Ex Lady (Warner Bros.) (1933)

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Advance Feature Bette Davis Finds Being Bride and Star Exciting Awarded Stardom In **Ex-Lady,”’ Petite Blonde Modestly Hopes Public Will Like Her Film By Carlisle Jones B ETTE DAVIS is living under the double excitement of being both a bride and a brand new movie star. She was married in August and ‘‘starred’’ by Warner Bros. in December and in between she had a serious but successful attack of appendicitis. Her first picture under her new contractual arrangement is called ‘‘Ex-Lady,’’ which comes to the Theatre on She spent what spare time she had on that set, worrying about the way the public was going to like her face, as she says, “in large doses.” It is a pert, saucy, pretty face, if not a beautiful one, and it has something that registered with the public through a succession of bad make-ups in early pictures. Bette herself admits now that the early make-up was bad but the studio almost had to use force to persuade her to change it. The new star’s new name is Mrs. Harmon Nelson. She calls her husband “Ham” and her own description of him is that he is “tall, skinny and has a funny head.” She loves him very much, she says, but she married him in a daze, on the spur of the moment, after both of them had decided, several times, that they could not possibly be married. Mixes Marriage and Movies At the present Miss Davis is solving the Hollywood problem of making marriage and motion pictures mix, by leasing two separate houses surrounded by one wall. Her mother and sister live in one of them. Mr. and Mrs. Harmon Nelson we. 2a is UUmCie Fee es Md Pe as st dak ke ed Cd Se Te ee Le the “two families under one roof” bugaboo yet has her mother handy at all times. Bette has always relied heavily upon her mother for advice in all matters and she did not want to cut away from that source of comfort altogether. She ran away to Yuma, Arizona, to be married, but with her mother’s _ knowledge and sanction. Now the two households cooperate with one kitchen and one dining room and they “have parties” together, Miss Davis explains. Otherwise the two houses are two separate establishments. Bette’s marriage to Harmon Nelson, who graduated from Amherst only a short time ago, was the culmination of a seven year romance interrupted at times, however, by various other shorter and less serious romances on the part of both. Page Four THUs-ShO-AVOLds BETTE DAVIS, STAR OF “EX-LADY’ Bette and “Ham” attended the same prep school near Boston and decided then that when they grew up they would marry. They grew apart as they grew up, however, and the romance languished when “Ham” went ta college and Bette went on the stage. Their correspondence was revived from time to time but finally faded out altogether when Bette became engaged to another young man, nameless, so far as she is concerned, forevermore. She was just recovering from that one evening some three years ago when she started rehearsals for a production in the Cape Cod playhouse and went, on a free evening, to a neighboring picture show by herself. When the lights. came on after the feature picture she says she saw “that tall young man with the funny head” stand up from his seat just ahead of her and she called out, “Ham, what are you doing here,” so excitedly that half the audience turned to watch their meeting. In Love All Over Again “That started it all over again,” Bette declares. “We saw a lot of each other for several weeks because ‘Ham’ was playing with the Amherst orchestra in a road house near by. Then I had to leave for Hollywood and we wrote back and forth pretty often. “IT didn’t have any fun in Hollywood at all. I tried, oh so hard, to fall in love out here so that I could write ‘Ham’ to forget all about me and go out and have a good time myself but I just couldn’t. Finally I wrote him last summer that if he didn’t at least come out and visit me I was through with him. “We came all right and two days before he got here Warner Bros. told me that I was to go East for personal appearances. I was so mad I cried for days. But I left a week after he got here and he spent the whole summer, practically, down at our beach house not knowing a soul, while I was East. are Cut No. 14 Cut asc Mat 15¢ ; boost” “ ‘Ham’ wouldn’t marry me because I made more money than he did. I told him that that might be so for the next few years, that no young man of twenty-five and just out of college could be expected to earn very much. had always. said he But we agreed not to marry. He didn’t want to be ‘Mr. Bette Davis’ but two days after I got back from that tour he suggested we get married. I talked it over with mother and she said that I might as well try it. I was miserable out here alone without him, anyway. So I went to Yuma in a daze and was married in a daze and ‘Ham’ calls himself ‘Mr. Bette Davis’ and grins about it. “T don’t care and he doesn’t care. I wouldn’t ever marry an actor. I don’t think that would work. But I think this is going to be fine.” Stardom Came Unexpectedly Her stardom came almost as unexpectedly. She had only two days’ notiee that she would have the featured role in her new picture. The news was saved for her until she had completely recovered from the appendicitis operation. Stardom is an elastic term in Hollywood but it means, primarily, that in “Ex-Lady” Bette