Screenland (Nov 1935-Apr 1936)

76 SCREENLAND HARSH cathartics are frowned upon. The laxative you take should be mild, gentle. It shouldn't cause strain and pain. Shouldn't leave you feeling weak afterwards. The way to be absolutely sure is by taking the laxative that is gentle and mild enough even for little children. Such a laxative is Ex-Lax. Ex-Lax is given to more children than any other laxative. Yet with all its mildness and gentleness, Ex-Lax is effective enough for any adult. And you don't have to keep on increasing the dose to get results. Take Ex-Lax yourself. Advise your husband to take it too. Give it to your children. It is the ideal laxative for every member of the family. 10c and 25c boxes on sale at any drug store. Get the genuine; spelled E-X— L-A-X. GUARD AGAINST COLDS !... Remember these common-sense rules for fighting colds —get enough sleep, eat sensibly, dress warmly, keep out of drafts, keep your feet dry, and keep regular — with Ex-Lax, the delicious chocolated laxative. When Nature forgets — remember EXLAX THE ORIGINAL CHOCOLATED LAXATIVE MAIL THIS COUPON iT-VVJ EX-LAX, Inc., P. 0 Box MoMM Times-Plaza Station, Brooklyn, N. Y. ( Please send me free sample of Ex-Lax. Name Address {If you live in Canada, write Ex-Lax, Ltd., 736 Notre Dame St. W., Montreal) Tune in on "Strange as it Seems" , new Ex-Lax Radio Program. See local newspaper for station and time. Merle was wearing blue overalls, a bandana handkerchief over her hair, and a lovely smudge across her chin. This was certainly not the exotic that Mr. Korda had permitted to come to America. "It's Mr. Goldwyn's fault," said she who had been de-exoticized (I pulled that one out of the air, not the dictionary). "He has a perfect mania for simplicity. I like simplicity — I didn't at all mind wearing tweeds in 'The Dark Angel' — but I do think simplicity can be over-done. I thought up a smart new hair-dress for this picture, it fairly shrieked of Paris ; but when Mr. Goldwyn saw it he had a fit and made me change back to this at once." And Miss Oberon shook her childish curls rather disdainfully. One of the things she likes most to do is change her hair-dress ; she adores discovering new coiffures ; but Mr. Goldwyn, it seems, isn't going to humor her in her favorite pastime. Another thing Merle Oberon likes is discovering American words — though I must admit she already speaks better American than any British actress I have ever met. This is due to the fact, probably, that she has spent most of her life in India, and did not go to England until she was seventeen. Anyway, she had just discovered "prissy" and was as delighted with it as Shirley Temple with a new rabbit. I contributed "tacky" (only we of the far South know "tacky"), and Merle's happiness was complete, for the moment. Since coming to Hollywood only two young men seem to have made much headway in Merle's love life : David Niven, the date-eater whom we dismissed quite a few paragraphs back, and none other than Mr. Irving Thalberg, Junior, who is going on six — and mercy, how time flies ! This "affair" was off to a good start before Merle took her English vacation last summer, but since her return in October it has been hotter than ever. Merle brought Norma Shearer's little man a guardsman's suit back from London, a perfect replica of a guardsman's uniform, bright red with gold braid and a sword, and a hat with feathers in it. It was a six-year-old size, and it fit him perfectly, except for the chest. Irving has been swimming so much that he has a broad chest, and since the uniform episode he sticks it out more than ever. He's a little bit too American to like the uniform, which has been altered to fit him, and is prone to call it "sissy" — but not when Merle is around. His present to her was a dead fish. He had heard that David Niven had brought her some fish so he wasn't going to be out-done. Merle was prone to call the fish "smelly" — but not when Irving was around. Habitual bathers at Santa Monica are quite accustomed to seeing Merle and young Irving take their afternoon stroll along the beach. Irving is always the perfect little gentleman, helps her over driftwood, and walks on the side nearest the ocean, that being his idea of the correct thing to do. But Merle loves to tell of the day that her two Dalmatians came swooping down on them, all rough and ready to play. But little Irving took one fierce fury of nations exhausted itself. The winter sun shot through the drapes beside him as we sat there talking, burnishing his light brown hair into semiblondness. Of those years in the trenches he preferred not to speak. What is there to say? He returned to England and his frightened look at the approaching animals and leapt into her arms where temporarily he forgot to be a little man. When Merle took him back to his nurse that evening she said, "Irving, say to Miss Oberon, 'Je vous adore.' That means, T love you.' " "Oh, she knows that already," said young Mr. Thalberg quite casually. "What one thinks comes out in one's face," Merle had to say of Norma Shearer. "I have never known a sweeter or more unselfish person than Norma. And I could simply sit and look at her face by the hour. She is truly beautiful." As you doubtless know by now Merle Oberon was born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson, February 19, 1911, on the Island of Tasmania, the daughter of an English army officer and an English mother of French and Dutch descent. When she was seven she and her mother moved to Bombay, India, and two years later to Calcutta. Merle hated army life, and as a kid decided that her life's ambition was to be a Hollywood movie star, so when her uncle got leave from the army and offered to take her to England on a trip she had only one idea — the cinema. She was seventeen then. When her uncle's leave was over and he had to return to India, Merle begged to stay in England, so her uncle gave her her return ticket and the equivalent of one hundred dollars — and Merle was on her own ! She haunted the agency offices and almost died of hunger before she got a job. It was Alexander Korda who gave her her big chance. He saw her in a restaurant one day and said to his wife, "That is the most striking face I have ever seen." He signed her on a contract and Miss Estelle Thompson has been doing all right ever since. She was working in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" with Leslie Howard, a Korda production, when Darryl Zanuck arranged for the loan of her services in his Hollywood production of the "Folies de Bergere." The very day that the cameras stopped grinding on "The Scarlet Pimpernel" Merle packed her bags and sailed for America — and Hollywood, the realization of her lifelong dream. Her first production under her Samuel Goldwyn contract was "The Dark Angel." "These Three" is her third American picture. Merle is five feet two inches tall and weighs 112 pounds. She has that air which only the French word "chic" can describe, doubtless a heritage from her French mother. She wears clothes like a French mannequin, but likes to dress up only at night. Slacks are plenty good enough for the day-time. She loves perfume, any kind of animal, and red fingernail polish. She hates hats and cigarette butts in ash-trays. She thinks that picking up pins and seeing piebald horses will bring her luck. Right now she is sort of in-between two countries and rather confused by it all. At the tennis matches she found herself cheering away for the Americans to win and booing the British. Perhaps it was because Frank Shields represented the Americans. Women have forgotten more than countries where Frank Shields is concerned. I'll say they have ! bride, anxious only to erase the horrors of mass brutality. He shared the spirit of unrest, sternly resolving not to resume the dull clerkship. He vowed that he would force his way into the magical whirl of the theatre. His smile was tender as he remembered What Leslie Howard Really Thinks of Hollywood Continued from page 17