Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

60 Tke Third Lois her rut. champion The first Miss Wilson was the first girl of the movies to register agreeably the talkies. regular girl Lois, capable, cultivated, definitely individual. Lois cannot escape the pedestal, as it were. In one way or another, she is an example. First, as the sweet home girl. Secondly, for breaking out of Lastly, she is the feminine elocutionist, picture girl, lacking previous stage experience, to win notice in theatrical work, she led a legion who sought thus to acquaint skeptical producers with their oral abilities. Many have done turns on the Hollywood boards, but only Lois has managed to combine screen and successfully. The first girl to broadcast a clear and melodious voice via the stuttering screen, she takes both sides of the debate, talkies versus "dumbies." Not through diplomacy ; she finds work in the eloquent movies absorbing, though her personal preference is for the quiet, pictorial film. "I would be an ingrate if I didn't boost the talkies. They have brought me back; they have done marvels for me. Fortunately, my voice registers well. The 'mike' can be as temperamental as any star. My voice is clear, with the right timbre, for which I deserve no credit. _ "The work is engrossing, with still so much experimentation that we feel like pioneers, and there is latitude far more friendly discussions, and opportunity during rehearsals to give opinions. "But for entertainment, I park my coins where the silent movies are bein°shown. The talkies are great fun for us who make them, though still a bit tough on the consumer. Don't judge them too harshly," when I murmured agreement. "Compare the first airplane with the luxurious cloud-limousines of to-day, the first phonograph with our radio phonographs. Probably the future talkie will bear slight resemblance to the present lisping screen. This year's mania for sound may cause costly mistakes. I believe that eventually there will be two forms— the silent movie, for stories requiring scenic background and a sweeping range, and the more intimate, conversational drama." The movies are a means — now more entertaining than she ever dreamed they could be — to Lois' goal, a stage career. During her gingham-and-cookie leading lady era, Cecil DeMille prophesied that for her. Her voice was discovered when she was sent out to make speeches to women's clubs, and such civic enterprises where it was deemed politic to spread that wholesome appeal which she represented. And Edward Everett Horton, stock company star, who occasionally took a fling at the movies, also said, "Some day I will have my own theater, Lois, and you will play there." It was a daring thing, before talkies provided an urgent incentive, to brave the boards, without previous experience ; and even accomplished actors "at leisure" assumed a papier-mache front, rather than risk ridicule and accusation of failure in the movies by returning to the stage. The talkies changed all that. Los Angeles theater managers are deluged with proffered talent. Only three have been conspicuously successful — Lois, Helen Fergu^ son, and Patsy Ruth Miller. To Lois it is more than preparation for the eloquent movies; it is gratification of an ambition long repressed. The red dress that started it all still hangs in her wardrobe. It is frayed, its bright color faded. Lois is loath to discard it, though it has served its purpose. The sophisticated veneer, which she now admits was a prop to her courage, is not necessary to the girl whose present self-confidence is based on firmer ground. "Scenery," she smiled in retrospect, as I studied her, smart, but unostentatious, in trim tailhur and modish hat, a black wing brushing her cheek. "I was gambling — and I quaked. I might have gone on, as the years walked slowly by, calico characters girls." Success has given her a fluency of expression ; her face is mobile. It used to be sweetly inexpressive ; then the vitality of the second Lois found outlet in large and emphatic She has now acquired, subconsciously, from constant expression of some emotion for either stage or screen, an easy and natural pantomimic articulation. Her alertness carries you along with her enthusiasms ; you smile with her, thrill with her, because in her sincerity she gives you herself in all that she says. "A prosaic life," she continued over the tea which is her refreshment at almost any hour. "Half-dreams, unnourished, smothered. It would be far better to try, and fail. Things have broken beautifully for me — ■ largely luck — but had I not tried my wings and broken away, I would not have had the full benefit of this stage training. These three years have been rich in experience— of all kinds." Continued on page 117 succeeding" gingham to-day is buoyantly self reliant. gestures stage