Screenland (May-Oct 1936)

80 SCREENLAND Remember that lips are sensitive. Does your lipstick leave your lips rough and dry? The new Coty "Sub-Deb" Lipstick never parches. Coty thought of smoothness as well as color. So a wonderful new ingredient was added. It's called "Essence of Theobrom." It has a special power to keep lips soft. And what warm color the "Sub-Deb" gives your lips! Color that's ardent and indelible. Make the "Over-night" Experiment! Put on a tiny bit of Coty Lipstick before you go to bed. In the morning notice how soft your lips feel, how soft they look. Coty "Sub-Deb" comes in five indelible colors, 50c. Coty "Sub-Deb" Rouge, also 50c. Come to a new world of beauty ...with the new Coty "Air Spun " Face Poivder! You'd suppose that once he had a longterm contract his worries would have ceased. Hut an actor has to have continual chances to score, no matter what kind of a tie-up lie has". After fourteen months the assignments at Warners weren't so good, and so Pres signed with Fox. He was there ten months, and then went to Metro. Five months, during which he was given hut one role— that of a grayhaired football coach — and he was feeling low. The last on his list of those whom he remembers with particular gratitude rescued him when his movie career might have fizzled out. "Cliff Reid, producing here at RKORadio, recalled my work in a Fox picture, 'The Alan Who Dared.' He was preparing 'The Last Days of Pompeii.' Ernest Schoedsack, who was to direct it, was sold on me for the lead. Then they were background productive of all the feminine graces. But the fair Virginia protested: "Not in my case. From the time I was a year old until I was eighteen I lived in Fargo, North Dokata, and you'd hardly associate Fargo with a Ziegfcld girl. But the funny part of it is that New York takes it for granted that the showgirls it sees are the most sophisticated of sophisticates. I used to laugh to myself when I was putting on worldly airs. If those metropolitans out in front had only known what a bluff I was throwing ! I'd never even been in New York before, and the laugh would have been on me if blase Broadwayites could have seen me coming out of Grand Central Station and stopping to stare up at the high buildings." It was natural to suppose the wonderstruck stranger might have felt a bit shaky in the knees when stepping out into the big city. "I wasn't afraid, just overwhelmed," she said. "If I had come straight from Fargo I'd probably have dropped in my tracks. But Hollywood had broken the journey. Working there as an extra in pictures so that the family might eat more or less regularly had helped me to meet people without falling all over myself. I was a showgirl in the film production of 'Whoopee' when Ziegfeld saw me and offered me a job in New York. Of course, I didn't know what that would mean to me, but a theatrical agent who went along on the train with me said that all I had to do was be reasonably innocent." As I pondered this elastic advice, Miss Bruce helped me out with : "I think men know if a girl is innocent. But she has to have balance. I feel sorry for the little weak ones. Two other girls who went to join the show took their mothers with them for protection, but I don't think that's necessary if girls are sensible, do you?" Never having seen any Ziegfeld girls who looked as though they had mothers, I couldn't say. "Zieggy was awfully nice to his girls, treating them even better than the principals. He'd give them lingerie left by a salesman, and was always saying, 'Don't work the kids too hard.' Sometimes at rehearsal we'd dance till we were ready to drop. But things were very pleasant until one night in the big dressing-room that I shared two of the girls, one Spanish and the other American, had a terrible fight. It was over a fake Count for whose dubious delayed in starting. But Keid, bless him, put me under contract meanwhile; he cast me in 'The Informer,' and then with Barbara Stanwyck in 'Annie Oakley.' If it hadn't been for his giving me this latter role, which was fairly romantic, Carole Lombard wouldn't have chosen me for her hero. And I wouldn't be as happy as I am!" So that's where this newest of masculine heart-throbs has evolved from. Frcs resides in a fashionable apartment house on Rossmore, is amazingly athletic, and what do you think-? Since Carole detected his appeal, M-G-M has put in a bid for him to return and team with Harlow ! Yet, when he's interviewed, he doesn't gossip about his promising tomorrows. That's typical Hollywood chatter. He talks like this, acknowledging candidly that he has cause to remember others. I low does the lad strike you? Honeymooners! Onslow Stevens and Anne Buchanan, stage actress, married at Las Vegas, recently. affections they were rivals. The Spaniard knew he was phony, but when she came right out and said so the other girl was furious. She didn't lose any time in starting something. Chairs and tables were knocked over as the two of them screamed and clawed and tore each other's hair. I was simply terrified, then amazed — for no sooner was the battle over than those girls, both of them wrecks, kissed and made up, and what's more, gave each other presents of silk stockings !" Could it be, I wondered, that men were usually the cause of trouble? "Yes," admitted Miss Bruce, as she went on to tell of a Ziegfeld girl's days — and nights. "But I got along very well with men. It was only once I had to be on my guard. A man who lived at a fashionable hotel suggested I would be more comfortable there and that he would be happy to make arrangements for a pleasant suite of rooms which I would have all to myself. I thanked him for his unselfish generosity, but explained I preferred my humble quarters because they were near the theatre. He never mentioned the matter again and continued to be very nice and sweet to me. Follies Girl's Days and Nights Continued from page 51