Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

30 Over tke Teacups Fanny decides that Lily Damita's fan following is large made up of men. portant, though. Texas Guinan and all the Broadway regulars attend them, even when a big stage premiere conflicts. "Charles King ought to get a medal for one great moment of acting. He was supposed to register deep humiliation and chagrin when he found that Conrad Nagel had a fine singing voice, and he put the idea over unmistakably. But the trouble was that Conrad did nothing to build up the scene. He just proved that he had a heavy, artificial voice with a strong, nasal twang. "When you are seeing shows like the 'Hollywood Revue' and see how hard the chorus girls work, you begin to understand why some of them are hurrying back to Broadway. Ziegfeld brought four of Hollywood's favorite beauties East to play in 'Show Girl' and 'Whoopee.' And are those girls happy? Evelyn Pierce and Ruth Morgan never had to worry about being out of work in the studios. Every time a director wanted a couple of beauties to dress up a scene, theirs were the first names that came to a casting director's mind. But working in pictures nowadays is just like playing in a super-stock company, where a new show is put on every week, with entirely new songs and dances. It means eight hours of work every day and continuous dancing and singing lessons. But in 'Show Girl' the girls get just as much money, and after learning the routine of the show they are all set for a year's run, if not longer. Eight performances a week, doing the same things over and over again, is a lot easier than eight hours a day, continually learning something new. "Chorus girls aren't the only sufferers from the epidemic of tap dancing in pictures. Stars have to learn, too. It seems to me that every time I pick up a newspaper, or get a letter from the Coast, I learn that Janet Gaynor has just collapsed from the strain." "But I thought " But Fanny was not in the mood to be interrupted. "Yes, you thought the Fox officials disapproved of Janet studying dancing. That shows how their convictions shift with changes in pictures. Three years ago they put up an awful holler, because Janet went to Walter Wills' dancing school twice a week for taps and waltz clogs. They said the exertion was too much for her, that it was ruinous to her health, et cetera. Now they want the poor child to learn, in a few weeks, dance routines that would be difficult for a seasoned hoofer." "What are they doing about her voice ?" I asked by way of being unpleasant. "They don't have to do any tiling about her voice," Fanny retorted, but her tone lacked sincerity. Fanny knows as well as every one else that the lovely, ephemeral Janet of the silent drama was displaced by a realistic and almost humdrum personality when she spoke. But there is always hope. Miracles are daily being performed in training Hollywood voices, that is, with all except Dolores Costello's. "Vilma Banky's been given a clean slate, or a diploma. or whatever it is that diction experts give players as evidence that they have conquered their 'o's' and 'k V and 's's.' Vilma has been studying for months with Jane Manner. Part of the course of study is to watch your lips in a hand mirror to see if you are forming each letter perfectly. I am anxious to see rather than hear the result. If it is as grimace-y as I fear, I am all for having voice doubles speak lines offstage, while pretty girls like Vilma restrain their faces in the old silentfilm manner." Well, you can't very well please every one. Many fans object to the use of voice Gloria Swanson bursts into song by way of denying to interviewers that she has a voice double. Photo by Bachtacb