Silver Screen (Feb-Oct 1935)

60 Silver Screen for February 1935 HADOW unter? Q Does your complexion cause you to seek the concealment of dim lights and shadows? Are you a "shadow hunter?" Then remember this: Regardless of how much officework or housework you do — regardless of climate or the "hardness" of your water — Campana's Italian Balm hears this guarantee: "To banish dry, rough, red or chapped skin more quickly and at less expense than anything you have ever used before.". . . This famous skin protector has been sold in winter-loving Canada for over 40 years and is still the largest selling preparation of its kind in the entire Dominion. Largest seller also in the United States in thousands of cities coast to coast. • . . Try it at our expense. Use the coupon. (Bottles — 35c, 60c, and $1.00; tubes — 25c; at drug and department stores.) Ilti!itii\ Balm THE ORIGINAL SKIN SOFTENER tf* f* CAM PAN A SALES CO., L wfi «" 3702 Lincoln Highway, Batavia, Illinois. » * Gentlemen : Please 6end me VANITY SIZE bottle of Campana's Italian Balm— FREE and postpaid. Name . — AddressCity IS you live in Canaan Bend yoar request to Cam nana Corp. . Ltd., SU-2 Caledonia Road, Toronto, Ontario. no idea how disconcerting it is to be reading a book and find it all marked up. Mrs. Rogers says that "Nijinsky" was something awful, and she just had to get herself another copy. Ginger's literary activities began when she was about ten years old. "The Oaktree and Her Children" was her first literary offspring, and quite good too. A few years ago Ginger wrote the music and lyrics of a song called "The Girl Who Used to Be You," for which she is still getting royalty checks. The first royalty check was for $4.41 and she framed it. Ginger's pet hates are personal appearances, bridge, people who read over her shoulder, stamps that don't stick— and a pencil without an eraser can throw her into a fury. She likes all out-door sports and excells in all of them. Right now the fad is bowling, and when Lew and Ginger go over to the Beverly Hills bowling alley the old-timers stare in open-mouthed amazement. She can even beat Fay Wray at ping pong, and to beat Fay Wray at ping pong means that you are tops in Hollywood. She plays a mean game of tennis and swims like Johnny Weissmuller. Ginger is a real sport and likes to beat, but she knows how galling it is to men to be beat constantly by a dame so she often throws the game, but not noticeably, so that her opponent can win. Poor Lew doesn't know when he is really beating Ginger or when she is just letting him beat her to keep his pride. She is never so happy as when she is puttering around with a can of paint. Before Lew and she married she had the line concession on his tennis court. Every week she would arrive with her paint and paint new lines. Then would come the flower pots and the furniture, and then, when every thing for yards around was all done up fresh, poor Ginger would just have to content herself with sketches in water colors. Ginger Has very few close friends, because she doesn't like to go to gay parties and she doesn't like to give them. Lew and she are exactly alike in that respect. Mrs. Rogers made them go to an important dinner party one evening and they haven't finished grouching about it yet. "The only thing that was settled the entire evening," said Lew, "was that Garbo was a great actress. I'd rather bowl." Her favorite novelists are Somerset Maugham and Katharine Brush. Emeralds are her favorite jewels, though it happens to be diamonds that she owns. She likes to go to night clubs in New York but Hollywood rarely sees her in the night spots. She's at home with the dictionary or a can of paint, most likely, while Lew plays to her on the piano. Ginger is very self-conscious and nearly has a fit when people stare at her. If you hurt her feelings she never shows it, but will wait until she goes to bed that night to cry. She acquired that habit when she was a little girl. While she was visiting her grandmother in Kansas City, those lonely months while her mother was away at the Front, Ginger wrote many letters, one, especially, which I think shows her unselfish love and consideration of her mother. Not often do you find that trait in a child. But remember, in those days Ginger and her mother often lived on eight and nine dollars a week. "Dear Mamma," Ginger wrote, "I heard a train whisteling today and I said on that train is my mamma but you were not on that train. Today grandaddy and I made a gardin. We planted reddishes and lettus and some bets and half of it is mine. I hurt my finger and it is wound up but it dont hurt so bad. When you come home I would like you to bring me a doll and a doll buggy. If you cant afford to bring the buggy it is all right and if you cant buy a doll that is all right too. your darlingest daughter, Virginia." Who'll Buy My Players ; [Conti7iued from page 21] signed the little lady for "Little Miss Marker" just before Shirley Temple raised her curly head in film circles. Producers decided that they preferred Shirley for the role . . . but they were obliged to pay the wee Miss Collins, nevertheless. Cora Sue's agents wangled a colorful two-reeler for her at Metro and that resulted in securing for her the role in "Queen Christina" . . . and that role put small Cora Sue into the big money class. Even when an actress achieves the prominence of a Claudette Colbert— or, perhaps, especially when she reaches that status— her agent is important to her. Remember when Claudette's contract was finished with Paramount, and she received the offer to make that delightful picture, "It Happened One Night," for Columbia? She wanted very much to make that picture and she also wanted to make the equally successful "Imitation of Life" for Universal. At the time, it looked as if re-signing with Paramount would destroy her chances at both these productions. And just here her agents, Schulberg-Feldman, entered the picture. They arranged her new contract with Paramount so that it called for a stipulated number of pictures a year, and so that she could free lance in her spare time. Thus was Claudette enabled to give us those two delightful performances in pictures off her home lot. And thus did we, the public, profit. Smart fellows, these agents! Imagine the mental state of a girl in the position of Gertrude Michaels not so long ago. Metro brought her to Hollywood from New York, placed her under contract, did very little with her and failed to take up her option when it came due. Gertrude, tossed into the chill Hollywood world, could not get a job herself— not a tiny little supporting job. Schulberg-Feldman became interested in her, signed her for a short period, obtained one or two small roles for her in independent productions . . . insisted upon showing these unimportant pictures to producers . . . and finally succeeded in selling her to Paramount under a term contract. Paramount is extremely grateful to them at this moment, and so, one imagines, is little Gertrude. She looks like one of the best finds of the past year or so! Commenting on this episode, Charles Feldman, of that firm, told me, "We do not fuss and fret with a newcomer, however promising, for too long. Four weeks, five weeks, and if we do not land anything for her, we drop her. We cannot afford to spend the necessary time and energy unless it is going to bring in important money rather soon. That is, of course, business." It is, of course, "business." The agents take a gamble of that sort on a newcomer on a contingency basis. If the newcomer does not develop in a short time into valuable and profitable property, the agents cannot possibly afford to expend too much time and energy and thought and effort on his development. But, can you imagine the state of mind of the actor who is on trial in this fashion? If he is truly ambitious (ami if he isn't, there is no use in anyone bothering to try to sell him at all!) lie is