Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

34 Little Sister to Lucrezia Borgia Kathleen Key, the first Movietone player to visit New York, shares a new addition to her public, and tells about talking pictures. Malcolm H. Oettinger AS the First Lady of the Movietone, Kathleen Key joyed looking at her for an hour, without let or hin was bound to be interesting. Even if Movietone drance. had never been invented, Kathleen would still be The Key eyes are large and melting, the Key nose interesting. But that point will be reached with proper pointed and sensitive, the Key lips artfully curved and regard for coherent climax. ^ prettily tinted. Here is a subject for the spectacular In Hollywood she was a hit in "The Family Picnic" Mr. Zuloaga, in one of his most riotously colorful on the same program with her fellow countryman, Mr. moods. Here is a black-haired, brown-eyed beauty, Bernard Shaw — such a hit, indeed, that the astute Mr. lush, dominant, intriguing. A Ziegfeld graduate at Fox shipped her East to make a personal appearance Sforza Castella. Circe's daughter at the age of twenty. with the picture when it opened on Broadway. Thus she was in New York, and not unhappy at the thought. There were the lions at the Public Library to be fed, trolling at the Aquarium, and seeing Grant's Tomb again. Good old Grant! It had been years, it seems, since Manhattan had swum into her ken, and her ken enjoyed nothing better. Miss Key, who is one of the six most pictorial brunettes in Hollywood — or out, for that matter — received me calmly, but cordially, in her suite at one of the unostentatiously elegant apartment hotels abutting Central Park. "The last time I was in this great metropolis," she said, "I was on my way home from a two-year party with 'Ben-Hur.' Surely you, as an expert, will remember that 'Ben-Hur' was a picture with a chariot race, a galley scene, and a few thousand actors who were eventually discovered on the cutting-room floor. But it was a swell trip. You see, I went for the ride." She paused to light a cigarette. "Artistically speaking, I had to walk back. My part was a shadow in the final filming." The Key beauty is of high sex-voltage, reminding one of a youthful fusion of Alma Rubens and Evelyn Brent. As a result, producers have seen fit consistently to deploy her for ingenues. If these forward-looking gentlemen will pardon my pointing, it will be noted that the Key talents would gleam most successfully in a torrid, sultry role. This, at least, is the wide-eyed suspicion of one who has en Photo by Brown Kathleen Key, a black-haired, brown-eyed beauty, lush, dominant, intriguing. A little sister to Lucrezia Borgia. Whether she admits it or not, Kate Key must spring from the bold, bad Borgias. Her extravagant, renaissance beauty is decidedly suggestive of the wicked Lucrezia, although her sparkling wit is of the variety most often associated with the Irish. Kate is Irish, she will tell you. But she is not for Smith. As a native daughter of California, she is all Hoover, and militant about it. Speaking, as we just were, of native daughters, Mrs. Key's daughter is one of the few luminaries in Hollywood who boasts a California birth. Before she was out of high school she was in films, making an auspicious debut in "The Three Musketeers," in which she played A Frightened Peasant; and had a delightful time in the company of the Messrs. Fairbanks, Niblo, and Menjou, then just climbing the ladder. Following extra bits in a few other productions, Kate did a very artistic and equally unsuccessful picture for Ferdinand Pinney Earle. The best part of that venture, according to the enthusiastic Miss Key, was the leading man, one Ramon Novarro. The name is familiar to most readers of the magazines of the celluloid spaces. In addition to acting, it seems Mr. Novarro played the guitar, told funny stories, and sang sad songs. "I'd love to be original," said Kate, "knowing how you admire originality, but New York is so warm. It melts one's best intentions." Continued on page 118