Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

S4 Moral— Don't Win a Beauty Contest! tempted to cultivate. During the past year, Universal received very nearly a dozen beauty-contest winners from as many cities. Only three of that number — Dorothy Gulliver of Salt Lake City, Joan Alden of Chicago, and Blanche Fisher of Omaha — are still on the pay roll and under contract. Rouged, marceled, Winning a beauty contest is a handicap, says Majel Coleman. Though Georgia Hale won honors for beauty, she had a hard time getting a chance on the screen. beautifully dressed, the contest winners alight at Los Angeles, contracts in hand, confident that their beauty will win them a niche in films. They put in their six months at a studio and if they show talent they are kept. If not, they are told, "That will be all, thank you \" What are they to do — go back among the friends who expected so much when, in the midst of an ovation, they started the trek to Hollywood? Well, hardly ! They begin the battle for a new foothold, hearing day after day of girls — not beautycontest winners — who have been suddenly "discovered" by casting directors and given important roles. Not many months ago, Arline Batchler, a little freckled-faced waitress with black, bobbed hair was taking orders from hungry movie folks in Henry's cafe on Hollywood Boulevard. Charley Chaplin, Sid Grauman, James Cruze, Robert Vignola, and even Michael Arlen, had sat at her tables. Arline wished she might some day get in the movies and quit serving food. She never spoke of it to any of the directors when she took their supper orders. She could see no chance amid all those beautiful girls. She did not have their handsome gowns nor the tendollar marcels, and her hands were red from work. Then one day, right out of a clear sky, Eddie Boyle, a director, stopped suddenly before her and peered into her face. "My freckles!" Arline thought. "Darn 'em!" The next moment she had turned crimson and found herself trying to stammer a reply. For Eddie Boyle had said, "Would you like to play in pictures ?" Arline managed to say, "Yes, sir!" "Come over to the studio to-morrow," Boyle replied. "I think I can use you." And little Arline Batchler, waitress — not actress — was tumbled into a role in "The Fighting Failure," alongside Cullen Landis and Peggy Montgomery. And she went around almost in a trance for days. She was just the type for which Boyle had been looking. More than one beauty-contest winner sighed despondently when she heard the story and looked at Arline's picture in the newspapers. Arline had her start and her days as a waitress have ended. Out at First National Mildred Myrnie was a waitress in the studio cafe. Bobbed hair, large, lustrous eyes, well-modeled face — she, too, yearned for a place in the movies and an opportunity to quit carrying a tray. She saw Corinne Griffith, Colleen Moore, Anna O. Nilsson, Mary Astor, Dorothy Mackaill, Joyce Compton, and a lot of others winning fame before the camera while she went on day by day from table to kitchen and from kitchen to table, waiting upon them. Then the bolt struck. Mildred was called into the executive offices and asked to pose for some screen tests. She won a little role — the beginning. Again the marceled beauty-contest winners sighed. At about the same time, Helen Harris and Margaret Gray, secretaries to officials at the same studio, were given screen tests, too, and stepped from their desks onto sets. At the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio in Culver City, Patricia Avery, stenographer, was pounding away at the keys of her typewriter when a summons came to appear in the executive offices. "How long have you been here?" she was asked. "A year, sir," Patricia replied. "She'll do !" the manager said, pushing a document toward her. "Sign this," he continued. "You're an actress now, and at a very comfortable salary. We can use your smile on the screen. Now go home, and to-morrow you start in on the sets." She never was a beauty-contest winner, but she made good in her first and her succeeding roles. Simone Maes, a pretty little French girl at Universal City, had a somewhat similar experience, but she decided to protect herself with a few provisos before she save up a perfectly good stenographer's position. She had seen too many girls come and go without arriving anywhere. Their greatest enthusiasm was in coming. They went away silently. So, when she was offered a role in "Love Me and the World Is Mine," Fay Lanphier's great beauty did little for her in the movies. Dorothy Gulliver is one of the few recmt contest winners to h.ive made good in films.