Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1951)

Photoplay's Scholarship Contest ( Continued from page 33) grade. Many of them work their way; washing dishes, waiting on tables, greasing cars, watering lawns — anything to help pay for tuition and board so that nightly they may appear in one of the plays presented on the college’s four stages. Daytime, they learn about what goes into a stage production. Gilmor Brown, Director of the Playhouse, believes an actor must understand everything about his profession. And though a student may never write a play or design a set, all must study designing and playwriting, the history of the theatre and costumes. At the same time, slowly they discover themselves. They discover the art of body control and grace of movement. They learn to speak from the diaphragm, with new vital voices. They learn that acting is a cooperative project. And they learn to act — in the, only way anyone can learn to act — by getting out on a stage and acting. OFTEN, too, the Playhouse proves the answer to how to find a job without experience when obviously you can’t have experience until you’ve had a job. Dana Andrews elaborated on this. “The thirty different roles I played during my stay at the Playhouse,” he said, “gave me a greater variety of experience than all the characters I’ve played during my twelve years on the screen.” All of which, of course, is the reason talent scouts look to the Playhouse for new faces and casting directors are almost always found in the audience. William Holden, seen by a talent scout while at the Playhouse, was signed to a movie contract and became a star after playing the title role in “Golden Boy,” a part for which dozens of big-time actors and hundreds of newcomers competed. Marilyn Maxwell was a singer in a band when she was first offered a screen test. “I took the test, went home and never heard from the studio again,” she says. “That decided me. I quit my job, went to the Playhouse and studied dramatics. The next time I was ‘discovered’ and given a screen test, I was also given a contract — and a role with Robert Taylor in ‘Stand by for Action.’ ” Many Playhouse students were signed while they still were studying. Eleanor Parker is one of the few not discovered “in action.” Eleanor was in the audience, watching, when a scout saw her, liked her and asked her to make a screen test. She clicked, however, because she had the training that made her not just another beautiful girl but a beauty with ability. Florence Bates, Barbara Rush, K. T. Stevens, Victor Mature, Lloyd Nolan, Gig Young are among others discovered at Pasadena. And among the current crop of Playhouse students, there undoubtedly are some of the names that will be bright tomorrow. The Photoplay Scholarship Contest hopes to discover just such talent. Right now, one thousand young women selected from many thousand entries, have been asked to send in voice recordings of two of the scenes printed in Photoplay last month. Five to six hundred of these candidates will be auditioned later in August and three of these young women will make the trip to the Playhouse as the guests of Photoplay. The still unknown winner will remain there for two intensive years of study. And though this girl is still a question mark and her talent is only just beginning to take shape, her dreams and hopes for the future may soon be fulfilled. in /ess than a MINUTE its easy to make LI NIT The Perfect Laundry Starch with exclusive, PENETRATING ACTION NO COOKING REQUIRED! • Unit’s thin fluid mixture gets into (not onto) the fabric... leaves it smooth, fresh, "like new." • All cottons stay cleaner ... longer. MIX an equal amount of Unit and cold water. Easy directions on package. • Helps clothes wash clean quicker. . . grey dirt rides out on Linit ! MAKES IRONING FASTER AND EASIER I POUR boiling water gradually into mixture, stir. Look ... no lumps. READY to use in cotton washables for a "luxury" finish you'll love. P The End 79