Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

Manhattan Medley 33 a faint — oh, yes, with Buster Keaton ! I got a big news beat — Buster smiled! All during the conversation. My conversation, of course — he liasn't any. He just looks shy and smiles, and some day somebody's going to fool him and snap him that way in a picture. An Actress Who Thinks. When Virginia Valli was a very little girl, her mother told her that she should be seen but not heard. Well, Virginia is all grown up now, but she still remembers her mother's teachings. She's seen everywhere — oh, how she does get around ! — but she's seldom heard. Which is just my quaint way of sa3ang that Virginia doesn't talk much. You see her on a party, with every one buzzing about. Virginia, very beautiful, just sits quietly and thinks. Yes, she's one of those girls who thinks. You feel that perhaps Virginia would like to talk, if only the others would shut up and give her a chance. You feel that perhaps there may be buried in that lovely head some deep secret that she would like to reveal. I asked her, in my original fashion, what she was doing in New York. "Oh, just enjoying myself," said Virginia. She was going to the theater every night, too, but, bless her heart, she didn't mention it ! I asked her another question, then a third one A whole questionnaire, in fact. And by keeping hard at it, I learned that she was going to Portland, Maine, as judge in a beauty contest, and that she works for Fox on a four-picture contract, with one, at present, to go. And I learned also— though Virginia didn't tell me — that she should be nominated for the Hall of Fame, for being the world's unique actress — one who simply "cannot bear to talk about herself ! Not Out of a Bottle, Either. No matter where you put him, on the screen or off, Johnny Hines is just a clown. Always the life of the party. Full of spirits — which, 1 might add, do not come out of a bottle. At one of those functions still quaintly known as '"teas," Johnny, the guest of honor, politely accepted a cocktail, and then unobtrusively put it on the floor beside his chair. It was there that the host's wire-haired terrier found it and sniffed at it inquisitively. ".Sick 'em, Dicky," said Johnny, who doesn't like liquor, and doesn't see why a dog should like it, either. Dicky "sicked" it, all right — he lapped up every drop! Almost in one swallow. Leila Hyams dashed across the continent to get married to Phil Berg. Photo by Melbourne Spu On the screen or off, Johnny Hines is the life of the party. Whereupon he became very gay, and leaped up and down, and tore round the room chasing his tail. No one laughed louder than Johnny — no one ever does. It was a "swell gag." In his serious moments, Johnny is domestic by nature, devoted to his family. His New York "vacation" consisted mostly of frequent trips to the hospital, where his sister, Lillian, was quite ill. Between visits, he shopped for furniture — Spanish and Italian reproductions — for his Spanish-Italian villa. He is said to have really excellent taste in such matters. But perhaps I had better not mention that, on the occasion of the tea, he wore, with his dark suit, a dun-colored waistcoat. Why Wanda Hawley Left the Screen. The very, very blond Wanda Hawley has been having a successful filing in vaudeville. Forty-four weeks on the Keith circuit — breaking all records — everywhere — even in Pittsburgh. Somehow, in telling about it, Wanda seemed to feel that it was quite a trick to break a record in Pittsburgh. Miss Hawley appeared in a marriedlife skit with her husband, J. Stuart Wilkinson, a tall, dark, very charming young man with tortoise-shell glasses, who looks not at all like an actor. Fans everywhere asked her why she didn't please go back on the screen and she Continued on page 94