Photoplay (Jan-Sep 1937)

hearsing nothing more than walking across a room with books balanced on her head, to insure grace. She will spend many more days learning simply how to stand still gracefully and to move suddenly, without awkwardness . . . and a host of additional hours will be spent learning to seat herself properly and to remain seated without wriggling and fidgeting. Haven't you seen people who cannot seem to sit still? Well, this is a point not to be tolerated on the screen. Any new candidate learns how to sit still gracefully right away. She will be taught, too, to forget her hands. "An actress' hands can ruin her," the coach always explains. "She absolutely must learn to handle them with an easy carelessness." So, day after day, a new player will rehearse correct movement and idleness of the hands. Incidentally, many of the screen's most finished and glamorous actresses have had plenty of trouble with theirs. Norma Shearer worked with her hands endlessly, until their movements became graceful and unobtrusive. Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow and Claudette Colbert did the same. On the contrary, they say over at Paramount that young Marsha Hunt's hands, from the very beginning, were lovely both in appearance and in movement. However, if it isn't a new player's hands that are wrong, it will be something else. Every player has plenty of faults to overcome during his or her long apprenticeship in Hollywood's training school. A new player will also take up dancing. Not that she will ever use it on the screen, but because it will give her poise, assurance of movement and muscle flexibility as well as assistance in keeping down her weight. Slenderness is, of course, essential to screen charm. In addition to this physical grooming for stardom, there will be voice training, several hours of it each day, during which our novice reads aloud — poetry, plays, ordinary prose — while a teacher listens and corrects her pronunciation, enunciation, tone and diction. She will also study singing Her coaches know she will probably never sing in a picture, but this training will improve her tone quality and eliminate dissonance from her speech. Is she the first to do this? Certainly not. Carole Lombard, Joan Blondell, Marion Davies, Norma Shearer, Jean Arthur, Myrna Loy, Virginia Bruce and dozens of others take a singing lesson every day, even now. They do this because they want to cultivate the loveliest speaking voice possible AFTER a few months of this type of training, another phase of star grooming is instigated — not as a substitute for what the new player already has been doing, but in addition to it. She is turned over now to a corps of beauty experts. As on that first day, she is treated by those she is sent to as so much raw material to be worked over. The whole procedure is pretty brutal. I know because I was present at one of those session You would be surprised, perhaps, il 1 told you the name of the player, now a famous -t;ir, who appeared at M the studio's make-up department that memorable afternoon I don't think I shall ever forget it. She looked so young and pretty and eager. Yo'i could tell she had anticipated this, her first make-up test, as a real thrill But I don't believe it was It must have been something quite different. In the first place, the "Head Man" didn't like the slacks and sports shirt she wore. Brusquely, he handed her the top to a sun suit. "Put it on," he ordered "How do you expect me to arrange a proper evening coiffure without seeing your back?" When the youngster (and she was no more than that then) had done as he said, he gave another order: "Stand there." There was a pedestal in a mirrored alcove. When she had mounted it, he turned on lights above and all around her and, at the same time, turned off the lights where we sat. The result was something like the prisoner show-ups they stage daily at the city jail. The poor victim stood in a blinding | glare while the rest of us, seated in semidarkness, inspected her The "H.M." began tabulating his observations, dictating to a stenographer as he talked. "Hairline — okay; follow for wigs." Yes, almost every screen actress wears a wig in pictures. It saves a prodigious amount of time that would otherwise be spent in hairdressing. If her own hair and hairline are good, the wig is an exact replica. If not, it is changed to a There she stood, surrounded by mirrors and ights while experts looked her over, made ruthless comments — "nose too long" — "teeth unsatisfactory" — unti at last she broke — JAI^S '"^Hr^O^^ity Tk^cC