Too Young to Know (Warner Bros.) (1945)

et A hed ee ed, Pe ee Pe ee es eT A OE A lt tS ee ee a hw ee a ee he Joan Leslie’s Fame Is Result Of Hard Work Joan Leslie was given her first chance to appear on the stave at the age of two because she could sing. Thirteen years later. she was signed for her first motion picture because she could act. Today, at the height of her career, she is a triple-threat star as an actress, dancer, and singer. Currently she is holding forth in the straight dramatic acting category in Warners’ “Too Young To Know” at the Strand, in which she is co-starred with Robert Hutton. The titian-haired young lady joined the trouping ranks by substituting for a temperamental five-year-old prima donna who refused to sing “Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella.” The two-year-old Joan confounded both those behind the vaudeville scenes as well as the large audience by proving that lack of age was no handicap to a born actress. She put the song over successfully. Still JL 894 <S so Mat No. 201—30c Heading the cast of Warner Bros.’ new comedy-romance, “Too Young To Know," which opens on Friday at the Strand, is lovely young Joan Leslie. Co-starred with her is Robert Hutten, while Dolores Moran, Rosemary DeCamp and Harry Davenport are featured in the supporting cast. The thirteen-year interval between her first appearance on the stage and her start in motion pictures was spent learning every phase of show business. Accompanied by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Brodel, and together with her two older sisters, Mary and Betty, she appeared in vaudeville up and down the East Coast from Quebec, Canada, to Miami, Florida. After years of vaudeville, the Brodels decided to remain in New York where Joan became a photographer’s model, sang over the radio, and appeared in night clubs. When Joan was fifteen, a talent scout watched her perform as part of a sister act with Mary and Betty at the Paradise, a New York night club. Almost immediately afterward, Joan was Hollywood-bound. Her first screen role was in the Greta Garbo starrer, “Camille,” produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her work in the film won her a contract with Warner Bros. where she has remained ever since. Since 1941, Joan has starred in many of the greatest pictures produced by the studio, playing opposite some of Hollywood’s finest actors. She was Gary Cooper’s sweetheart in “Sergeant York” and James Cagney’s wife in the unforgettable “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” When Warner Bros. decided to raise funds for the Army Emergency Relief by putting on celluloid Irving Berlin’s “This Is The Army,” Joan was entrusted with the feminine lead. So successful was the picture that when “Hollywood Canteen” was filmed, Joan again was given the leading feminine role. 4 Her versatility has become a byword in Hollywood where versatility is not uncommon. She arrived as a dramatic actress in “The Hard Way,” in which she starred with Dennis Morgan, Ida Lupino, and Jack Carson; she proved herself a songstress in “Hollywood Canteen” and “Rhapsody in Blue’; RKO considered her a proficient enough dancer to keep up with Fred Astaire in “The Sky’s The Limit;” and as the star of the forthcoming “Janie Gets Married,” her flair for comedy is amply demonstrated. Joan, whose red hair might conceivably be traced to her Irish ancestry, was born in Detroit in 1925. She was educated there at St. Benedict’s School, at Our Lady of Lourdes in Toronto, and at Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles. She is proficient in French and Spanish, a large part of which she learned. from teachers at the Warner studios while working in pictures. Joan is one of the few really home-loving girls in filmland. She prefers to stay home with her family, loves to cook, and enjoys curling up in a chair with a good book. She knows the name of everyone on the set from the lowest grip ‘to her co-star. She can tell you, and frequently does, how many kids Mike, the electrician, has and how old they are. And when Mike, or Joe, or Pat, or anyone else around you care to name is asked what he thinks of Joan, his face will light up and he’ll bend your ear into a pretzel. Once a trouper, he’ll say, always a trouper. Joan Leslie Cuts Up; Nicks Hutton On Chin During the filming of Warners’ “Too Young To Know,” currently playing at _ the Strand, Robert Hutton narrowly missed being severely cut by flying glass when Joan Leslie slammed an office door in his face, as required by the script. Joan slammed the door so hard that the panel broke, sending shattered glass in Hutton’s direction. Luckily, he got off with only a nick in the chin. Robert Hutton Is Rough And Tough In New Film Role Robert Hutton, a shy young fellow in real life, will shortly emerge as something of a tough guy on the screen when Warners’ “Too Young .To Know,” in which he co-stars with Joan Leslie, opens on Friday at the Strand. After three or four pictures in which he was more or less his real self, ne will now appear as a fiery-tempered husband. In the romantic comedy Joan Leslie feels the brunt of his temper —but Hutton doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe that’s because he can recall a number