Silver Screen (Apr-Sep 1936)

lver Screen for July 1936 62 Si NED WAYBURN'S TO BE SURE ! • Ned Wayburn's charming dancing teachers are careful in choosing a preparation to overcome under-arm moisture.They must keep themselves fresh through a strenuous evening, guard their frocks against under-arm stains... and yet use a deodorant that does not irritate their flawless skin. They've found that when deodorants are used halfstrength, they give only half-way results. So they choose Nonspi which can be used full strength, because: 1. Nonspi has been pronounced entirely safe by highest medical authority. 2. Nonspi can be used full strength by women whose delicate skin forces them to use deodorants half-strength, with only halfway results. 3. Nonspi protection lasts from two to five days... and you can depend on it. 4. Nonspi' s siphon-top bottle prevents contamination. And there's no dripping or waste with this patented Nonspi applicator. To be sure of protection... to be safe from skin irritation ...insist on genuine Nonspi at all drug and department stores in the U.S.A. and Canada. It's 35c and 60c a bottle. NONSPI threateningly in the shark-infested harbor, but when we arrived the citizens were in a gay and chipper mood. I asked the cab-driver the reason for the town's gaiety: "Ricito de Oro," he told me excitedly. "Ricito de Oro." My sketchy Spanish translated "Oro" into "gold," and [ thought at first that he meant that Havana had discovered a gold mine. "No, Senor," he said, "Curls of Gold." It now came over me that I was talking to a madman, a veritable lunatic and the speed at which he drove filled me with grave forebodings. Finally he pulled on his brake sharply and pointed. We were standing in front of the Encanto Theatre. Vast placards covered it: "Ricito de Oro." The street was filled with people trying to get in at the box-office. "She is what you call in America, Shirley Temple," the cabbie explained, gesticulating with both hands. "In Habana, we call her Ricito de Oro, because she has golden curls." When Havana, a turbulent city, forgets its squabbles because a new Shirley Temple picture has arrived at the Encanto Theatre, it seems to me that Hollywood has scored heard of Nelson Eddy, but it knew that it was listening to a finished artist, nevertheless, and remained to cheer him. He had a well built up public before he ever set foot in Hollywood. He is, first and foremost, a musician. That he happens, also, to have that quality of magnetism and sheer joy of living which draws both men and women to him is the thing that has placed him on the top wave of popularity. For the sake of the Youth of today who need romance and idealized love as no other age has needed it, I hope Nelson Eddy will long remain on his high pedestal, concentrating on the development of those talents which keep people looking upward. "But there is nothing spectacular about my success," he protested. "I haven't a remarkable memory and I'm rather easy going, lazy in fact." He smiled charmingly as he folded a sheet of paper into a small aeroplane and later spun it across the room, watching with interest to see where it landed. "Success came to me as a result of grinding work and complete loyalty to it. Anyone can win who will do it, but many people don't know how to work. They think if they spend an hour or two a day at a thing that they are then justified in amusing themselves for the remaining ten. That makes slow progress and often leads nowhere. Mastering a thing means hammering five and six and seven hours a day, and doing for the rest of the day the things that build toward and not away from the goal in mind. "Some people wait until they see an opportunity before they prepare for it, but I did just the opposite. When I was in the advertising business in Philadelphia I studied voice. When I was singing songs and church music I studied opera, and that meant learning the languages in which the operas were written. I always prepared myself for the thing I wanted or hoped to do next and I never got a break in any of them until I was ready for il. "When I did my first picture over a vcar ago I had very Utile acting to do, but il was enough to show me that I didn't know much about it. For the year before 'Naughty Marietta' I studied with a dramatic coach and in that picture I was more at ease before the camera, but I'm still Studying. "And another tiling. Success did not come to me through my own efforts alone. There are about filly people who contributed to il— nun, and a few women. All of these peo a terrific artistic success, and one that cannot readily be overlooked. The answer is that Hollywood is not provincial. It draws on the world for its talent, and out of the melting pot on the Coast emerges celluloid portraits that can be hung in the cinema galleries of every nation, if I may mix my metaphors. It is magical, I think, that Hollywood can team a boy from Omaha, Nebraska, and a girl from Independence, Missouri (Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers), so expertly that theii film captivates London, Paris, Buenos Aires and Shanghai. The Coast settlement, pursuing the newest and freshest of the fine arts, inviting all of the world to dedicate its enthusiasm, and raising no barriers of color or creed, comes closer to international harmony than the graybeards of Geneva. I'll trade all of the statesmen who convene in Switzerland for Daryll Zanuck, Swiss boss of the Twentieth Century-Fox Company. Zanuck's pictures will do more for peace than the Geneva graybeards. Their propaganda is dull. His propaganda is exciting. That is the difference. pie helped me to accomplish the thing 1 had set out to do. Without them I would not have accomplished as much as I have, and as each step was taken my ambition grew to conquer the next step. I mentioned the name of a friend of mine who had been his accompanist about six years ago, before his growing popularity took him out of Philadelphia altogether. "Virginia Snyder," he exclaimed. "What a fine musician she is, and what a sincere worker. There's a woman who isn't afraid of grinding work. She helped me learn several operas and we've whacked out many a difficult number together, often against time. She would never let me sing a wrong note or lapse into a wrong tempo, a serious fault in an accompanist, but an easy one to make. I always send people to Virginia if they are to study in Philadelphia. "When I started on my first concert tour I had to look about for another accompanist for several reasons. Aside from the fact that it is preferable for a man to accompany a man on the concert stage, I had to have some one free to travel and able to give me a hand with luggage and help with a number of things one could not ask a woman to do. "I was fortunate in finding Theodore Paxson who has been with me ever since. We were regular barnstormers in those days, doing everything ourselves. Now 1 have to have a manager and a secretary." I had heard from various quarters that he has as hard a time to get about now as Lindbergh, and that he never answered the door of his hotel suite or the telephone himself. The Arthur Judson Concert Bureau, the NBC Broadcasting studio and the offices of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, both here and in Hollvwood, are besieged with inquiries about him. His concert route is never given out to anyone except at his personal request. "What sort of questions do they ask?" 1 wanted to know. The cute little girl at the Judson office turned up her nose. "Usually they want to know what color exes be has and is his hair really curly. Can you imagine!" "Did \ou wonder about that before you saw him?" I teased. The nose went up as high as it possibly could. Ma\bc 1 guessed right, but I didn't find out from her. Remembering this I asked Nelson how The Romantic Nelson Eddy [Continued from page 27]