Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1940)

Portrait with a Russian Accent has never worn a straw hat, and believes physical examination before marriage should be compulsory. He is a bad horseman. He recently acquired a taste for spinach. He never takes sunbaths. He has never had a nickname and he thinks he looks like a monkey in tails and topper. He was flattered by autograph hounds until one night when they all deserted him at sight of Edward G. Robinson. He catches cold easily, and he plays the 'cello. He cannot swim. He enjoys music on the radio and wears a sixteen-and-a-half collar. He believes fortune tellers can tell the past but not the future. He is very fond of jazz, believing it akin to the Oriental music of his youth. He owns no beach house, mountain cabin or boat. His weight varies from 165 to 190. His only gambling vice is chemin de fer. He owns two cocker spaniels, has never undertaken to cook and is very careless with his personal effects. He thinks sincerity is an uncommon virtue. He was seventeen when Constantin Stanislavsky, the great Russian stage director, selected him with three others from five hundred applicants for the Moscow Art Theater school. His spelling is faulty, and his chief impression of Americans is their sporting attitude and sense of fairness. He reads music, has never had the measles and likes hamburgers with onions. Akim Tamiroff goes through a ritual when he sleeps, first lying on his right side, then turning to the left, and finally back to his starting position. He yearns someday to play Jannings' role in "The Last Command." (Continued from page 24) He has no children and dislikes writing letters. niS wife is Tamara Shayne whom he met on the stage in New York. He used to bite his nails. He was very fat as a boy. His favorite singers are Tibbett and Bing Crosby. He doesn't understand baseball. He takes advice readily from his wife whose intuitive wisdom sent him scampering to Hollywood in a rickety car. He went practically nuts for eleven months before her judgment was vindicated and he got his first part. He takes direction very easily and quickly admits a mistake. He doesn't know how to be alone and consequently always seeks company. He likes shrimps, and is incurably lazy in all things except his work. He thinks a thing out before he acts, and he never wears a sweater. He has a good memory and likes to rise about seven-thirty. He has no hobbies, regards "Disputed Passage" his best picture and "Jungle Princess" his worst. He is a strong believer in matrimonial vacations. He thinks men look like the devil in derbies. He has no regrets, hates playing cards with women, and often finds himself getting blue for no reason at all. He thinks the most beautiful building he has ever seen is the tower in Prague with the great clock and figures of saints in motion. He does not rouse to anger easily. He never smokes a pipe. He recently adopted a fatalistic philosophy feeling that there were too many elements in life to upset one's plans. He does not like staying up late at nights. He speaks French, Russian and English. He used to be a very exceptional ten nis player, now plays only fairly. He thinks that the mean average of happiness in Hollywood is very low. He misses seasonal climatic changes. Akim Tamiroff lives in a small English cottage. He never reads detective stories, doesn't like prize fights or wrestling, and his method of studying dialogue is to first memorize his lines, proceed to forget them, and then recall them. He prefers the city to the country. He is fond of opera, concerts, Turkish baths, and Paris. He likes Persian melons for breakfast. His early viewpoints and attitudes were strongly influenced by Tolstoy and Dostoievsky. He sadly opines that war is inevitable. He was an outstanding soccer and hockey player at school. He likes pictures better than the stage because "thought can be photographed." He is one of four children and he regrets the trend toward making the common hot dog "a de luxe production." He deprecates his wife's temper whenever he has done something wrong. He is a great admirer of President Roosevelt, believing that he has prevented "what happened in Russia and because he makes me pay an income tax to prevent more trouble. I consider it a privilege and I am grateful." He was once taught by Maria Ouspenskaya. He is superstitious about Boris Khmara, his stand-in, who, he insists shall be with him on every picture. Akim insists on this because there was one picture Khmara was not in and that turned out to be a total flop. His devotion to his wife is best exemplified by his answer when he was asked if he had to