We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
34
SCREENL AND
How Marian Marsh was picked by Barrymore to play in "Svengali"
Won out of Sixty!
MARIAN MARSH is still stunned ! Nothing as sudden or fantastic ever happened to her hefore.
She's leading lady to John Barrymore ! Playing Trilby to the noted actor's "Svengali" at seventeen. Glory enough for any girl, isn't it? And here is the how and why of it all. Just listen. The scene is Hollywood, of course. Gray-eyed and demure, a girl of seventeen named Marian Marsh has rushed to the Warner Studios at Burbank in answer to an urgent telephone call. She does not know what's in the wind, for she has completed her last picture and has no production schedule for at least a week. Very little is said. She is bundled into the luxurious studio car with the bare explanation that John Barrymore wishes to look her over.
Marian has an inkling — no more than that. Hollywood gossip has been busy for some time over the impasse of John Barrymore, who can't find the right girl for his leading lady for "Svengali," based on the Du Maurier novel of Paris studio life, "Trilby."
The car sped on swiftly, smoothly, through the miles of country road, past opulent estates, till it reached that of John Barrymore. The chauffeur opened the door. Marian was led into the house with its silence bespeaking the illness of its owner. She ascended the stairs, her heart in her mouth at the ordeal she knew awaited her.
A discreet knock, a "come in" from the temporarily muffled stellar voice, and Marian stood before Barrymore. He was in bed, his handsome head embowered in
Sixty actresses were after the role of Trilby. This little girl got it
By
Brian Herbert
a mass of plump pillows.
Marian stood stock still, feeling the stage-fright which she had known only the first day she faced a camera. But something in the Barrymore smile, his friendly appraisal of her, his obvious interest, disarmed her; and before long she was at her ease, feeling equal to the situation, and determined that she would make a good impression ; so much depended upon it! Trilby or not Trilby!
Barrymore questioned her. What parts had she played? He knew her work in "Fifty Million Frenchmen" and "God's Gift to Women." And yes, he remembered liking a glimpse of her in "Whoopee." Did she think she would like to play the part of a Paris studio model? She thought she would. And all the while he was interrogating her, the shrewd eyes of Barrymore were watching her poise, her carriage, her photographic possibilities.1" And all the while, too. his eyes roved from her to the batch of photographic "stills" in his hands which the studio had sent for his study, photographs showing Marian in a variety of poses.
After what seemed an interminable period, Barrymore nodded. He had made up his mind. He assured her she was the girl he had been looking for, and that he would inform the studio that he wanted her to be his leading lady for "Svengali."
And that was how Marian jumped to fame. At the Warner Studio the cameras are whirring and the microphones picking up the speech of Barrymore, completely recovered from the fever he (Continued on page 107)