of other topnotchers of the celluloid who rese to the top of the cinematic pile despite a certain amount of manhandling of their screen women. There is James Cagney, for instance. In “Public Enemy,” he shoved half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face and made her like it. Audiences accepted Cagney despite this. And, later, while playing opposite Bette Davis in “The Bride Came C.O.D.,” Cagney not only upset her on a cactus bush but added insult to injury by shooting her with a slingshot. tenes Lob Money,” Ed son literally kicked Margaret Livingston out of a door, and Miriam Hopkins got some pretty rough treatment from him in ‘SBra-vepeae wey. Coast.” In one of his Robert Hutton early pictures, Clark Gable, playing a_ taxi driver, gave Barbara Stanwyck a lot of shoving around. Yet, he rose from this film, “Night Nurse,” to become one of Hollywood’s most popular actors. Humphrey Bogart, who generally limits his rough-andready treatment to men, gave Ann Sheridan more than one unpleasant moment in “It All Came True,” the Warner film which is currently enjoying a nationwide re-release. And that picture helped, rather than hindered, his career. Alan Ladd moved ahead rapidly after doing several roles in which he wore the label of “tough guy;” and Dick Powell, once a well-mannered crooner, hurtled into public popularity as the hardened detective in “Murder, My Sweet.” Helmut Dantine in the recent “Hotel Berlin” was not content with just pushing his sweetheart,Andrea King, around. He went whole hog and killed her wih a German luger. But the public likes him more than ever, judging from his recent fan mail. Hutton has reviewed these antics of his fellow actors. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t mind being a bit nasty with Miss Leslie when, after their divorce, he learns she has permitted another couple to adopt their only child. Mat No. 105—15c Joan Leslie Recalls Hectic Schoolroom Days Joan Leslie, the recently graduated high school girl, who was not discovered by a Warner talent scout while perched on a stool at a Hollywood drug store fountain inhaling an ice cream soda through a straw, may never become a great actress, but in her infancy she brushed the hem of greatness. That was in 1934, when she was trying unsuccesstully to become another Shirley Temple and went to school with Mickey Rooney on the Metro lot. Freddie Bartholomew was also in the class, but if Joan can just be remembered by posterity as the little girl who went to school with Mickey Rooney, she will be satisfied. “Of course, Freddie was better looking,” Joan said reminiscently, when interviewed about this academic matter recently in her dressing room at Warners’ during the filming of “Too Young To Know,” that studio’s new romantic comedy now playing at the Strand. “But there was something about Mickey that would have brought out the mother in almost any little girl with pigtails. For one thing, his hair would never stay combed and it made you want to help him when he struggled with it. Then he was in such a hurry all the time that he always seemed te be getting mixed up in his arms and legs and things. No, I shall never forget my school days with that strange and fascinating little boy if I live to be a hundred.” If Joan does live to be a hundred, there’s no telling what she may have done by that time in the way of high-class Thespianism—maybe played Hedda Gabler, or Lady Macbeth. She is just Irish enough not to be able to recognize a limitation if she met one in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, or, rather, if she did meet one, would probably translate it rapidly into a shining asset. For instance, a sweet, unsophisticated visage might be considered a handicap by most talented young actresses in this day and age, but as Gary Cooper’s mountain sweetheart in “Sergeant York,” the girl converted this daring difference into an avalanche of fan mail. She is always acquiring some new accomplishment to keep her directors happy. In “The Hard Way,” for example, she rhumbaed as rompingly as Hayworth. In “Hollywood Canteen” she warbled as sweetly as Jo Stafford. Now, in “Too Stili 643-16 Mat No. 111—15c SO IN LOVE are Robert Hutton and Joan Leslie, sweethearts again in Warners’ bright new romantic-com edy, ‘Too Young Te Know,'' now playing at the Strand. Young To Know,” in which she co-stars with Robert Hutton, she contributes a dramatic performance as expert as any of the screen’s top dramatic actiesses. Joan can pose in the act of licking a lollypop with every appearance of enjoying an experience which, to most of Hollywood’s young ladies, would be equivalent to kissing a king cobra; but she can also look exciting in a cocktail gown. Moreover, she ean do funny imitations of Wendy Hiller, George Ailiss, Garbo, Zasu Pitts and others whom you would recognize at a glance, and she’s a great little clothes model, in addition to the fact that she knows how to make a heroine look just perfectly lyrical in a calico dress and undone hair. In Tune Still 643-44 Mat No. 210—30c There is a love song on Joan Leslie's lips as she shares a musical interlude with Robert Hutton in the above scene from Warners' new comedy-romance, "Too Young To Know," which arrives Friday at the Strand.