Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1928)

72 Among Those Present A Cheerful Carol. If you can imagine Clara Bow transformed into a delicate pastel of herself, with laughing eyes and sparklingdimples in the bargain, then you will have a picture of Sue Carol, the cutest little girl to appear on the screen almost since the first baby spotlight was born. Sue Carol was the inspiration for raptures on the part of critics who saw her when Douglas MacLean's "Soft Cushions" was shown. It did not seem right for an ingenue to be .so beautiful in view of the fact that so many ingenues look just prettily alike. Sue was luscious loveliness itself in that film, not in a full-fledged and grown up way, but delicately and r a v i s h i n g 1 y miniature. Garbed after the Queen of Sheba fashion she presented a voluptuousness that would have been dazzling enough to bring on an attack of Kleig eyes, had she not been such a childlike thing. Sue came into pictures about a year ago. Her family is independently wealthy, and she does not have to work, but studio life is enticing and she is enjoying the new experience mightily. Sue was educated at Kemper Hall, a famous girls' school at Kenosha, Wisconsin, and later at the National Park Seminary, a well-known finishing school in Washington, D. C. Her father died while she was at the latter institution causing her to leave before she graduated. It was at a party given by a school chum that she met an assistant castingdirector, who prevailed on her to have a screen test. The result was surprising to her, for she was immediatelv engaged for a bit in "Is Zat So?" and then as ingenu,e in "Slaves of Beauty." Douglas MacLean's attention was then called to her, and the, next thing Miss Carol knew she had signed a contract with his organization. A New Style of Comedian. William Austin? Who is William Austin? Well, there isn't a picturegoer who doesn't know, if he will recall a few comedies like William "It," "Ritzy," "Swim, Girl, Austin: Sue Carol. Leila Hvams. Swim," "Silk Stockings," and "Honeymoon Hate." Even if they haven't all been funny comedies, Austin has always been amusing in them. His personality, his slender, amblingpresence, his waxed mustache, his occasionally silly-ass manner, have stuck in the minds of fans. Paramount thought so well of his talents that they gave him a longterm contract,, and so he'll probably gladden eyes for many months. Austin's struggle to get a foothold in pictures is a story of almost epic length. So far back does it go, that it is almost completely lost in the mists of the past. Two or three times he almost succeeded. Once it looked as if he were sure to win, when he appeared as Belknap-Jackson, in "Ruggles of Red Gap." Always, though, there were long weary waits between pictures. Then Elinor Glyn placed her official stamp of authority on his personality, in "It" and "Ritzy," and the world was — nearly, anyway — his. Austin was born in British Guiana, South America, his father being the owner of a sugar plantation there. He was educated in England, and. for a time was in business in Shanghai. In school he had been interested in dramatics, and when he came to America, in about 1915, his liking for the theater was reawakened. The first part that Austin ever played professionally was in Los Angeles. As soon as he came on the stage he got a laugh. The reaction that he produced was so hysterical that it continually upset the equilibrium of the other actors. Quite unintentionally he managed to steal nearly every scene. A Daughter of the Stage. Leila Hyams is one of the newest of filmland's newlyweds. But the circumstance of a wedding to a Hollywood business man is not to interfere with her pursuit of a career. Leila's ambition is to play Camillc and Juliet, and it doesn't matter to her whether she fulfills this dream on the stage or screen. Childhood influences were a natural inspiration for Leila's desire to become an actress. It would have been difficult for her to escape the lure, in view of the fact that her parents, John Hyams and Leila Mclntyre, have longbeen a famous pair in vaudeville and musical shows. When she was a youngster she played with them in a musical comedy calfed "The Girl of My Dreams," and toured with them later in vaudeville. A couple of years ago she made her debut in the play "Going Crooked," and about the same time played her first bit in the films, in "DancingMothers," with Clara Bow. A lead in "The Kick-off," with George Walsh, and an important role in "Summer Bachelors," paved the way to a contract with Warner Brothers.