Gentlemen Are Born (Warner Bros.) (1934)

Jean Muir Has 5 Year Plan For Motion Picture Career Feminine Lead In “‘Gentlemen Are Born’ Wants To Make $250,000 By 1939 By CARLISLE JONES J xc MUIR, who has the leading feminine role in the First National production, ‘‘Gentlemen Are Born, ’? now show ing Ae. Theatre, has a five-year-plan of her own. If, at the end of that time, she has $250,000 in cash and investments, she will consider her motion picture career a suc cess. Then she will quit pictures at once and for all time. If she finds she can’t make that much money in the time she has allotted herself, she may quit them immediately, leave Hollywood flat and return to New York and the genteel poverty she enjoyed there while waiting for her chance for fame on the stage. “<7 don’t want all that for myself,’’ she explains, crisply. ‘‘I know that I will never need more than a hundred dollars a week to live on—no matter how much I make. But I want an _ equal amount of income for my family, so that I needn’t worry about them anymore. Stardom The Answer ‘*T figure that I need about $100,000 to assure myself an income of $100 a week. Then I should have as much more for the family. The other $50,000 would be protection for emergencies.’’ Miss Muir is very definite in her own mind about the finances of her career. ““That is why I’ve got to have stardom -——immediate stardom,’’ ~she explains, seriously. ‘‘Only as a star can I make so much money in so short a time. And I don’t intend to spend my whole life at it. Just five years, all told. ‘‘Of course there are other reasons why I want stardom at once. Only a star—a real star, not just a half-way one—can do what she wants to do in pictures. And if I can’t do what I want to do, I just won’t stay in Hollywood, that’s all. ‘CA star can have the director she wants. A star can demand the story that is suited to her. A star can say ‘no’ when a director wants her to do something she knows is wrong, and make it stick. ““That’s why I want stardom! Tt isn’t just the money, really it isn’t. *¢Stardom is the only thing that will make it worth while for me to stay here for five years—or even another six months. It takes only one picture, you know. But it has to be just the right one. Won’t Fit In Pattern “*Tf I can’t have my way about these things and if I can’t make enough money to keep myself and my family comfortable for the rest of our lives, then Hollywood isn’t worth while, so far as I’m Margaret Lindsay Claims She Can Read the Future Feminine Lead In *“‘Gentlemen Are Born” Has Psychic Hunches On Coming Events N HIGHBROW circles they eall it ‘“‘being psychic.’’ On Broadway, it’s known as ‘‘getting a hunch.’’ Margaret Tiindsay has no desire to be ealled or considered ‘‘psychie,’’ but whether they are called hunches, premonitions, shadows of coming events, or the intuitive prescience of the feminine sex, singular flashes of foresight have played an important part in her life on numerous oceasions. ““It happened to me again only the other day,’’ said the charming brunette actress, one afternoon during the production of ‘‘Gentlemen Are Born,’’ the First Nation al picture now showing at the Theatre, in which she has the leading role opposite Franchot Tone. ‘*T had been considered —practically cast—for another production. I had taken a costume test, and matters had gone so far that the costumes were being designed and special coiffures worked out. ‘*T woke up very suddenly one morning, with a definite feeling that when I got to the studio, I was going to hear that the whole thing was off, as far as that particular picture was concerned. “*T met Pere Westmore, chief make-up artist. ‘“¢Tt’s off,’ he grinned. ‘You’re going to ‘‘Gentlemen Are Born,?’ I hear.’ ‘“That’s a comparatively small example of what has happened to me ever since I was in school,’’ Miss Lindsay went on. ‘‘ During school days, I was active in all of the class enterprises, social, dramatic, athletic and so on. For some reason or other, I was often one of the candidates in an election for class President or some other office. ‘‘Tnvariably, I knew—-days before the elections were held— whether I was going to win or lose in the race. ‘“T had the same experience in connection with that much-publicized part in ‘Cavaleade.’ ‘“Before I went to the studio that day to take the crucial test, it suddenly came to me, quite clearly and definitely, that I was going to pass the test. From that moment, I ceased to worry about it, ‘*The most striking experience of that kind that I have had recently was the night Janet Gaynor’s house was robbed, while Miss Gaynor and her mother were out of town. ‘<That particular evening I had planned to go to her apartment and spend the night; it had been a trying day on the set, and I wanted to get away and be alone. ‘“ After dinner, I actually started from my own apartment to drive over to Jayet’s. I hadn’t gone two blocks fram the house when I suddenly got the feeling that it wasn’t the thing to do. I] found myself unearthing all kinds of reasons for not going there. After about ten minutes of that hesitation, I turned the car around, and drove to a hotel for the night. ‘“Next morning, the newspapers carried the story of the robbery _at the Gaynor home. “*¥ don’t pretend to be able to concerned. I’ll go back to New York and live on six dollars a week, like I did. ‘“T was happy then, anyway. ‘*T appreciate the nice apartment I have here which I didn’t have in New York. I enjoy knowing that I have a maid at home who will have my dinner cooked when I get back from work and am tired. “*Tf I left Hollywood now and went back to New York, I couldn’t have any of these things. But I will go back unless I get what I’m after. ‘“‘¥’m not unhappy here. I’m just not happy. I’m not content to just move along slowly. It’s a stardom or nothing. It’s useless to try to fit me into the regular Hollywood pattern. I won’t fit... I’ just go home! ’’ In her year or so in pictures, Miss Muir has managed to irritate many of the ‘‘best minds’’ and several important people, ineluding two or three of her directors. ‘‘She is stubborn and opinionated,’’? declared one _ director. ‘“She thinks she knows more than everybody else on the set put together. But don’t mistake me. She’s intelligent. She will almost certainly be a star—in spite of everything. ’’ Wants To Give Orders No matter what she is asked to do, whether it is to pose for a portrait or appear at a benefit for flood sufferers, she has invariably answered the question with other questions. ‘‘Would Ruth Chatterton do that?’’ she demands. ‘‘ Would you expect Katharine Hepburn to go? Does Ann Harding pose like that?’’ She considers Jimmy Cagney her best friend in Hollywood. **T want the kind of stardom he has,’’ she declares. ‘‘Full stardom. Nobody tells him. He tells them.’’ explain what takes place when these ‘hunches’ come to me, but they do happen, and I have learned to pay attention to them. They haven’t fooled me yet.’’ Besides Margaret Lindsay and Franchot Tone, the east of ‘*Gentlemen Are Born’? includes Jean Muir, Ann Dvorak, Ross Alexander, Robert Light, Marjorie Gateson, Nick Foran and Henry O’Neill. Alfred E. Green directed the production from the screen play by Eugene Solow and Robert Lee Johnson, based on Johnson’s original story. A Handsome Lad Now isn’t he, girls? He’s Franchot Tone, leading man of “Gentlemen Are Born” the sensational First National drama which throws a new light on the question, ‘‘After College — What?” The film is coming to the: ee Theatre soon. Mat No. 10—10¢ Three Of A Kind The three sweet, personable young ladies above are friends of yours; Margaret Lindsay, Jean Muir and Ann Dvorak. They can be seen any time this week at the ...... ear Theatre in First National’s “Gentlemen Are Born,” the drama of four boys who thought that all they needed to conquer the world was a college degree. The gentlemen in question are Franchot Tone, Ross Alexander, Nick Foran and Robert Light. Mat No. 3—20c She had three years of stage experience in a Columbus, Ohio, stock company and on Broadway, as Jean Muir Fullerton, followed a normal education and a year spent in France. She was sent to Hollywood as an unknown. Her name was changed as she was assigned her first role, a small one. Later she was given an important part in ‘‘The World Changes’’ opposite Paul Muni, who is, incidentally, her pick as the best of Hollywood’s actors. In ‘‘As the Earth Turns’’ she played the leading role, just one step removed from the stardom she craves. And now again as the feminine lead in ‘‘Gentlemen Are Born’’ she shares honors with another. But real stardom, Hollywood predicts, is just around the corner. “Gentlemen Are Born’’ is a thrillingly dramatic story by Robert Lee Johnson. It pictures the romance and struggles of four college boys in their battle for success in life. There is an all star cast which includes besides Miss Muir, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Ann Dvorak, Ross Alexander, Nick Foran and Robert Light. Alfred E. Green directed the production from the screen play by Eugene Solow and Robert Lee Johnson. Special musie and lyrics were written by Fain and Kahal. Franchot Tone Gets Kick Out of Playing Poor Boy Lead In “Gentlemen Are Born” Thinks He’s Had Too Many Rich Youth Parts NE of Franchot Tone’s prayers at least, has been answered. Over his fervent but futile protests, Franchot has been called upon to play one rich man’s son after another, until he had disgustedly come to the conclusion that his screen career was doomed to be a tiresome and unbroken succession of millionaires and multi-millionaires. Then came the opportunity to play the leading role in the First National production, ‘‘Gentlemen Are Born,’’ which comes to the Cee ENCOING: Nena and in this he is a poor boy emerging from college with no more tangible riches than a sheepskin of dubious legal tender value—and Franchot jumped at the chance to get away from wealth and aristocracy on the screen. As one of four boys who set out from their alma mater to conquer the world, Franchot Tone’s problems are in every particular the reverse of those he has had to solve in his recent pictures. Instead of being a thrice rich young man braving the displeasure of an autocratic father to marry a beautiful daughter of the people, Franchot is a penniless commoner this time, daring to aspire to the hand of a Wall Street magnate’s daughter. In ‘‘Gentlemen Are Born,’’ he doesn’t have a chanee to get fed up in rapid succession with penthouses, Long Island mansions, hunting lodges and steam yachts. Franchot is tickled to death to have a boarding-house room, a job as a cub reporter on a newspaper and enough money to pay his fare on a Fifth Avenue bus. And—as said before—he’s getting a tremendous kick out of his screen poverty. The added drama of it appeals to him, perhaps because, in real life, Franchot Tone is the son of an industrial magnate, a graduate of the exclusive Hill School and Cornell University, with a course at a French university thrown in for good measure. He knows the life of the rich young man from having been one, and has measured the precise quantity of drama apt to be found in it by his own experience. The glamour of it, so glittering to . those whose knowledge of wealth is derived from novels, is somewhat tarnished and over-rated in his mind. This is not to say that Franchot Tone is doing handsprings on the set in uncontrollable joy over the role he is playing in ‘‘ Gentlemen Are Born.’’ One of the most reticent and undemonstrative men to be found in Hollywood or out of it, Tone does not wear his enthusiasm on his sleeve or parade them in public. ‘‘Gentlemen Are Born’’ is a picture of romance and _ thrills, treating of the battle of four college boys for success. There is an all star cast which includes besides Tone, Jean Muir, Margaret Lindsay, Ann Dvorak, Ross Alexander and Nick Foran. Special music and lyrics were written for the picture by the famous team of Fain and Kahal. Page Five