Screenland (May-Oct 1930)

110 SCREENLAND "How I hate Hollywood!" was Kay John' son's moan while she was making "Dynamite." Charles Bickford used to join in the chorus when she strafed the place, too. "Pictures are simply unspeakable! I get myself worked up and into a scene and just as I feel I'm good, a camera man says: 'There's a light on her chin!' or the sound crew breaks in with 'Watch that mike!' and it must all be done over. Then we go into the 'dejection room' and I see my self up there unbelievably bad. What a business!" she would say. "A factory — not an art!" Charles would growl. Conrad Nagel would smile. "Oh, how familiar! I used to talk like that once!" he would murmur. His is the last laugh, for today Kay Johnson admits that talkies are not so dreadful, and that her Beverly Hills home and garden are ideal. She says she makes the best chocolate pie ever tasted and swings the meanest tennis racquet on the courts. New York knew her as an ultra-smart sophisticate. "But you live and learn!" smiles Kay. As for Charles Bickford: Talking pictures, he has discovered, don't interfere with his greatest love, the sea. He owns a controlling interest in two Pacific Coast whaling ships and spends much time in San Pedro Harbor. He also owns and manages four garages and filling stations, a restaurant and an animal farm which rents animals for pictures. He lives right on the ocean front and swims every morning, summer and winter, wears sneakers, white ducks and sweater, drives a lowslung topless roadster and snarls when anyone suggests his going back to New York. However, being still an independent thinker, he disagrees with everything anyone says on any subject. So I suppose he's happy. Marguerite Churchill, famed as the youngest leading lady in New York, had never stepped off a pavement in her life until she came to the film city. Now she is living in a tent on the floor of a great desert, or in a cabin among high mountain crags for Raoul Walsh's "Big Trail." She is still sweet and dignified and delightful and has as many beaux as any girl in Hollywood. "This home life stuff," as Marjorie White puts it, .seems to have the most tremendous pulling power for all stage stars. Marjorie has lived all her life since going on the stage at the age of four in 'the top of the trunk' and can't get over the wonder of having a lawn to sprinkle, a kitchen to cook in and a house to play with. Her idea of a wonderful time is to fix up shelves, make a cake or plant something. Even if the shelves have to be taken down Can it be that Charlie Ruggles is inebriated again? Anyway, it's all in the interests of "Queen High" his next comedy. next day, nobody can eat the cake and the .stuff she plants dies, Marjorie adores it. Chorus to above consists of Frank Fay and Barbara Stanwyck, his wife; Fannie Brice; El Brendel; and Jeanette MacDonald. Jeanette says the special thing she doesn't like about Hollywood is early rising. She used to go to bed at one a m. and get up around noon next day when the stage claimed her. In spite of having to be on the set at the studio at nine a. m., she's never really awake before afternoon. What to do? What to do? The dark side of the page was turned to Paul Muni, one of the finest of American actors, whose two pictures flopped badly. Whether he will continue in talkies or return to the stage is not yet decided. Success averted her face also from Catherine Dale Owen, who seems unable to live down the cruel treatment of a New York reviewer: "Lawrence Tibbett's glorious voice poured out in adoration of the Spirit of Frigidaire." Everett Marshall observes that it is much harder to work in Hollywood, because there are so many other things to do. It's easy to put on weight, and it's difficult to get in enough practice with the voice. John Boles, though, likes the California ease. He says he used to struggle so hard in New York to get nowhere that it's grand not to have to slave and yet to keep on mounting higher. Another group of ex-Broadway-ites now chanting paeans of praise of home life with patios, swimming pools and other accessories, are the James Gleason family, Robert Armstrong, Anthony Bushell and Zelma O'Neal, Ralf Harolds, David Manners and Alexander Gray. Bernice Claire and Dorothy Lee are California girls who merely spent a year or so in New York. Bernice found it stimulating there, but Dorothy felt as if she were living on a merry-go-round where everybody hurried all the time. James Rennie says it costs less to live well in Hollywood and life is less monotonous here. He spends his leisure in his car and thinks it will take a quantity of leisure to cover all the interesting places he wants to see. If the screen likes him as well as he likes California, he's staying. Joining the gang that warbles of the happiness of homes, Robert Woolsey of RKO set out and bought one on a hilltop. Then he acquired a Lincoln car. After the Woolseys were settled, it was discovered that the Lincoln was too big for the garage. "So I guess I'll have to put the Lincoln in the house and move into the garage!" sighs Robert. A SINGING LESSON — Continued from page 29 for the reinforcement of the vibration. Therefore, one should study the elimination of muscular interference before trying to develop breathing power. Why lay stress upon breathing until the instrument through which the breath must pass is open and controlled? Breathing is one of the most natural things in the world but the over-development of it is one of the most dangerous factors. This over-development forces more breath through the vocal instrument than there is room for. Muscular contraction is the result; thereby developing muscular action instead of eliminating it. It is not the source of breathing which should be controlled at first, but the outlet. To get the tone really forward, clear and silvery, is then a matter of elimination. One by one all interferences must be eliminated, until there is a clear open passage through which the vibration can flow. This can be done by slow, careful, and wellthought-out work. Next, in our singing lesson, comes diction, a result of the activity of the jaw. We cannot enunciate clearly without action. The mouth must open and close vitally (that ever-important word) and quickly. For example, one can not dance gracefully if one drags one's feet. They must be vital. Just as each step has its own position, so has each word its distinct and definite position. One word is not carried into the next. There is a separate action for each word. It almost resolves itself into athletics, doesn't it? These same athletics are what we call technique. We can never afford to lose our technique in singing. Singing is really a self-creative art and much mental work must be accomplished with the control of the physical in order to interpret intelligently the creative art of the poet and composer. Learn to sing and speak with vitalization and relaxation, and sooner or later you will be a singer. The correct position of the mouth is one of the secrets that all great singers have known, yet it is something that many teachers neglect to stress. Long lectures are given about the nasal cavities and passages so that the voice will be forward. Real forward placement will follow as night follows day if the mouth and throat are open and the breath is allowed to flow freely. Practice the exercises given here on the vowel sound between the Italian "AW" and the American "AH" (I admit I am giving you something hard to do, but it can be done!) Practice the scales on dore-me, etc.; think constantly of the vitalization of your entire being, and you will attain your singing dreams.