Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

for July 1931 ■ 1 N Cinderella, who has the better This story will surprise you Tildesley Joan Crawford put herself through school by working for board and tuition. She worked for dancing lessons, too, and had inserted herself into a musical comedy chorus on Broadway when Harry Rapf of Metro-Goldwyn saw her and sent her west with a contract. She didn't step into big parts at once, though ; she learned her business in the years before she was starred. In answer to "What qualifications are necessary to break into talkies?" Edward Everett Horton replies : "A good voice is a help, and it's well to be beautiful, but the most important thing is to be born with the right relations !" The Bennett girls, Constance and Joan, Russell Gleason, Leila Hyams and Kay Francis followed his advice by selecting stage parents. Constance married millions, as well. And besides that, she was chosen by that infallible star-picker, Sam Goldwyn, for her first picture. Connie was attending an Equity Ball when Sam's eagle eye fell upon her. He gave her the flapper role in "Cytherea" and she ran off with the show. A father, mother or other relation can further any youngster's career, even when said relative isn't in favor of it. Witness Kay Francis, whose mother, Kathleen Clinton of repertoire fame, wanted her to go into the business world. Kay didn't finish her business course. She went to her mother's stage friends and got a job behind the footlights. Neither Irene Dunne nor Richard Dix, of "Cimarron," had influential relations. Irene was rich and Richard poor. Both won fame first on the stage. Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were poor boys. Which might prove or a handi cap screen success? Janet Gaynor is one of our Cinder ellas. She worked a shoe store before she won her silver slipper! Hard work made Joan Crawford — right, above — the success she is today. And she is still working. From rags to riches is Clara Bow's success story. She literally fough t her way up to stardom. something — only Amos "n" Andy were half 'n' half, Amos being rich and Andy poor ! Of the names that have endured through the years, the children of the poor have the best of it. There's Charlie Chaplin, born in London's slums ; Harold Lloyd, a country boy ; Wallace and Xoah Beery, who knew bitter poverty in the mid-west; Jack Mulhall, who was a grocery boy at Wappingers Falls, Xew York ; Betty Compson, who acted as maid in a time of financial stress : Bebe Daniels, who knew the rigors of cheap four-a-day vaudeville as a child: Marie Dressier, acknowledged character queen of screenland today, who left a poor home at the age of thirteen to win her well-earned crown; and Louise Fazenda. who has been a consistent favorite for fifteen years. Louise was the child of poor people. As a very small girl, she sold newspapers outside the Arcade in Los Angeles, helped deliver groceries from her father's store, and took care of babies whose mothers had to go out. Though they were very poor, (Continued on page 122) Harold Lloyd was a poor country boy. Now his income is in the vicinity of $30,000 a week — nice vicinity, too!