Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

lU-i Continued from page 23 Miss Bow tremendously, but I've never met her. Don't want to — I might be disappointed. Well, I've just finished paying for Clara and I can tell you it was awful. Every month for eighteen months I had to make a payment and I couldn't go out anywhere, because I mightn't have enough money left to meet the payment and they'd take Clara away from me. I paid the last installment last month, and I can draw a breath at last. All I need, now, is for some one who doesn't carry insurance to run into me. for the thing to fall to pieces." He has a small apartment high up on a hill in a sparsely populated section of town. "It's the first time in my life I've ever had a place to call my own — a place where I can be absolutely by myself when I want to. First, my mother and father were always bossing me. Then it was my sister and her husband. Now it's always some one at the studio. They do it because they like me, I guess — actors and people like that whom I don't concern. I suppose they want to see me get ahead, but it's trying always to have some one saying 'Don't do it that way— it should be done like this.' "My way can't be altogether wrong, because it's put me at the point where, in less than two years, I'm playing featured roles. I have to rely a little on my own judgment, don't I ? Well, now when I leave the studio in the afternoon, I can either take a ride by myself, or else go home Oh, DaVie, BehaVe! up on top of the hill and either read, or just sit and look out of the window." He is about five feet eleven and weighs around one hundred and forty pounds. He has dark skin, dark, curly, brown hair and what Sue Carol declares are "quite the nicest eyes in pictures — a violet blue." Most of the people in the movies try to impress you with their loneliness— the lack of understanding they encounter in their relations with the world, with their families and with their friends. It has come to be regarded as more or less a stock pose out here. If it is a pose with David Rollins, he is a better actor than I credit him with being. I don't know that he is exactly lonely, but I don't believe he has ever had a very close friend. I've seen him playing volley ball at the Thalian club's beach house, shouting hilariously. The members of this club are mostly youngsters who are featured in pictures. Their standing is pretty nearly equal and any attempt at posing within the family, so to speak, would promptly let the poseur in for some kidding that would take him the rest of his life to live down. The game over, David suddenly disappears. If one took the trouble to look for him, he would be found about a mile up the beach sitting on the sand, staring out over the waves, or watching the breakers as they rolled in. We drove out to Maywood one evening, looking for a picture called "The Shakedown," in which James Murray was playing. When we got to the theater the picture wasn't being shown. David went in to ask if they knew where it could be found. A second later he was back in the car, his face beet-red, gasping for breath. "You go in and ask — they recognized me!" One moment he says or does something that gives you the impression he is far older and more knowing than his years give you a right to expect ; the next he says something that makes you wonder if Booth Tarkington knew him when he described Willie Baxter in "Seventeen." On another occasion, when we were riding, I turned to him suddenly, hoping to startle him out of his shell, and asked, "Davie, does anything ever get you wildly excited, or make you very, very happy? Do you ever get a thrill out of anything?" Davie never batted an eyelash as he answered, "Oh, yes ! I get quite a kick out of a piece of angel cake, or looking into the windows of jewelry stores and wondering if I'll ever be able to buy any of the things I see there." So we drove over to my apartment and opened a bottle of anchovies for excitement. Those finished, Davie started Clara up, turned his face toward the stars and pointed the nose of his car toward the solitary, little apartment that stands high up on top of a lonely hill, and drove off. Continued from page 34 why he shouldn't, Powell went eagerly. Followed engagements in "When Knighthood Was in Flower," "Outcast," "Under the Red Robe," then to Italy for "Romola," and Cuba for "The Bright Shawl." By this time firmly established with the public, Powell was signed by Paramount, with which company he has been ever since. One of the few screen players to whom the talkies have not come as the millenium, he has been considerably advanced by the advent of the microphone. His performance in "Interference," the first talkie to show intelligence, added greatly to the distinction of that picture. Distinction is, indeed, essentially a component of the Powell personality, both on and off the screen. The elan which characterizes Menjou in pictures and is missing in real life, is evident in the off-screen Powell. Worldly, intelligent, charming, he is what picture heroes are made of. But because some trick of physiog Bill Powell— As He Is nomy renders his appearance sinister, he is catalogued as a villain. Which is all right with him, as long as it isn't the fairy-tale menace in a Zane Grey thriller. Realizing his facial limitations, he has no thwarted yearn for heroic roles, but, nevertheless, he does not enjoy doing heavies whose sole function is to accentuate the incredible virtues of the hero and heroine. He finds satisfaction in any role which deals with a man who gives the impression of having been born of man and woman, rather than concocted by a scenario writer and a tailor. He dislikes formula, hokum, and melodramatics, but doesn't allow his personal prejudice to deny the fact that they are good box-office ingredients. He has deep appreciation of the good things of life. The best in paintings, in drama, in caviar, in music, in automobiles. It is to be able to indulge these tastes, that he is acquiring money as rapidly as possible. He has a deep horror of poverty. Although he has never been destitute, he is aware that the only free spirits are those with money to unlock the doors of the world. His particular desire is to be footloose ; to be able, if he feels so inclined, to pack a bag and catch the next train, or boat, or airplane. Perpetual travel is his idea of utter peace. Even a week's vacation between pictures is sufficient excuse to rush to the Grand Canyon, or Seattle, or Mexico. He admits to a sentimental love for Italy in particular, and would like to have a home there, making it the converging point of his travels. Ronald Colman and Richard Barthelmess are his two closest friends. His excursions to Hollywood restaurants and such are comparatively infrequent. He took up tennis a year ago, and has since been an ardent devotee, but not an expert. He enjoys his profession and would not want to follow any other, but is subject to moments of depression Continued on page 110