Screenland (May–Oct 1927)

well these days and is glad to be back in Hollywood from the East. Vilma Banky I saw in tears as she descended from a trapeze where she has been playing for some authentic close-ups in a dangerous position for a highly paid star. Forty feet up looks a good deal farther down when you sit on a trapeze, swinging back and forth while Henry King, the director, and a cameraman superintend from a nearby platform. When I watched her Vilma didn't even have a net underneath. She had been working for more than an hour on the trapeze, enough to disturb the nerves of anybody. She and Rod La Rocque plan to be married not later than June. I visited Rod in his dressing room on a nearby set on the same afternoon and listened to a great deal about Vilma. In the four years I have known Rod, it's the first time I ever heard him talk like that. He is making "Brigadier Gerard" for De Mille right now. "When we both finish our pictures,1'' he said, "we're going to to take a month off and get married." Rod doesn't think there is any chance of his playing in a picture with Vilma before their marriage. By the way Vilma told me that her father, John Cincit, who is still in Europe, is having the family name changed to Banky, in honor of her success. But I must get on . . . Noah Beery has bought 1,000,000 fish. Hollywood C[ Betty Coinpson and John Gilert in "Twelve Miles Out". C[ Sally Blane, Par am o u nt junior star with her little sister. C[ Ernest Torrence as a rum runner in "Twelve Miles Out". C[ Lupe Velez leading lady with Douglas Fairbanks in "The Gaucho". is going to eat them, but it will have to catch them first. Noah is backing a brook trout club about 90 miles from Los Angeles, in which the film stars will be invited to buy memberships. From his real estate turnovers alone, Beery has recently become a rich man. Dick Barthelmess is going to have a good picture this time they say. "The Patent Leather Kid" is many weeks behind schedule due to bad weather in a training camp where they shot the war scenes, but I hear only good reports. And his leading lady, Molly O'Day, younger sister to Sally O'Neil, is said to register like a dramatic actress of long experience in the heavy scenes of the film. It is her first too. Dick was at the opening of "The King of Kings" at Grauman's new Chinese Theater with Adela Rogers St. John, the novelist, who adapted the story of "The Patent Leather Kid". Lon Chaney, I found out for the first time this month, has a grown son, Creighton T. Chaney, who lives in Hollywood. There is probably less known about Chaney's private life than about that of any other star in the industry. He never attends openings, theaters, banquets, or any gathering places of the film set. His mystery is as great in Hollywood as it is in Oshkosh. Eddie Carewe, the producer, and his wife, Mary Akin, are expecting another visit of the stork this fall. Their young daughter, Sally Ann, is one of the belles of film babydom. Dolores Del Rio, with '"What Price Glory", "Resurrection", "Carmen" and "The Trail of J^inety Eight" behind her is preparing to start on "Ramona" , which Eddie Carewe promises will be her biggest picture to date. By the way Fox has been juggling with the title of "Carmen" and, I understand, with the cutting of it. As it was previewed the other night, I am informed that Victor McLaglen, instead of Dolores, had most of the scenes. But changes will be made, they say, restoring a more even balance. This is McLaglen's first big role since he played Captain Flagg 69