Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1940)

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Enjoy a ' ■.,.'., ■•. i i ./ , /■ And a few minutes a day! If your 'Pply you, oi the publii her. $1 00, Sand "><• poitagi prepaid, H > n.irr Macfadden'a great new book, /.,,..., ,,,,,1 l ike li. I enclose 01.00 □Cheek I i C.O.D.— you to i [vary, MACFAOOEN BOOK CO., Inc. 205 Eait 42nd Street, Dept.P-4. New York, N. V. won't let her eat what she wants and as much as she wants. Ann's been a chorus girl, gangster's moll, nurse, and everything else on the screen she never could be in real life. So watch her go places. How old is Ann? Just twenty. That should settle that riddle for all time. Here Comes the Groom "Now, Mr. Raft, would you mind telling the radio audience which team, in your opinion, will walk off with the pennant this year?" And the sports broadcast between Actor George Raft and Radio Broadcaster Ronald Reagan proceeded. For away back there three years ago, Ronald Reagan never dreamed that one day he, too, would be an actor who would be interviewed over the air. Middle West to his eyebrows, Ronald was born in Tampico, Illinois, and was graduated from Dixon High School when the family moved to that town. Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois, found him working hard for an A.B. degree in Sociology and Economics. It found him on the football field, too. Nothing, not even his movie career, has given him the thrill that receiving his football letter did. Perhaps I should amend that to say that nothing had thrilled him so much until Janey Wyman said, "Yes." Or no, wait. Ronald says it wasn't one of those "will you be mine?" proposals at all. He said they just kinda' drifted into matrimony, he and Janey, and he thinks it's really the only way to be sure of the right girl. They met, a year and a half ago on the "Brother Rat" set, and liked each other in a mild, congenial sort of way. They had a few dates and then a few more, and found they liked being together a lot, and one day they discovered they liked the idea of being together well enough to make it permanent and — well — they did. Joy Hodges got Ronnie into movies, believe it or not. Ronald had known Joy back home in Illinois and each year when he came West with the Chicago Cubs for their spring training (Ronnie was their sports announcer), he'd look up Joy. Deep in his heart he'd always wanted to be an actor, but he'd never had the nerve to speak of it until he mentioned it to Joy one time. Next day (Thursday, to be exact) she had an agent around to see him and the next day (Friday) the agent had him testing at Warners, and Saturday morning he was on his way back to his Des Moines, Iowa, radio job. The next week the telegram came from Warners to come to Hollywood immediately for a role in "Love Is on the Air." He's made twenty-five pictures in the two and one-half years since that, and finished "Brother Rat and a Baby" just in time for his Parsons' tour. He brought his father and mother to Hollywood and lived with them until he married Jane. His one wild, uncontrollable love is spaghetti. In every city they toured, he and Jane would seek out Italian restaurants, but they never found one that could surpass Jack LaRue's spaghetti place out in the Valley. You can find the two of them there, at least twice every week. Double for Dietrich A strange woman, is Italian-born [sa Miranda, star of "Adventure in Diamonds." Known as one of the great stars of Europe, she is yet shy and frightened. Her brown eyes flecked (Co?itmued fro?ti page 25) with gold, widen with alarm when new faces surround her. "Please take me away from here," she'll whisper. In both her first film, "Hotel Imperial," and in her "Adventure in Diamonds," her resemblance to Dietrich in looks, accent and allure was noted. But it was no imitation. Miranda of Italy and Dietrich of Germany, by some strange coincidence, could pass for sisters. In Hollywood she remained secluded. The studio commissary, the Hollywood night spots, never saw her. While here she quietly married Alfredo Guarini, her Italian manager. Her spare time was given to answering personally the thousands of letters that poured in from European fans begging her to come back home. And she went, too. When the war at sea raged at its heaviest, Miranda sailed quietly for home, determined against all arguments to see the little mother whose photographs adorn her dressing-room and living-room walls. Five-feet-five, blessed with a natural grace, she carries herself with distinction. Her large Hungarian sheep dog followed her meekly about, the two creating quite a picture. At one-thirty every morning, she'd awake, and, unable to sleep, would walk through her garden, her dog by her side. "I'm glad I have this insomnia," she'd say, "for otherwise I could not enjoy the quietness of the garden, the flowers and soft sky of this California of yours." Hers is a strange story. She had to be fairly thrust into the glamour spot she now