Picture-Play Magazine (1935)

14 HAIL ClaudetteColbert haszoomed to top-notch popularity, a half-million-dollar contract being concrete evidence of her strength at the box office. This is no whim on the part of a studio, but is based on facts and figures. This revealing article throws new light on the character behind this success, with many hitherto unpublished details of Miss Colbert's tastes and habits. By Helen Louise Walker Claudette Colbert was a fragile child and was reared with extreme care, taught to consider her hours of rest, her comfort, as matters of importance. But picture work has taught her endurance. She can "take it," now, with the toughest studio workers. i IX a brief six years Claudette Colbert has established herself as one of the most valuable players in pictures. The contract which she signed recently with Paramount caused a distinct flurry in Hollywood where large contracts are, after all, no novelties. Every major studio was anxious to bid for her services and the arrangement which was finally reached was an extremely advantageous one for the fortunate lady, calling for three pictures a year for Paramount and allowing her 10 star in productions for other companies in her spare moments. i ill goes well, Claudette should emerge within the next \v\v year-, as one of the wealthiest women in 'pictures. And Claudette, 1 think, more than most successful actresses, has distinctly earned that success. I'll tell you how. Talent she undoubtedly has — talent, intelligence, and a kling personality. As for beauty, you should bear Claudette's giggle when she reads that some exuberant critic has called her "radiant." "After the trouble I've bad with this face!" she laughs. It is true that she has considered her face one of her chief obstacles and that she has made a careful and painstaking study of make-up, lighting, and camera angles to overcome what she considers defects. Bui she has bad other, much more serious obstacles to rcome. She was a fragile child and was reared with cine care, tan-lit to consider be hours ■>* rest, her personal routine, her comfort, as matters of importance. She has taken it for -ranted all her life thai she must live carefully, fastidiously, luxuriously. Her work on tin stage taughl her something of discipline and hard work over Ion hours. Nor was it can tor the fragile Claudette to adjust herself to discipline. But she conquered that. And the stage knows nothing of the hardships which arc everyday matters to picture actors. There were experiences in store for her. I think that her ordeal in "Four Frightened People" wrought a change in Claudette's mental attitude toward herself which will influence the rest of her life. "That picture taught me what a durable person I am, really." is the way she puts it. "I had always pampered myself — almost babied myself — and what was my astonishment to learn that I could take a considerable amount of physical discomfort and actually thrive on it. I gained weighl while I was making that picture. It was an extremely important lesson for me to learn that of 'taking it.' It destroyed my ingrained fear of physical hardship." If you know Claudette and her personal habits, her reactions to thai and to subsequent pictures will surprise you. too. She i^. for instance, one of the few actresses in Hollywood who keeps a personal maid at home as well as upon the set. Winifred, who has been with her for years, who understands her likes and dislikes as no one else could, is her almosl constant companion. Winifred arrives at the studio at noon when Claudette is working, bearing a hamper with her mistress's lunch all hot and appetizing inside. \ cream of spinach soup, perhaps, squabs, stuffed with wild rice and cooked under -lass, water cress and tomato salad, mixed in a bowl in tin European fashion, a custard. Nothing exotic or complicated. All so daintily, delicately prepared. Ima-mc then. Claudette in Hawaii, sitting in a dismal, ill-smelling swamp which crawls with slimy, extremely obnoxious creatures, regaling hersell at lunch with two