Screenland (Nov 1950-Oct 1951)

I FREDERICK'S of Hollywood, Dept. 66 4742 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles 16,Calif. j A. Size 1 st Color 2nd • B. Size 1st Color 2nd j I enclose payment;! I I Send FREE GIFT I I Send CO. D.I | Nome | Address j City & Zone State MONET-BACK GUARANTEE "DARK-EYES'* Depl. hd-1 3319 Carroll Ave., Chicago 24, III. I enclose 25c (coin or stampsUx included) for TRIAL ; PACKAGE of "Dark-EyeB" with direction!. Check Shade: □ Black □ Brown * Same. I Address Town Slate 62 in a small, dirty, airless dressing room and immediately started griping to Jerry, "Why did I give up my luxurious Hollywood dressing room for this rat hole!" Then he called in Jan Sterling, who played a very elegant English girl in the play, and introduced her to Jerry. "This girl should be in Hollywood," he said. "Even though her bangs, which she cut herself, look like a thatched hut." Then he added to Jan, "If this big producer offers you anything, take it. They have much better dressing rooms in Hollywood." Jerry Wald summoned her from the Chicago company of "Born Yesterday" to play the sharp-tongued "other woman" in "Johnny Belinda." He asked the top brass at Warner Brothers to sign her on a contract. They refused. In 1949, he summoned her from the New York company of "Born Yesterday," where she was filling in for Judy Holliday, the role he wanted her for being the cheery little street walker in "Caged." Again he asked for a contract for her. And again W. B. said no. The next time he tried to get her ("Storm Warning") Paramount had her under lock and key. "She's a wonderful comedienne," says Wald. "But the first producer who gives her a great dramatic role will clean up." At the present sitting Jan Sterling is a happy character. She's perfectly content to continue those "bad girl" parts. In fact, she has said: "I want to be typed." In a town where the actors spend their waking hours screaming that their studios are ruining them by "typing" them, this came as a considerable jolt. "Maybe I am going against screen tradition," says Jan (she has practically blasted it, that's all) , "but I am satisfied, I'm simply delirious with happiness over the roles I am playing in pictures. In some twenty plays on the stage I was either a sweet ingenue or a cooly detached English damsel. Now in pictures I'm a tramp, and I get kicked, slugged and shot. It's a pleasure." Which is good thinking on Miss Sterling's part. Hollywood needs another pretty ingenue like a hole in the head. Jan was born Jane Sterling Adriance in New York City, and right smack into the Social Register. Her father is William A. Adriance, New York stock broker,' and her mother divorced him when Jan was quite young. Her mother married the European representative of the Socony Company, and spent much of her time in Europe and South America. Jan circulated between her two parents. She spent her school days in very swank English schools. "The beginning of my career was a fluke," says Jan. A girl friend, Sylvia Kissell, had acting ambitions, and a letter of introduction to the Schuberts. Jan went with her to deliver it. It began to rain while she was standing in Schubert's Alley, so she moved inside the theatre. She was just sitting there, minding her business, when an excited man (he turned out to be Milton Schubert) came up to her and shouted in her face, "You'll do. You look just like Chris. Come in my office and sign a contract." The next thing she knew she had the ingenue pari in the Ian Hay British comedy, "Bachelor Born," and the stage name of Jan€ Sterling. She discovered later that she had gotten the part because she looked like the girl who played it in London. And the fact that she spoke with an English accent helped a lot. She was sixteen at the time. The play ran two years. After that came some twenty plays. Among them, "Grey Farm," "The Rock," "The Rugged Path," "D u n n i g a n's Daughter," "This Too Shall Pass," "Over Twenty-One," "Present L a u g h t e r," "French Without Tears," "Three Sisters," "Panama Hattie," "Two Blind Mice," "John Loves Mary," and, of course, "Born Yesterday." "Some of the plays were so bad," says Jan, "they closed right in my face." When she adopted the stage as a profession she cut herself off from the Social Register and her early wealthy background. She claims she has been making her own living since she was sixteen. On her own in New York, she had to support herself between plays. She modeled suits and dresses on Seventh Avenue from 8:30 to 6:30 for $35 a week. At night, she haunted theatres. "I was marking time in ingenue parts, when I could get them," says Jan, "until Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin took an interest in me, helped me lose an acquired British accent, and eventually win the role of the dumb blonde in 'Born Yesterday.' " It was Ruth Gordon who fixed her up with a name too. She met Miss Gordon first when she was given the ingenue part in her "Over Twenty-One." Miss Gordon likes to "do over" people. She decided something had to be done about Jan's name. Jane Sterling was much too dignified and prissy. "Miss Gordon was a dear," says Jan, "and started thinking up all kinds of names for me. Emerald Cunard was one. Rosalind Adriance another. Her favorite was Fentiss Serena Curlin. Before she could pin that on me I compromised by dropping the 'e' off of Jane." Jan played in the Chicago company of Garson Kanin 's "Born Yesterday," and later took over the role in New York when Judy Holliday came to Hollywood to play a part in MGM's "Adam's Rib." Columbia brought her to the Coast to play in the screen version of "Born Yesterday," but instead signed Judy Holliday. Jan was very unhappy about it at first, but when she drew a Paramount contract as a consolation prize she was reconciled. In May, 1941, she married Jack Merivale, son of the late actor, Philip Merivale. Mr. Merivale was married to the famous Gladys Cooper. "Being around them I absorbed acting," says Jan, "but it also gave me an inferiority complex. When I'd go in to see agents they'd say, 'How's Gladys, how's Phil?' They never got around to talking about me." She was divorced in 1949. Although she played in both the New York and Chicago companies of "Born Yesterday" Jan did not meet Paul Doug