Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

116 SCREENL AND The New Mr. and Mrs. Continued from page 27 Thought ful of Adrienne Ames, who's trying to "brush off" Charles "Buddy" Rogers. But Buddy, who's a good lad, likes to keep away from dives. Not that he isn't a regular guy — in fact, he's going to continue in his new he-man character by being a devil-dog, no less, in "Come On, Marines.'" Adrienne will play opposite him in the picture. The Powell-Lombard marriage should prove to be ideally happy. Each has been married before. Each knows the pitfalls to avoid. Neither is a poseur, which among the Hollywood professionals is a somewhat extraordinary thing. And then again the matter of money — wrecker of many homes — need never bother them. Miss Lombard has a comfortable income, inherited and earned. Powell, influenced most of his life by the fear of poverty, has a well-invested fortune. And both are earning plenty every week. Powell's fear of penury lays him wide open for Freudian analysis. Often he has said: 'The one great horror of my life is the thought of an impoverished old age." Perhaps there's another reason for his marriage. Perhaps but not quite likely. Powell's wedding day was typical of his temperament and of hers, his wife's. Neither likes ostentation. Both despise sham and show. Those few who knew when and where the ceremony was to take place were pLedged to secrecy — and they kept their secret. The few newspaper men who found out about it did so by the simple process of putting related facts together. They observed that the bride-to-be did not leave her home in Beverly Hills all day. Watching the house they also observed that a florist's truck backed up to the door in the late afternoon. The omnipresent press, then, was the only uninvited element at the ceremony. A small roomful of friends and relatives stood by. Miss Lombard's wedding dress was a simple blue chiffon. A shoulder-piece of orchids was the only bit of bridal finery. Powell wore a business suit. Short and simple was the keynote of the rite. And so it was that Hollywood's prize bachelor took the dive. Barrymore's Real Ambition — Continued from page 59 robe department what he must have in the way of costume. For instance, in filming "Svengali," he decided upon an interpretation of the role which he thought was more on the order of what was intended by du Maurier when he wrote the book "Trilby" from which "Svengali" has been adapted. It is a less villainous Svengali than theatre-goers have known, and in planning make-up and costume, Barrymore had his own ideas which he sketched for the guidance of the wardrobe, property, and make-up staffs. The actor invariably puts his ideas on paper, and more often than not on drawing paper. He has found that it helps to keep down his swearing average and is more conducive to efficiency. His talent as an amateur artist — certainly by this time he has regained his amateur standing — takes him off on cruises on his yacht, Infanta. On his wedding trip with Dolores Costello Barrymore he kept the log, and decorated it with drawings of the strange people, fish and ports that he saw. Barrymore does not profess to be a scientist, but he has, quite incidentally, done a few scientific errands in his frequent cruises between pictures. It works out nicely for Barrymore and for the scientists who are his friends : he finds a peculiar water animal and he is delighted because it is something to sketch, and of course, the One of John Barrymore's character drawings. The subject? No, not a Hollywood extra, but a native of Central America. biologists are well pleased to have a new specimen. As to his subjects picked from the human race, Barrymore is more interested in the quaint and grotesque than in the ordinary, commonplace, and generally beautiful. In the Latin-American countries he found many characters that appealed to him as desirable subjects. He would pay them to pose for him while he attempted to catch their mood and character on his sketching pad. And it is safe to say that none of these subjects knew the identity of the persistent and somewhat eccentric gentleman who did funny things on a piece of paper with a pencil while they tried to remain still and hold the pose. Few of his drawings have ever reached the public print. Barrymore completes them and puts them away. Some of them he frames and hangs on the wall of his study for his own amusement. These his friends see. He especially favors his sketches of himself as "Don Juan" and his latest one as "Svengali." During the filming of "Svengali" he would study the sketch each morning before donning his make-up. But after all is said and done, it is more or less an open secret that Barrymore's favorite drawing power has nothing to do with Art. Most of all he likes to draw at the box-office !