holds in Europe. As a slip of a girl, she haunted the Palace of Fine Arts in Milan, her native city. A longing for beauty in her own life led her to become a dress model. But oddly enough, the money earned at modeling went into a stenographic course (she was graduated with top honors), and soon this beautiful woman who could type a hundred words a minute was superintending the work of twenty typists and drawing a salary of 1,500 lira ($75) a month. But the theater called, despite her business capabilities. Soon she was attending the Academy of Dramatic Arts at Milan, and again she was graduated with honors — -an achievement that won her the leading role in Pirandello's "Tonight We Improvise." Movies came next — in Rome, Paris, Vienna and Berlin— with Isa picking up the languages as she went. In fact she gathered together her English, or most of it, after she arrived in Hollywood. Yes, she's the dream queen of Europe, no mistake about that. She's a good scout to those of us who met her in Hollywood and who are anxiously awaiting her return. We know one thing. When she does come back we're in for the biggest, heartiest handshake you can imagine. HeMan — With a Sense of Humor Broderick Crawford wouldn't be Helen Broderick's son if he didn't possess a sense of the ridiculous beyond all scope. In fact, it's like mother, like son, in more ways than one. Helen never wanted to be an actress. She even ran away from home at fourteen because her mother, a former opera singer, talked theater morning, noon, and night. But the only place she could find a job was, ironically enough, on the stage in the chorus. And never in this world did Broderick want to be an actor. "I'm not going to be an actor," he would say to his father. "And that's final." To which his father would reply, "I'll not put up with a son in business. You're going to be an actor, and that's final." Well, all right, he told his family he'd concede this much; he'd get a job in a producer's office with a view to working up to be a director or something. He'd show actors in and out of an office, but he wouldn't be one. He opened in London in "She Loves Me Not" and was terrific as an actor. He doesn't know how it happened. Everything just went black and there he was — an actor. He came home to find no job, so he went on to a stock company at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, as sort of an extra handy man. However, in London, Brod had met Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, and one day while he was at Stockbridge a wire came from the Lunts for Brod to be ready to begin rehearsal that fall in "Point Valaine." He was good in "Point Valaine," but from that point Brod hit one wonderful flop after another. He came to Hollywood and made two comedies, "Woman Chases Man" and "Start Cheering." And all the time out on the Westside golf links, he wondered why Bing Crosby and all the guys would greet him with, "Hi, Lennie, how are the rabbits?" On his way back to New York he decided to read Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" to discover what all this Lennie business was about. When he arrived in New York, he knew. He raced to his friend, Moss Hart. "Moss, I've got to play Lennie," he said. Moss understood. "George Kaufman's in Hollywood casting now," Moss told him. Brod got back in a hurry. He made history as Lennie on the New York stage, and he's spent all the time since dodging the same kind of role in movies. Brod is a smart young man. He knows the danger of being typed. So he held out and waited. One day at a party, Director Tay Garnett said to him, "Why do I think you're funny? I never saw you act. Come over tomorrow. I want to talk to you about a part." Tay saw in Brod the latent humor, the clumsily appealing Babbitt of "Eternally Yours," the amazing attorney of "Slightly Honorable"; and BrodCrawford, under contract to Garnett, is now on his way. He still likes New York best. He can't quite make up his mind to plunge into Hollywood head-on. But it's given him some awfully good times, this Hollywood, and vice versa, I may say. Although he maintains an apartment in Hollywood, he spends most of his time at his parents' San Fernando Valley home. At nine of a morning, Helen will go into his room. "All right, Barrymore, get up," she'll say. They're wonderful together. Only Brod has the longer, curlier, eyelashes. Because of them he calls himself the male Marie Wilson. I call him Tops. Her Heart Belongs to Daddy "Yeah, well what's she done in pictures?" Pat O'Brien and Broderick Crawford, preparing to step into the leads of "Slightly Honorable," demanded of Director Tay Garnett. "Not much, I'll admit," said Tay, "but when you see Ruth Terry, you won't worry a minute." Not more than five scenes had been shot when Pat and Brod began casting slightly puzzled glances at each other. Far from the bungling little amateur they had expected, "ittle bittie Woofie" was in there like a veteran. It's a funny thing, in Hollywood, how 88 PHOTOPLAY