The Picture Show Annual (1931)

16 Picture Show Annual EMIL JANNINGS' Sd SCREEN FIND LIKE many others, Ruth Chatterton came to the talkies from the stage, and it was Emil Jannings who " discovered " her for pictures. While Ruth Chatterton was playing in " The Devil's Plum Tree " in Los Angeles, the German star happened to go to the theatre, and immediately asked the studio to test her (or leading lady in " Sins of the Fathers." The tests were so satisfactory that she got the part. Since then the stage has missed her, for she has devoted her time to talking pictures. Ruth Chatterton was born in New York. She left school when she was fourteen to play on the stage, and never returned. Although her parents were determined against the stage for their daughter, Ruth was just as determined upon it. Four years after her debut she was being starred, the final performance that won her this honour being that of leading woman in " Daddy Long Legs." After starring in two plays, she took the title role in Barrie s " Mary Rose," and followed this with her own translation of " La Tendresse." Later she played Babbie in a revival of " The Little Minister," and after a musical comedy interlude took the part played over here by Fay Compton in " The Man with a Load of Mischief," and then Tallulah Bankhead's role as Iris March in " The Green Hat." Although she has never acted abroad, she has spent much time in Europe, especially France, and speaks, writes, and reads French fluently. It was while she was playing on the New York stage that she met Ralph Forbes, then newly arrived from England, and shortly after they were married. Ruth Chatterton is one of those who resent curi- osity about her private affairs, and although her career is well known, her personal tastes and habits- she does not discuss. This reticence, unusual in the film world, won for her the accusation of being " high-hat," but it has not shaken her decision. A WAGE EARNER AT FOUR EVER since he can remember Raymond Hackett has been earning his living. He began at the ripe age of four years. His mother, who at twenty-one had been left a widow with three children, had taken up the stage, and carried on Raymond in " The Toymaker of Nuremberg." Then he played the baby in "Peter Pan," in which Maude Adams starred. When he was five fin 1907) he met D. W. Griffith, and played in one of his films. More stage work followed, including an engagement with Doris Keane in Happy Marriage." He worked in three films during the years 1912 to 1915, but still preferred the stage, and played Lionel Barrymore's son in " The Copperhead " before Barrymore turned to the screen, and later Scott in Drinkwater's " Abraham Lincoln." After these successes came a series of failures, but in 1922 he played on the Broadway stage in " Glory," and made a hit. " Nightstick," the play from which " The Perfect Alibi " was made as a film, was his last stage appearance there. He went to California in " The Trial of Mary Dugan." and was promptly signed to play his same role in the talkie version. Raymond Hackett's education necessarily lias been most unconventional. Three years with a tutor and two years in the New York Professional Children's School is the total of actual educational teaching. The rest of his store of knowledge and wisdom has come from the stage and experience, and it is wider and more practical than that of many who have had years of scholastic education.