Picture-Play Magazine (1933)

Continued from page 15 the day or night be entertained by the finest actors in the world. Today, you see. there is work for every one. ( >ur actors work in shifts throughout the twenty-four hours of the day and night. By regulating buttons one can easily project the telepicture in any size wanted. To one who has lived as long as 1, the process of presenting actors life-size in one's drawingroom, who actually may be appearing in a picture in far-off Moscow, is the most amazing of all. So lifelike is the illusion that one feels the players are in the very room. But this generation takes it all as a matter of course. To-day we enjoy our pictures and players in any or all languages. Of course, we still have our favorite stars, but there is none of the soulsearing competition and rivalry, nor the bitter disappointments and heartaches of yesterday. The government, which is of the people, by the people, and for the people, controls everything. For example, there is no capital and labor. "-Money" is an obsolete word. We mortals live happy, orderly, and contented existences, throughout the world-wide system of credit and exchange. Education and work are compulsory. Everybody works, and there is work for everybody. There are no gangsters, racketeers, politics, stock markets, banks, armies, navies, or wars. No strikes or shut Ralph Bellamy Turns Prophet downs. No one is rich, no one is poor; we are all suitably prosperous. What is our reward then ? Together with doctors, musicians, writers, artists, and professors, we actors derive our reward from the honors accorded by our fellow men in recognition of our particular talents for public welfare. Jn telepictures, we still have producers, directors — yes, eveu supervisors— but they are selected only because they have shown exceptional talent for their work. If, at any time, they fail to prove capable, they are replaced by more worthy government employees. Newspaper editors, critics, and columnists come under the same ruling. I do rather miss the funny stories we used to hear about producers back in the good old movie days. Actors are just as temperamental as ever and we have just as much trouble finding stories for pictures as we did in my day. Life is very simple in this year of our Lord 2000. We live in a Utopia. Man has completely conquered the seas, the air, and space. To-day we may travel to Europe in eight hours through the Atlantic tube, visit the wonders of lost Atlantis in diving amphibians, or bask in the glory of Mars in stratoplanes. By the year 3000, our scientists promise that we will have conquered time. It's funny to look back to the days when we considered airplanes, radio, telephone, wireless, and television the ultimate in scientific perfection. To the present generation these inventions seem crude and inadequate. Sometimes when my old crony, Freddie March, comes to visit me, we sigh over our good old days when life in Hollywood was hectic but exciting. Freddie, who was once a famous screen star, takes the changes in the world, particularly our world, harder than I. True, our greatgrandsons are among the favorite telepicture stars. There are still Barrymores, Chaplins, Coopers, and a few others, carrying on the fine old family traditions. But Freddie and I were retired by the government years ago. However, we are still on call. The girls of to-day are amazingly beautiful and talented, but when Freddie and I get together, we still get our biggest kicks out of our love scenes of long ago. To us two doddering old cusses, there was only one Greta, Ruth, Ann, Helen, Joan, Norma, Barbara, and Marlene. This strange chronicle must come to an end. A red light appears as I write. It's the studio call at last. The Honorable John Cooper is smiling at me through the photophone. "Hello, Uncle Ralph. I know it's late, but I have a great surprise for you. Come over to the studio tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. We've decided to star vou in 'Rip van Winkle.'" Continued from page 29 The parts did not amount to much and they grew smaller and scarcer until they seemed about to vanish altogether. So Sally hied herself to New York. After rehearsing in a musical comedy and losing her part because her brother and the dance director got into a row, she went to Chicago. Cabarets there did not appreciate her really expert hoofing until she started shedding her costume. In the course of two years, by which time the Fair had opened, there was no more costume — just a big feather fan. By the time Sally had been arrested eight or ten times, reformers had howled about indecent exposure and magistrates had admitted that Sally's figure was pure art, Paramount decided that she was just what they needed for "The Search for Beauty." Within the few weeks of her many arrests and ensuing blasts of newspaper comment, her salary had risen from one hundred and twenty-five to four thousand dollars a week. They Say in New York According to Variety, Paramount has taken options on Sally Rand's services for seven years. She will make three pictures a year, work four weeks on each picture and get twentyfive hundred a week during that time for her services. Between pictures she can go out and wave ber fan at vaudeville audiences and get whatever the traffic will bear. When Sally left Hollywood she said she would never come back until she was in the big money. But I doubt if even she foresaw just how that was to be achieved. She probably spent hours practicing dancing and singing and speaking lines, and never gave a thought to taking off ber clothes. First Recruit. — First to respond to the call to come back and repay a debt to the theater was Katharine Hepburn. Tt was a costly gesture, too, as "Morning Glory" was such an outstanding success, RKO would gladly give her a big bonus to make another picture right away. It will be interesting to see if she ever makes another picture quite as heart-breakingly effective as that one. Her old friends insist that when she was trying to get on the stage, she talked about herself all the time, just like the girl in the picture. But they could not see that it was pathetic then ; they just found her tiresome. Not liking the gaping crowds in hotel lobbies. Miss Hepburn has taken a house on East Forty-ninth Street where she hopes to find quiet and seclusion. For a long time the neighborhood has worshiped at the shrine of violinist Efrem Zimbalist, singer Alma Gluck, and author Blair Niles, so they are not much impressed by the tall, gawky girl who is said to be so popular in pictures. Second Recruit . — New York newspaper reviewers were searching around for synonyms for "exquisite" with which to describe Frances Fuller's performance in "One Sunday Afternoon" when she arrived in Manhattan to start rehearsals for "Her Master's Voice," a stage play. Roland Young, Laura Hope Crews,