Screen Mirror (Jun 1930 - Mar 1931)

I ^4 cave keene wood up all of these actively when she began her first novel, “School Girl.” That was when she was fifteen. At home in Nashville, where her family had moved, after a year at a girl’s school, she began writing of experiences at this school. It took her six months to finish the story, which she sent to a publisher on her sixteenth birthday. On Christmas Eve, 1928, she received news that her novel had been accepted. It was published the following spring and was sensational in its reception. Overnight, she became the standardbearer for youth in revolt. Newspapers featured her in stories for a year. At seventeen, just a year ago, she began “Beau Lover,” her second novel, which was completed in a month. She then turned to the dramatization of “School Girl.” “Beau Lover” was published in August, 1930, and was as successful as her first novel. Casting began for “School Girl.” Carman Barnes, always interested in the theatre, aided in every move toward the play’s production. Quick to learn, she soon saw how professional actresses read lines and enacted Scenes while watching the hundreds of girls tried out for the parts. When she began reading lines to help prospective members of the cast, producers asked her to take one of the parts in the production. In the meantime, Paramount had purchased the screen rights to “School Girl” and offered the youthful writer a try-out as a scenarist. With the flash decisions of youth, she accepted, gambling away her chance to act on Broadway, a thing she had always hoped to do after she had learned that her mother had been refused permission by her family to become an actress when a girl. “School Girl” opened on Broadway on Carman’s eighteenth birthday, thereby giving her the impression that all first thrills of success in her life had been accomplished. In December, she reported for work in Hollywood and immediately became the talk of the film colony. With all of this talk about a girl whom everyone discussed, one is naturally interested in what type of girl she may be. She is slender and moderately tall, if five feet five inches in height can be so designated. Her hair is blonde, with just a faint tinge of red in it. Her eyes, incidentally, are brown. There is a hint of a sparkle Photo by Richee at their edge as though it is about to burst forth. It has been said that these eyes, one of her greatest assets, appear to contain a smouldering fire. Whom does she resemble? Her greatest appeal lies in the fact that she looks like no one. She is not a type. She is one of those persons, whom the world calls “different.” There is an exotic feel in her face. Yet there is a quaint wistfulness about her face like that of the girl in “Liliom,” one might say. Her smile is of the flash type. It comes and goes with a rapidity that is surprising. There is none of the fixed smile appearance about her mouth. Poetry is a passion with her. She loves to read it sparingly so that she will always have a hunger for it. She once tried writing poetry as her mother, Dinantha Mills, did, but says someone told her it was terrible so she gave it up. Fiction and drama are — yes, they also are passions with her. As a matter of fact when one recounts her likes, that is the only word that seems to fit. She does everything with youthful enthusiasm. There it is, all boiled down — Youth. That is Carman Barnes. That is what has made everyone talk about her, although they didn’t realize it. It was youth that caused executives to urge her to become an actress. • THIS lovely photo graphically displays the exotic beauty of Carman Barnes. The eighteen-ycar-old star’s features respond readily to the camera lens. Lasky cornered this appeal at a glance with the knowledge of innate dramatic ability born of years of discovering and establishing screen favorites. “Carman Barnes is a new type of youth,” Lasky said in introducing her to the world. "Call her a vivid personality, talk of her grace, relate her possibilities, predict her future, and say that once seen she is never forgotten but after all this is said, you come back to her insight of youth. “She has a sympathy with and an understanding of youth that rivals anything in art, fiction or drama of today, and we all know that this is a day of youth. In addition, her viewpoint is fresher.” Which, after all, is the whole story, for Carman Barnes in speaking of her future writing said today, “I have an idea for another novel but I can’t write it yet. I'm not old enough.” And so we find that the romantic days of Cinderella repeat themselves . . Carman has come to the magic land of the movies to have the "Glass Slipper” thrust upon her while hundreds of others knock at the gates in the hope they, too, might attain glory.