we were busy, with the aid of our public relations counsel, in making more people Swarthout-minded. You may have the very best product of its kind in the world but if the people don't know about it they can't buy it. The same is true of a singer. There may be — and probably are — as many magnificent voices belonging to people you and I have never heard of as there are making comparatively large fortunes for the outstanding singing stars of today. But you can't ask a concert manager or a radio sponsor or a picture producer to hire Joe Doakes at a couple of thousand dollars a performance. "Nobody knows him," says the buyer. And you have no answer. When it came to this highly essential business of publicizing what we had decided was the salable asset of SCAE, Inc., I had a terrific time persuading Mrs. Chapman what had to be done for Gladys Swarthout. In spite of the fact that she had been in the public eye for some time, it seemed to her quite a different thing to appear on the music pages of the daily papers or to have a picture in one of the music magazines than to sit down and tell a stranger about her childhood or what she ate for breakfast, or what were her views on marriage and a career or any one of a dozen topics which are favorites with interviewers. I finally persuaded her, but only after I had given a large part of the interviews myself for over a year did she begin to really enjoy them, and now I find that though she is very reluctant to give an interview without me I can sit and say nothing. In fact, I can hardly edge in a word. The next stage in the expansion of the business come with the engagement of Gladys Swarthout as prima donna on the first series of operettas to be done on the radio. Very shortly after this series had started I had a call from Paramount's talent scout asking for an appointment. Oscar Serlin, Eddie Blatt and I decided that moving pictures should play a definite part in the business of the partnership, but it took the combined efforts of the three of us, over a period of five months, to bring the president to the point of making a test. The contract was signed three days later. Then came California and we come up to date. K |0\V that I have very sketchily outlined the ' ^inception and growth of SCAE, Inc., I can answer much more easily and certainly much more lucidly, several of the definite questions put to me by your editor. "How do you feel," she asked, "when people call you Mr. Swarthout?" On the rare occasions when that has happened I have been not only amused but flattered. Amused because the reactions of the people who have so addressed me have been so invariably funny; a sudden realization of having committed what they feel I will consider a faux pas causes blushes, stammerings, and confused apologies. Flattered because the psychological processes prompting such mode of address indicate in the mind of the person, a unity which actually exists. Certainly if the female partner does not object to being called Mrs. Chapman professionally, there is no reason why I should object to being called Mr. SwTarthout professionally. After all we are equal partners. I can't say how I would feel if it happened socially, for it never has. Another question which your editor put to me was about my reactions to the inevitable divorce rumors which started when we came to Hollywood. Again I can say quite truthfully PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE FOR DECEMBER, 1936 that I was both amused and flattered. Amused this time that distinguished columnists should have information so erroneous, and flattered because they think we are important enough to print it. While I am on this particular subject I would like to say that one of the nicest gestures which has ever been made to us was made by a columnist whose initials are W. W. When a divorce rumor appeared in another column which he knew had no foundation in fact, he came out in his own widely read column and said so in no uncertain terms. Thanks, Mr. Winchell. Things might have been quite difficult when we came out to Hollywood if we hadn't had such delightful and thoroughly understanding people to work with. Husbands and wives of stars fall into the class of one of the prime studio menaces. So there was quite a lot of natural viewing with alarm. 93 DUT everything worked out so harmoniously ^that this year the studio has put me into an official capacity as vocal supervisor and they are paying me very handsomely for it. They did it simply out of consideration for the partnership for they knew that I would do the same work anyhow. In a day when not actively practising the profession of vocal supervision what does the Chapman partner do? Well, here is a fairly average schedule for a non-supervising day. Up at 6;45. Just enough setting-up exercises to keep up the morale and keep down the waistline, a breakfast which raises the morale another couple of notches but so planned as not to require the use of another notch in the belt, after which the next couple of hours are spent in trying to reduce the piled up unanswered mail which has been accumulating during the previous week or ten days when there has been no time for attending to those letters which absolutely require personal answers. An hour's work on the coming season's concert program before going to the studio where the next hour and a half is spent in revising the foreign versions of songs which the Swarthout partner will sing in " Champagne Waltz." A hasty bite of lunch finds the two partners together for the first time during the day. It also finds a photographer waiting who says, "Go ahead, don't pay any attention to me.' I don't suppose you have ever tried eating a sandwich at the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway during a thunderstorm, but if you have you will have a little idea of what it is like trying to eat lunch, discuss the work done that morning and to be done that afternoon, in a comparatively small dressing room with a flash bulb going off within five feet of your head every forty-five or fifty seconds. After this nice restful meal come the rushes of the previous day's work and a lengthy discussion of them with director and producer as well as the star. No sooner is this conference finished than a rush letter is handed me with a speech that a local charity wants Miss Swarthout to make one film that very afternoon. The speech is so worded that it is totally foreign to her own mode of expression, consequently the next half-hour is taken up with composing a substitute. Then comes a lengthy discussion with the head of the publicity department about the type of releases to be sent out on a forthcoming broadcast — naturally the studio is interested in that angle of the partnership's business for it is a tremendous medium for exploitation if properly handled; a short parley !U\#5 ENERAL ^P ELECTRIC MAZDA LAMPS General Electric makes a 10 cent lamp, too! It is the best lamp you can buy at the price. 7^, 15, 30 and 60-watt sizes. Each dime i — p" lamp is marked like this LD C.