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for July 19 3 5
way was the way we shot the scene !
"She loves to run away between scenes and play, the little rascal ! She loves to climb things. Sometimes we had the mischief of a time finding her. One day the director got a duck horn from the prop department and told Shirley that whenever he blew it she was to return to the set immediately. That was going to be their private signal, and she didn't have to return until he did blow the horn. Several people had teased her by making her come back on the set before we actually needed her. It was a great system — until someone misplaced that horn ! We sent scouts all over that sound stage trying to find Shirley, calling her to come back ; but she'd been told it wasn't official until the horn blew ! We tried whistles, bells, everything that would make a noise — but no Shirley. I think she'd been hiding yet if we hadn't found that duck horn — at last!
Lyle Talbot — the "heavy" of "Our
Little Girl":
"I'm here to tell you there's nobody like her to work with in Hollywood — man, woman, or child! And frankly, I had to be sold. I've worked with Child Wonders before and in spite of all the encouraging things I'd heard about Shirley, I was distinctly in the frame of mind to be shown. I was!
"The first day I worked on the picture I was late on the set and to cap everything I didn't know my lines very well. As usual, Shirley had hers down pat, and I began to be ashamed that I was keeping the little girl so long before the camera as I continued to muff my cues. Finally, when the director walked away, I turned to Shirley and said : "I'm sorry about all this — but if you'd run through the scene with me just once more I thinl. I'll remember my lines."
"She looked up at me, her little face as serious as an owl's : 'I'll be glad to, Mr. Talbot,' she said, 'I don't know my lines very well, either !'
"Such overwhelming tact from a sixyear-old was more than I could bear. I just grabbed her and hugged her and she hugged right back !
"I play the 'heavy' who is trying to steal
Why We Love Shirley
Continued from page 15
Shirley's mother (Rosemary Ames), from her father (Joel McCrea), in the picture; and finally we came to the big scene where little Shirley stamps her foot and screams at me : 'I hate you, Mr. Brent, I hate you, hate you!'
"It was wonderful the way she threw herself into it. There was something heartbreaking in the emotion she displayed — half rage, half childish dismay. She made the scene so real with her little eyes flashing, her baby's voice breaking with rage, that the entire troupe was impressed, and very quiet, when the scene was finished.
"I remember I went over and sat down and began to study lines for the next scene — when suddenly little Shirley was standing beside me. She put her little hand in mine. 'Listen,' she said, with the tears still streaming down her face, 'I hope you don't think I really hate you, Mr. Talbot. I like you. Those are just lines I have to speak!'
"I was crazy to laugh but she was so little and serious — and so worried that my feelings were hurt. 'Sure, Shirley,' I told her, 'I understand — we're just actors playing our parts.' But she kept holding onto my hand just to prove to the company we were really friends.
"How can you help adoring a child like that?"
Joel McCrea — Hero-Father of "Our Little Girl":
"I hate for this to get back to Jimmy Dunn, who believes he has the inside track to Shirley's heart — but Shirley has proposed to me and I have accepted ! All's fair in love and war, especially where Shirley's concerned ; and so when she told me she was going to marry me when she grew up, what could I do but consent? It's too bad about Jimmy and Frances Dee McCrea — but they'll just have to work it out someway.
"Love her? I'm just crazy about that little kid. But I tried hard not to tip my hand. I couldn't afford to put my heart down for Shirley to tramp on — so I treated her rough. I call her 'Butch' — and she loves it !
"The first time I called her that, she said: 'Joel, why do you call me Butch???' I told her, 'Because you're such a
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wild and desperate-looking character.
" 'Like the desperate characters in 'Little Miss Marker' " ? she wanted to know, flashing those adorable dimples on me. I agreed that was the general idea. 'But I don't look like those desperate characters,' she insisted. 'I don't look like those, Joel !'
" 'Oh, yes, you. do,' I stuck to my guns. 'You don't know how desperate you really look. Mirrors don't always tell the truth !' Every time she'd pass a mirror after that I'd catch her tossing a quick glance to see if she could surprise herself with a desperate expression !
"I wouldn't want this to get to Winchell — but Shirley and I frequently sneaked out for tea together between scenes. Well, tea for me and a big glass of milk for my girl friend. I'm different from Jimmy Dunn that way. He loaded Shirley with gifts — even a little wrist watch and that sort of thing. But I never bought her anything but a glass of milk— and then I told her she ought to be ashamed to not pay her own way in this day and age of feminine independence. One day she asked me : 'Are you poor, Joel ? Haven't you got much money ?'
" 'No,' I told her, 'I'm strapped. It's got me down to my last cent blowing you to milk!' And, believe it or not, the next time we tea'd she brought her little purse along with enough money to pay for her milk and my tea! I ask you!
"Just before the picture was completed a boon befell Shirley — and me — and our future married life together when the school children and good citizens of Tillamook, Oregon, presented Butch with a calf — Tilly Temple, to be exact. Because it is a little difficult to make a household pet of a young cow, Tilly has been turned over to the milk people who will raise her until she is old enough to support Shirley and me in the nice, rich milk we are accustomed to. As Butch has pointed out, it will make our future so economical — 'not having a lot of milk to pay for !'
"Do you wonder I'm waiting for my little sweetheart to grow up?"
Gary Cooper — with Shirley in "Now
And Forever":
"Like most actors I'm not exactly crazy about making a picture with a child— that is, I wasn't until I met and worked with Shirley. But she's no more like the average precocious trick child-actress than gilt is like gold. It's almost unbelievable that she could have remained so unspoiled, -because it isn't only child actresses who manage to get spoiled in this day and age, you know — some of the neighbor's children can be as precocious as any little artificially mannered child who ever stepped before a camera.
"I think a large share of the credit for Shirley's sweetness should go to her sensible father and charming mother and to the normal home-life the child leads when she is not 'play acting' in the studios. That's the way Shirley seems to look on her work — like playing a game.
"I don't know which one of us had the more fun playing between scenes of 'Now And Forever' — Shirley or I. There was a malicious rumor around that I never did let little Shirley 'color' any of the pictures in the paint-book set I bought her. It isn't true. Shirley would be the first to tell you I let her color two of them ! And if I did do the rest it was only because I was showing her how it was done. That's my story, and maybe I'm stuck with it.
Reunion at Elissa Landi's home. The star, left; her parents, Count and Countess Zanardi-Landi; her brother, Anthony, and his wife.