Davis had her big chance and she made the most of it. As she says, she worries most about how the public is going to like her when it is her face it sees throughout most of the picture. “Shorter roles are different,” she confides. “I am wondering if the same kind of people who liked me in those parts are going to like a picture which is mostly me. I don’t want them to push me too fast. I don’t think I should be made to earry the whole burdon of any picture yet. I can stand another year or two of experience before real stardom. I want a good foundation for any star-hitching I do.” George Arliss Boosts Her The work with Arliss, she thinks, really gave her her first important Follywoud. IL “Tapit Succession she appeared in “The Rich Are Always With Us,” “So Big,” “The Dark Horse,” “The Cabin in the Cotton,” “Three on a Match” and “Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing.” Then, while Warner Bros. waited for the public’s reaction to these roles, she indulged in that personal appearance tour, marriage and appendicitis. In “Ex-Lady,” Bette has the. role of an ultra-modern young woman who wants love without the formality of marriage, and especially without babies. It is a strange but lively drama written by David Boehm and based on the story by Edith Fitzgerald and Robert Riskin. Others in the cast include Gene Raymond, Frank MeHugh, Monroe Owsley, Claire Dodd and Kay Strozzi. Robert Florey directed. > with GENE RAYMOND and MONROE OWSLEY. Bette Davis, new star sensation, and Monroe Owsley as they appear in the ultra-modern “Ex-Lady.” Also praminent in the cast are Frank McHugh, Gene Raymond and Claire Dodd. Cut No.6 Cut 30c Mat roc Advance Feature Asking Star of “Ex-Lady” About Role, Difficult Job Bette Davis Frankly Discusses Daring Role She _ Portrays in Her First Starring Film By Frank Daugherty T had seemed a hard thing to do — to ask Bette Davis if she had liked the role she had just finished in ‘‘Ex-Lady,”’ a Warner Bros. picture, which comes to the Theatre on It’s a difficult question at any time. It was especially diffi eult this time. The role itself made it difficult. It was that sort of role. The ‘‘Ex-Lady’’ girl was extremely modern. She neither wanted to get married nor | to have babies. “She haa floutea:. the conventions, and then finally had capitulated to the order of society at the instigation of all the other important people in the picture, ineluding her lover and her own family. Bette Davis herself had that situation to face a few months ago and settled it by marrying a long, lean Boston boy. There seemed only one thing she could answer to a question implying that there might still be a choice between two such roles for her. But the question was put never theless. “Do you approve of Helen Bauer?” she was asked. Helen Bauer was the girl in “ExLady.” “T certainly do,’ was the surprising answer. There was but one thing to do after that. If she approved of Helen Bauer, she must have reasons. Bette isn’t the sort of girl who does things blindly. True To Life Character “T certainly do,” she repeated after “Why not? She did some silly things, but she was real, she was genuine. She knew what she wanted, and she was willing to fight But she couldn’t lick the Maybe, when things are a a time. for it. world. little more evenly adjusted between men and women it will be easier for a girl of Helen’s nature to get the things she desires.” “What are those things, precisely?” she was asked. “And how will the modern girl go about getting them ?”’ She laughed. There was a wise twinkle in her eye. “Please remember that I’m speaking for Helen,” she said. “I don’t want you to think I’m speaking for Bette Davis. Well, what she wants, of course, is freedom. She never will be satisfied until she has every weht thst 9. w.4. hee Oe wili be satisfied u she can” do” everything that a man ean do. “In other words, women have tasted freedom. They want the inequality to be, not between men and but between exceptional men and women and merely men and The exceptional woman should have the same opportunities and the same freedom to develop them that the exceptional man has. She hasn’t got it now. But she won’t rest until shesdoes get it.” women, women. “That’s what Helen Bauer wanted?” “That’s what Helen Bauer wanted.” “How about Bette Davis?” Bette Davis Different “Oh” — deprecatingly — “that’s different. I’ve already got marriage. I like it too. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. But if you mean babies, and being tied down by home problems, that’s another thing. I don’t want babies yet. I don’t even think about them. There’ll be time enough for them when I give up working.” “And that will be when?” “When I’m ready, young man — and go along about your business. I’m not going to tell you any more. That’s about all you need to know for this time.” She was laughing, but underneath there was a note of seriousness. It appeared as if Bette Davis has already learned the first thing the modern woman will have to know to be free — how to keep her own counsel. “Ex-Lady” is a lively romance in which the young lady flouts the conventions of marriage. It is based on the story by Edith Fitzgerald and Robert Riskin and was adapted by David Boehm. In the cast with Miss Davis are Gene Raymond, Frank McHugh, Monroe Owsley, Claire Dodd and Kay Strozzi. The direction is by Robert Florey.