spend the rest of his life on a desert isle and could have only three people with him, whom would he choose. His reply was "All three would be my wife." Close Ups and Long Shots that Tracy calls Gable "Moose" and I'll wager for the very same reason — that amused admiration and annoyance of the character actor when he observes with what ease the plums of life come to the handsome leading man) . . . watching Alice Faye doing a gay, flirtatious scene five minutes after she had the shocking news that her five-day-old honeymoon house had burned down . . . discovering a beauty shop whose chief mission in life is to keep your long fingernails from cracking . . . well, it's just such a jumble as this that makes Hollywood so wonderful. . . . To begin with Peterkin ... he is a new cartoon character ... he was originally thought up by Elaine Pogany as a character for a children's book . . . her husband, the famous Willy Pogany, one of the finest painters in this country, decided to draw him . . . Walter Lantz, an unsung pioneer of movies, saw the drawing and got Universal to let him create Peterkin in full color . . . Lantz and Pogany together created as backgrounds for their little creature, half fawn and half boy, the finest three-dimensional scenes ever recorded . . . nobody will make a fortune out of it all because shorts don't make fortunes . . . but everyone concerned is giving the very best of his and her creative ability (Continued jrom page 5) . . . you and I will laugh . . . that's the nice side of Hollywood. . . . I love Hollywood when I read about Mrs. Norman McLeod putting a bar in her station wagon . . . particularly when Hollywood has no station to go to . . . and some of the loyal Templeites at Twentieth Century-Fox objecting to June Preisser's hilarious performance of a baby star in "Babes in Arms," and when you ask them why they think June is doing their baby grown up they retort you can tell because she carries a Pekingese . . . incidentally I think Preisser is the most promising new performer of the month and if I were a $150,000 a picture star, what with all these new kids appearing with such fearsome regularity lately, I'd trade in my swimming pool for a down payment on a good stout tent . . . and I like it that while Cagney sits and worries about how to get more naturalness in acting, Joseph Schildkraut argues that acting in movies should be more flamboyant and exaggerated . . . and that both of them, acting such different roles, can be right. . . . It's very pleasant to run across such a story as that of Douglas MacPhail and Betty Jaynes, both of whom are in "Babes in Arms" (which, as you may have guessed by now, is my favor ite picture of the month) . . . and I do think that Mickey Rooney ought to get the Academy Award for his work in it . . . but I suppose the Academy Award will have to go to something solemn and dull . . . well, anyhow, Metro had been grooming both Doug and Betty, who are mere kids, for sometime now . . . this is their debut picture together . . . but meanwhile they fell in love and married. . . . Not only did they fall in love, but even while the picture was being made, they knew that they were to become parents . . . and now . . . despite the fact that Betty is delightful in "Babes" and Metro wants her to go on singing, she's decided she doesn't want to . . . she's so in love . . . she says it is probably terrible of her, but she just isn't ambitious ... all she wants is to be a perfect wife and an ideal mother . . . she wants to have a whole nursery full of babies. . . . You know how you are always hearing that careers come first in Hollywood . . . they do generally . . . but Maureen O'Sullivan says the same thing that Betty Jaynes says ... so you see it isn't always true . . . and it's just because you can't rely on anything always being true out here, that I love the place. . . . Millions of people keep Alka-Seltzer in their homes because it is ONE remedy that is good for many common ailments. It is so pleosant to take — so prompt in action — so effective for headache, upset stomach, muscular fatigue, acid indigestion or the discomforts of a cold. Just get a package of Alka-Seltzer, and you'll be prepared for the relief Alka-Seltzer gives from pain and discomfort in any of these common troubles. Always keep a large package of Alka Seltzer in YOUR home. Every member of your family will use it — and like it. AT ALL DRUG STORES ■ jewelry. Use Simpson's Jewelry Cleaner to briqh years. If your favorite store cannot supply you, send $1 to Simpson's ^Lzsti^i Stbfiat WESTERN AMERICA'S Largest • Finest HOTEL ClUB Of THl BlUmORE H0TE1 JCvs/)nfeies JANUARY, I 940 79