Dive Bomber (Warner Bros.) (1941)

PUBLICITY—DIVE BOMBER’ Still Lex. 10, Mat 208—30c THE FEMME INTEREST in the Strand's big new Technicolor show, ‘Dive Bomber" is lovely Alexis Smith, Hollywood's newest Cinderella girl. For her talent and her very photogenic qualities she was chosen to play the leading girl's role opposite Errol Flynn and Fred MacMurray in the spectacular air drama. Smith’s The Name, And She'll Stick To It! In Hollywood, when a girl named Smith decides to keep the name as her professional moniker, it is first rate news. Alexis Smith, Warner Bros. player who has just turned twenty and who plays her first featured role in the important picture, “Dive Bomber,” has decided definitely to keep the name and to prove that it can carry as much glamour, sex appeal, oomph and _ what-haveyou as any other name in the telephone directory or out of it. Alexis, a tall girl with blonde hair, freckles and a number of brief walk-through roles to her credit prior to “Dive Bomber,” has been a high school concert pianist, a dancer on Hollywood stages and an amateur dramatic star at sixteen. She descends from gold miners on both sides of her family and she is tackling Hollywood much the way her two grandfathers hunted for gold. In “Dive Bomber” she plays a gold-digger, not a light assignment for so new an actress. She manages to interest Errol Flynn although she doesn’t marry him in the final reel. “Dive Bomber” is a serious story of war and the preparations for war and there is little time left over for the peccadilloes of Navy life. Alexis plays one of the “‘peccadilloes” and plays it so well that she is now slated for stardom by her studio. At the moment Alexis’ greatest claim to distinction is her final refusal to change the name of Smith. The young women on the sidelines of the movies can keep on answering to such names as Gloria De Peyster, Florine LaRue, Maribelle Tro afi cadero. The leading lady of the picture “Dive Bomber” will still be known as Smith! ATTE NTION We particularly recommend this specially prepared page of features and art on lovely newcomer Alexis Smith to your editor. She is Hollywood's latest candidate for stardom and that spells N-E-W-S. How Does It Feel to Become a Star Overnight? Just Ask Alexis Smith! She believes it must be something like suddenly inheriting an unexpected million dollars, owning a horse that wins the Kentucky Derby at odds of 100 to one, or prodding a stick into the sand and uncovering a cache of emeralds and _ diamonds. There is a definite feeling of terror connected with it. Inadequacy. Your joints feel jellylike and that hollowness in the pit of your stomach is not from hunger. There must be a thousand things you should do, have to do. But you don’t know what they are and if you stop to rationalize there is only one thing important. Just to do the job. That’s about as close as 19year-old Alexis Smith, Hollywood High School graduate, can come to describing the feeling a girl gets when informed she, a screen newcomer and unknown, is to be the feminine love interest in a motion picture starring Errol Flynn and Fred MacMurray. “Dive Bomber” is the picture, and _ it opens Friday at the Strand. It’s a thrill and a shock. It takes your breath away. But that’s the way things have happened, right along, to Alexis Smith, who was 20 years old this 8th of June. Less than a year ago this tall (5 ft. 7 in.) blonde and blue eyed beauty was majoring in drama at Los Angeles City College. Of course she had her eye on Hollywood. What pretty girl of talent hasn’t? But she didn’t dream that her chance would come so quickly. The lead in a City College play, “The Night of January 16,” did most of it. An agent saw her. A film test led to a contract, and now Warner Bros. swoops her into the leading role of “Dive Bomber.” Incidentally Alexis Smith is Alexis Smith’s real name. She If some charming Latin with grand manners should come up to Alexis Smith, hold out a glass slipper and say, “Stick your foot out, gorgeous, and try this on,’ she probably would obey without the thought ever coming to her mind that something was screwy. Alexis, tall (5:7), blonde, blue-grey eyes, and stately, is the young (20) Warner Bros. actress who plays the leading feminine role opposite Errol Flynn and Fred MacMurray in “Dive Bomber,” the Technicolor special opening Friday at the Strand. Eleven months ago she was a graduate fresh out of Los Angeles City College and before that a star student at Hollywood -High School, where she was best known for once having won a California state declamatory contest. She read something from “Elizabeth the Queen,” and it was pretty tough going for a 16-year-old. That’s where Alexis got the idea that she wanted to be an actress. Her chance came when Victor Orsatti, Hollywood agent, saw her in her college graduation play “The Night of January 16,” signed her up, and got her a test at Warner Bros. Just before the big part in “Dive Bomber” came along Alexis was all ready to take her was born in Canada, but has lived in Hollywood with her family—father Alexander Smith and mother Gladys Fitz-Sim mons Smith—since she was five. Meet Cinderella Smith Still Lex 130, Mat 103—15¢c ALEXIS SMITH place as one of the Navy Blues Sextet. Director Mike Curtiz grabbed her out of that and gave her the lead in the Flynn picture. Things like that have been happening to Alexis right along. Although she has lived in Hollywood most of her life, she was born in Penticton, British Columbia. June 8, 1921 was the eventful day. : Ds depess J. Sis Soe 42 Mat 402-B—60c. Order from Campaign Plan Editor, 321 W. 44th St., N. Y. C. Alexis Smith, featured in “Dive Bomber" at the Strand, models three of the season's most outstanding fur fashions. (Left) The daytime coat of Eastern mink with new style details in its melon sleeves, and turned back collar. (Center) The beauty and wearing qualities of skunk make it a perfect fur for general utiltiy. The jacket is collarless and its graceful cape sleeves are very 1942. (Right) Silver fox remains a perennial favorite for evening glamor. The skins are worked vertically in this luxurious cape and form irregular scallops at the hem.