Silver Screen (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

68 Silver Screen for December 1936 4 I I/I 1 CLEANS TEETH Simply cleaning your teeth may keep them white — for a while! But when neglected gums become soft and spongy all the half-way measures in the world won't preserve your teeth. Don't take that chance, start using Forhan's. It gives you double protection — whitens teeth and safeguards gums at the same time. SAVES GUMS Forhan's was created by an eminent dental surgeon to provide double protection; with it you clean teeth and massage gums just as dentists advise. It costs no more than most ordinary toothpastes, but ends ordinary half-way care! Begin using Forhan's today. Mae GUMS I /ll\>iei\e Tl^aire * (42nd Yr) Stage. Talkie. Radio. GRADUATES: Lee Tracy, Fred Astaire. Una Market. Zita Johann, eic Drama, Dauoe, Musical Comedy, Toflcliing, Directing, Personal Development, Stock Theatre Training (Appearances). For Catalog, write SeC'y LAND, 66 W. 85 St., N. Y. ORIGINAL POEMS SON GS For Immediate Consideration Send Poems to Paramount Music Publishers Dept. 13B, Para It BIdg. The fascinating allure of hennatreated hair has long been recognized by stars of Screen and Stage. To be absolutely safe and to obtain just the desired effect, from the most delicate tint to the warmest tone insist that your beauty parlor use nnture-pure. nature-safe, genuine HOPKINS RAJAH BRAND EGYPTIAN HENNA Romance ! The Long And Short Of It [CoiUiiuied from page 2? courtship and marriage has been a never failing souice of interest to romantic-minded Hollywood. ♦ "I guess big men like little girls because they make us feel like giants of strength and power," Johnny told me one day. That probably is as good an explanation as any for the age-old attraction of the muscular male for the small and frail female. The first time I saw Joel McCrea and Frances Dee, they were walking do^\n a studio street, hand in hand. For a moment I thought that Joel was showing someone's kid sister the sights of Holly^vood. Then I recognized the tiny girl who could easily have walked under Joel's outstretched arm. Joel is another member of Hollywood's new school of hugely masculine players. There is something indefinably rugged abotu his ime\en features and his big, slightly awkward body. When he picked his -wife, did he select a large girl who would have been his feminine counterpart in size and vitality? He did not. He chose one of Hollywood's smallest actresses, little Frances Dee, who gave up her career to marry him and to become the mother of his children. Bob Montgomery is big with a different kind of bigness than that of Gary and Johnny and Joel. He is as tall as they are but he is built along slimmer, more finely drawn lines. He, too, is one of the present-day athletic stars. He plays polo, tennis and golf with an expert skill. His favorite recreation between picttires is working— and I mean ^vorking— on his farm in New York state. And Bob, too, has followed the Hollywood formula in romance. His wife is the small, blonde and dainty Elizabeth Allen Montgomery who is one of Hollywood's tiniest women. This is an age of big men in motion pictures. That makes the smallness of the objects of their affections even more noticeable. The average masculine player of today is taller and broader than the stars of the silent pictures were. Matirice Costello, the first great matinee idol of the screen, was smaller and more compactly built than are the men who have inherited his place in popularity. Rudolph Valentino, probably the greatest romantic hero Avhom the films have ever known, was several inches shorter in height and narro^ver in shoulders than today's Clark Gable. But, even in the old days, the larger men ^^•ere attracted to the smaller women. The tall and blonde Wallace Reid, the first typically young American hero of the screen, married tiny Dorothy Davenport. Big Bill Hart, the two-gtm man of the western plains, took as his bride small, golden-haired Winifred ^Vestover. Francis X. Bushman, over whose masculine virility another generation of \\'omen fluttered and sighed, married a small brunette, Beverly Bavne. "Perhaps it is becatise there are so very many small women in Hollywood," tiny Jobyna Ralston Arlen, wife of the husky Dick, tried to explain today's big-and-little complex of the film colony's romancers. It is true that small \\'omen are in the majority in Hollywood. They have a better chance in pictures because the camera adds pounds and inches to the feminine pla)ers' real weight and height. Most visitors to Holhwood are open-mouthed in their amazement because of the unexpected tiniiicss of the famous women whom they see on the streets and in the studios. But there are plenty of gootl-sized girls, too. Kay I'rancis. Joan Crawf(M(l, Grcia Garbo, Rosalind Russell, \'irginia Bruce and many others are in town. But, in spite of the wide choice of feminine fragility which Hollywood offers, the brawny males very often ignore the little women under their noses and go far afield to find their dainty brides. So the mere superiority of their numbers doesn't seem to be an important factor in the desirability of the smaller women. Randolph Scott, ^vho certainly deserves a place among the tallest and ruggedest of the Hollyvvood men, recently travelled all the long way to Virginia and Nevs' York to find his bride, the little Mariona Duponc. Like his good friend, Fred Astaire, he chose an eastern socialite for a wife. Also, like Fred, he selected a small girl. Fred can't be classed vvith the Randolphs and Garys and Johnnys in point of size, but he can be m point of solid American virility. The happiest marriages in Holhwood seem to be the ones which follow the pattern. The same rtile holds for the most flourishing romances. There are Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, for example. Clark Avas really the pioneer of the he-man heroes. AVith his arrival, the old smooth and silken screen lover disappeared. Since his separation from iris wife, Clark has been devoting most of his attentions to the blonde and fragilely slender Carole. The affair, Avhich began in an hilariotis spirit of fun, has developed into a serious romance and all Hollywood is betting on an eventual marriage. Then there's the case of young Robert Taylor. He is another typical American bov, the product of the small towns and public schools, husky and vital. His short and exciting Hollyvvood life has been dotted with romances. The girls have been blondes and brunettes, but they all have been daintily small. First there was little Jean Parker, with whom he made one of his earlier pictures. That died a quick death after the release of the picture. Longer lasting and more ardent was his romance with Irene Hervey, blonde and only slightly over five feet in height. For a time it looked as if this would end at the altar, but something happened, probably a lovers' quarrel, and they separated. Irene married Allan Jones and Bob plimged into a rumored romance with tinv Janet Gaynor. They were working together in "Small Town Girl." But nothing came of that affair because Bob met Barbara Stanwyck. This last romance promises to be the real thing. If they do marry, the broad-shouldered Bob and the finely-carved Barbara, the old formtda vsill have worked again. Check over the Hollywood lists and vou ll see that the old formula is proying iis potenc). Bill Powell and Jean Harlow, Gary Grant and Mary Brian, David Nivens and Merle Oberon, James Stewart and Ginger Rogers among tlie romancers. Errol Flvnn and Lily Damiia, the ^\'arner Baxters, Cedric Gibbons and Dolores Del Rio and many others among the happily marrieds. Even the directors have followed the pattern. The muscidar W, S. \'an Dyke, of "Trader Horn." "Thin Man." "Naughty Marietta" and "San Francisco" fame, married tinv. blonde Ruth Mannix. Big. blonde Bob Leonard, who brought "The Great Ziegfeld" to the screen, chose the ultrasmall Mae .Murray for his first wife and is now married to the equally tiny Gertrude Olmstead. Hollvv\ood isn't setting any new styles in love. It is merelv following a formula which is as old as romance itself.