Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1938)

She has doubled for practically every woman star in the game. Once upon a time she was a housewife. She married young, had two children, divorced. Disguised as a man, she rode the rods across the continent, and for a while worked as a ranch hand in Northern California. Of course she couldn"t keep her sex secret indefinitely. She was discovered and promptly fired. Lacking an occupation, she was put to desperate straits to support her children whom the courts were about to take away from her and put into an institution. At the eleventh hour, by dint of copious lying, she got a job as a parachute jumper from an understanding director. She had had no experience whatsoever. Now, she's the number one stunt woman of Hollywood. PROBABLY the best known of that famous gang of Hollywood stunters is Dick Grace. His story is so typical that he could well represent the whole company, living and dead, of "Hollywood's Suicide Legion," composed of Frank Clark, Art Goebel, Leo Nomis, Ira Reed and others. Most of these men were World War flyers. Like Dick, they've all cracked up many times, intentionally and otherwise. At this writing, Dick's record is thirty-two deliberate crack-ups. He's the only man who ever fell out of a plane at 1000 feet and lived to tell the tale. (He fell into the ocean and escaped with a mere broken neck.) Grace has always insisted that the nearest he ever came to death was when he was asked by a meticulous director to dive a land plane into the ocean. A motor boat was stationed near by to pick up Grace after the crash, but the crack-up left such a pile of floating wreckage that the men in the boat were unable to find Grace. For nearly a half hour, he floated, unconscious, under the debris, until he finally came to and managed to attract their attention. The men in the boat said afterwards that If Grace had been unconscious for five minutes longer, they would have left him to drown. They thought no one could possibly live after the terrific impact of that fateful crack when the plane hit the water. Whenever a military story is to be filmed, one of the first men wanted around the lot is Captain Louis Vandenecker, Hollywood's ace technical director. His latest work was done for "The Life of Emile Zola" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood." From his earliest days, fighting and adventure were in this man's blood. To satisfy him his parents, Belgians, sent him to a military school as soon as he was eleven years old. But that was too slow. He ran away at sixteen, and, being mature for his age, enlisted in the French Foreign Legion at Marseilles. He was shipped overseas at once and won his corporal's stripes in the campaigns against the fierce, veiled Tauregs of the desert. During the World War, one of his decorations was earned when, under a withering machine-gun fire from the Germans, he managed to rescue several wounded comrades. At Hartmannsweilerkopf he was carrying an important message when a piece of shrapnel hit him in the leg. Wound and all, he delivered the message on which the existence of an entire division depended. Later, he went through twenty-three different operations before finally overcoming the consequences of that wound. After the Armistice, Vandenecker went to Poland to help fight the Reds. During a battle with the Russians, he became isolated in advance of the Polish troops. Coming to a small village he started to enter it when he suddenly realized it was occupied by Russian soldiers. Discovering a Russian overcoat lying by the road, he hastily put it on and made a run for the nearest house. His plan was to hide inside until his own troops arrived. But as he stepped inside the doorway, he was horrified to discover there three Russian officers. Throwing off his coat, he drew his pistol and ordered the Russians to surrender. He was so excited that the gun dropped from his hand to the floor. For a few seconds he thought the Russians were going to draw their guns — but they meekly put their hands up. They said later they thought the Poles had taken the whole town. For nearly an hour Vandenecker held the Russians at the point of his gun while he waited for the Polish troops to catch up with him. Just as the Russians were restlessly beginning to behave as though they were planning a concerted rush upon him, the Poles arrived. riO tale of Hollywood's soldiers of fortune is complete without mention of two of the best known stars in the business— Errol Flynn and George Brent. There is almost no hazardous occupation at which Flynn has not tried his hand. He has certainly gone far "For to admire and for to see, For to be'old this world so wide." Hollywood, considered a rather exciting place in itself, Flynn considers dull. Nothing ever happens there. When he can't find any excitement, he keeps his hand in by riding radio cars with the cops all night. His life is filled with amazing exploits. Born in Ireland, son of a biology professor, his first wanderings were at the age of four, when his parents took him to Tasmania. His first enthusiasm was for boxing; he was good enough to become the amateur middleweight of Ireland and represented his country in the Olympics of 1928. He then decided that the bourgeois life was not for him. Working his way before the mast to Tahiti, he was successfully pearl fisher and gold prospector, until a British film company, hearing he was a collateral descendant of Fletcher Christian (yes, the Mutiny-on-the-Bounty Christian), drafted him to play the role of his ancestor in a picture. Flynn turned out to be a natural-born actor. "By gad." he said, "if I can make money at this game, I'm for it!" NEXT MONTH: "The miracle of Deanna Durbin is no accident." In an interview with one of Hollywood's best known writers, Deanna tells the secret of why she alone of all child stars does not dread the early teens. Any daughter will think twice after reading this article — any mother will frame it! DEANNA HURDLES THE "AWKWARD AGE" by Kirtley Baslcette ^^ ^i w?$£*?ZZ~ 'ft\o.oo. ,1: drug and *P meit itores etery11' arthere I ^^etiutfj Uffrfnto THE FRAGRANCE OF ROMANCE BOMRJOIS OCTOBER, 19 38 91