Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

^T^AT NEW • • I N,pptV BRASSItRES k.. rf« ritiht down to the _ with snu« *«* ^J* "mPPff "' waUt w.H give y« Fa„ fqsh loofc so essential tor™ oB of ions, delect a long"" mqny any one of Ma,ae" '. Eoch one Jopu.ar ^assiere des^n «eomP"ihrefinTte diaphraam central. «"•"— *'-A",* Booklet •> ODERN IDEA FOR 1YGENES...when your doctor advises J feminine hygiene ... a dainty, white, antiseptic suppository; ready for instant use . . . melts promptly at internal body temperature, to form a soothing antiseptic film . . . The modern feminine hygiene . . . freshly scented; no other odor . . . individually sealed; untouched by human hands until you yourself open the package . . . scientifically prepared by the makers of "Lysol" disinfectant . . . a box of 12, with full directions, $1.00. Y b r1 \ A product of the makers of "Lysol". Copr. 1938 by Lehn & Fink Products Corp., Bloomfield. N. J. contract was cancelled in a nightmare and I ended up shining shoes." On the walls of the bedroom are two pictures. One is of the girls' mother when she was a little girl; the other is of their niece, daughter of sister Martha, married to Maxwell Edwards, English instructor at the University of Illinois. Over each bed are flower prints and the outstanding object of furniture is an unpretentious maple desk, cluttered with perfumes and toilet waters — a Priscilla fetish — abetted by smitten boy friends. iRISCILLA explains that her fracture of the romance with Wayne Morris was caused by nothing more serious than her ambition to give herself a chance in the career now warmly beckoning. "I won't marry — not now — not for at least five years," she confided. "I've heard it somewhere before — but it holds true with me just the same — career and marriage don't mix." As this is being written, Priscilla is being escorted frequently by Orin Haglund, an assistant director, "but — " as she said to me, "it's no romance." Five feet two-and-a-half inches tall, the youngest of the Lanes weighs 102 pounds, has corn-silky blonde hair, sky-blue eyes — and the smallest waist in Hollywood — just barely eighteen inches all around with a true tape measure. She doesn't drink and uses no make-up save a dab of lip rouge. A scar on her right shoulder blade is the result of leaning against a hot radiator at a tender age when her shoulder blade reached no higher than the radiator's summit. She also has two tiny moles on each side of her neck. "One is my 'no' mole — the other my 'yes' mole," is her whimsical comment "They never agree." "Alice in wonderland" is Pns cilla's favorite book and "Little Women" a runner-upper. She has read each at least fifteen times, she estimates. She prefers classical music but admits, until recent years, she dreaded the thought of music lessons. She wears a 4V2 C shoe, insists she is not superstitious but won't walk under a ladder and carries with her, as a good-luck token, the tiny beret she wore in "Four Daughters." She won't wear blue on Mondays, considers seven her lucky number and Wednesday her lucky day. That is because it was on a Wednesday that she started with Waring, also the day she started broadcasting, was cast in "Four Daughters" and started working in "Brother Rat." Nightgowns are her passion. She boasts two hundred of them — in silk, flannel, satin, lacefringed and furfringed. But she has a mere dozen pair of bedroom slippers. Priscilla made her first public appear (Continued from page 22) ance at the age of nine — at an amateur night in a Des Moines theater. She did a tap dance and nothing more would have been said of the occasion if she hadn't tripped while making her exit, falling flat on her freckled face. The crowd liked that — and roared. Priscilla leaped to her feet, dashed into the wings and then, sticking her pert head out, yelled, "Yoo hoo, folks. I meant to do that." Perhaps, although I don't believe it, that is why, in later years, she and Rosemary were hired by the same theater to sing accompaniments to Lola Lane's pictures. Priscilla had made up her young mind that she was to be an actress and cajoled her parents into sending her to the Fagin Dramatic school in New York to study acting. She was fourteen then. At the end of the term, her mother and Rosemary arrived to take her home. And then one of those movie situations occurred. The three stopped in at a music-publishing firm to buy some new music. The girls tried out the songs there and Fred Waring, passing in the hall, heard them. Curious, he entered, liked their faces and their voices and signed them to sing with his Pennsylvanians. They remained with Waring for five years. Priscilla tells me her first show with the band was at the Roxy Theatre in New York and now, being many years past her amateur debut at nine, she was jittery. To calm her nerves, she stuck a piece of gum into her mouth before the performance and was still chewing when Waring gave her the cue to start singing. Annoyed when he saw her mouth wagging, he stopped the band and chided her. Priscilla made a flippant and undeniably impertinent remark. As on that other occasion, the house roared and from then on she was stamped as a comedienne — and comedienne she seemed doomed to remain until Hal Wallis cast her in "Four Daughters," where she proved herself capable of more serious emotions. Priscilla confesses to gratitude to Waring for whatever success may be her portion. It was when Warner Brothers signed Waring and his band for "Varsity Show" that she and Rosemary got what is commonly termed "*■» Clara Bow, despite the many efforts to get her back on the screen, continues to be the happy housewife of a Nevada ranch. Husband Rex Bell holds George, age six months, while Rex, Jr. watches their first "break" — because he it was who suggested that the girls be cast for roles in the picture. As I told you earlier, the studio saw great possibilities in Rosemary — and was merely tolerant toward Priscilla. Nevertheless, both youngsters came through satisfactorily and Warners purchased their contracts from Waring. Waring, of course, is not to be blamed for Priscilla's devotion to cats — about a dozen of them run loose at her home. Among them is no longer the one she picked up near the ranch — a lady cat which did not turn out to be a lady — she bit Priscilla. It was a wildcat! I HE girl is an expert tennis player and equestrienne, deft at lassoing and spinning a trick rope. She once won a red ribbon at a rodeo and she can roll her own cigarettes. She is up at five every morning, being awakened by her mother who has a hot breakfast waiting for her — and at night, upon her return from the studio, a hot dinner. Mama Mullican is her business manager and invests her money in government bonds and annuities— placing Priscilla on an allowance. The home they live in is rented but has been completely furnished and decorated by the girls themselves. They moved in without any furniture and started to buy one piece at a time — adding the pieces whenever they saw one that hit their fancy. The white wooden fence encirling the grounds was painted by Priscilla herself. In conversations with the young star, I learned that recently she had had two wisdom teeth extracted, that she hated night clubs and parties and all things formal, that she loved mystery and adventure stories, especially at night when they scare the stuffings out of her, also that she likes books on horses, and pulp magazines, with fudge to chew upon while reading them. Priscilla doesn't like fancy clothes. Lola and Rosemary design dresses and experiment with them by making Priscilla wear them. She has never cared much for the garments they have thrust upon her. Her roadster is of an inexpensive, popular make, numerology is her fad and she writes music proficiently. During the making of "Four Daughters," the cast desired to express its appreciation of Diana rector Mike Curtiz, so Priscilla wrote a song, words and music, and the cast sang it to him. "I'll never be as pretty as Rosemary," sighs Priscilla, "nor as smart as Lola, nor as studious as Leota, nor as content as Martha. Maybe I'm the family misfit." But Lola and Rosemary and Leota and Martha modestly insist that most of the fame of the Lane family will rest upon the shoulders of the little ugly duckling who became a Golden Girl, confused fables or have it your way! 88 PHOTOPLAY