Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

88 Silver Screen for September l 9 4 o graph, she always signed her name in their books as 'Mrs. Jon Hall.' That doesn't seem important, does it, but to a guy who is out on a limb, washed high and dry, those little thoughtful gestures mean more than anything else in the world. "Seven days a week, for 130 weeks, Frances kept me perked up, went out of her way to do little things and say little things that snapped me out of dangerous moods. Sometimes I acted snappy, but she knew that I didn't mean it, and she never replied to me. She made me feel that to her I was the greatest person in the world. To Hollywood I was a discard, but to her, I was a helluva guy. So when I tell you, Ed, that she is the most wonderful person in the world, I'm understating it." What easily could have rendered the situation tragic was the fact that Frances Langford, all of this time, was a big star in her own right. Her radio programs and her phonograph records had won her an enormous following. Hall not only felt himself to be a failure, but he also could contrast his own supposed failure to his wife's tremendous popularity. "So Frances would always play down her own importance," Hall related, "rather than make me feel worse than I felt." Such a grand love and devotion simply HAD to arrive at a happy ending, but it took a World War to bring it about. Goldwyn, finding himself tangled up in the European war, hastened to unload his contract commitments, or, at least, that is my belief. One of the contract comitments was Jon Hall. In such a case, the producer who holds the contract sets about renting or loaning-out the player to another studio. Suddenly, Jon Hall, who hadn't heard from the Goldwyn studio for a year, was notified that he was to report for a Sol Wurtzel picture at 20th Century-Fox, an opera called "Sailor's Lady," with Nancy Kelly. He had just completed that when he was told to report to Eddie Small for a fat role in "South of Pago-Pago," with Victor McLaglen, Frances Farmer and Olympe Bradna. Twenty-five minutes after he completed his second picture in a row, he was aboard a plane and en route to Arizona to play in "Kit Carson." So the kid who didn't make a picture, or get a chance to work in two years and a half, now has made three pictures in a row within a space of a few months. His comeback is an assured fact. "It all happened because of Frances," he told me. "It was her prayers and her faith in me that did it. I've got to be a hit now, so as not to disappoint her." He reached over and kissed her, and she ran her fingers through his hair and kissed him. I swear that this is the most amazing story that Hollywood ever has authored, with a happier ending than any Hollywood scenarist ever dreamed up. The Truth About "Mrs. McGinty" [Continued from page 37] with Watt, the inventor of the steam engine. Before the start of this interview, Miss Angelus had been photographed in a corner of the dining room with her brother, Douglas Dean, who is understudy to Nick Long, Jr., in the Broadway musical "Louisiana Purchase." It took much persuasion to get permission from the dignified Plaza for such an unheard-of thing and the chef had added to the difficulties by swearing that kidneys could not {"sacre nom!") be cooked in three minutes, completely disregarding the explanation that they were to be used merely for the picture of the star at breakfast — no one was going to eat them. Miss Angelus, unperturbed by the confusion, plopped into a chair and spoke: "Me? I'm afraid I wasn't any different from any other kid in the Kensington district of London where we lived. First it was the Ursuline convent, then private schools. I took up dancing only because the others did and because I worshipped the teacher, Ruth French. She was packed with glamour because she had been a prima ballerina in the company of Pavlowa. But in spite of the glamour we got fed up with one rond de jambe after another. . . ." Then Fokine, the fabulous dancer and impresario, arrived in London to stage "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Drury Lane Theatre. From her school, Fokine picked six girls for the production — among them Muriel Angelus. It was for the Christmas season only, but it sold her permanently on the theatre — scientific forbears or no. One grandfather, James Simpson, had somehow escaped the test-tube-and-caliper taint long enough to become a choirmaster. He undertook her singing instruction and before long she was punishing Westminster Hall and the provinces with "Hark! Hark! The Lark." {Miss A. gets a lot of money for singing very nicely today.) She was now fourteen when, as said a while back, James Whale in football shorts and a financial cloud got mixed up in a storm of sorts. Not one waiter-captain, but two, stared at the sight of a live {and pretty) movie star actually being interviewed in the Plaza's holy of holies. Miss A. grinned at them and went on: "After 'Midnight Follies' I got a part in 'The Vagabond King,' and a talent scout for a movie company came backstage to talk to me. The first thing he said was, 'You ought to be in pictures!' I opened the door for him, but he seemed so in earnest that I decided to believe this one. "Next day he took me to the British Lion Studio at Beaconfield. After a test they gave me the feminine lead opposite Leslie Faber in 'The Ringer,' an Edgar Wallace thriller. Funny I can't remember that scout's name. . . ." After further theatre work she went to Berlin to appear in a picture starring Kathe von Naghy. Muriel didn't speak a word of German and no one in the troupe spoke English — it didn't matter terribly since it was a silent picture. They translated the scenes in which she appeared into English so she had a vague idea what it was all about. However, she didn't know what had gone before or was to follow and since she didn't see the finished picture she doesn't know today. She didn't even find out the name of the thing — but she got paid. "Back in London I went into 'Red Aces,' the only picture Edgar Wallace himself ever directed. I played — at the age of seventeen — the wife of Nigel Bruce. In the Paramount commissary in Hollywood not two months ago he spied me across the room. 'My wife!' he shouted, running across. 'Youngest wife I ever had — and the cutest!' Great chap, Nigel, his real wife's a dear. . . ." To get back — she wasn't satisfied with herself. So she took up singing and dancing again and studied dramatics with Fay Compton, who corresponds roughly to our Helen Hayes. Thus she was ready for the talkies when they arrived in England — very much later than they did in America. Like this country, England drew heavily on the stage for the new medium and Muriel was swept into the vocal-cinema as the ingenue in "Night Birds" and "The Bridegroom's Widow," big musicals, and in the comedy, "My Wife's Family." A bevy of starched old ladies by this time had joined the captains in sneaking looks at Miss Angelus. "I was offered the second lead in 'Sons of Guns,' the part just vacated by Pat Paterson {Mrs. Charles Boyer today) and I went back to the stage. It was during this run that Paramount gave me a test in London — along with a young man named Ray Milland. After the test had been run off they got us together and said: 'You're not the type we want, so sorry.' We practically wept over tea together then, but look at Ray now!" "When I arrived in Hollywood myself, I wondered if Ray had been changed any by his great success. I bumped into him on the lot one day. 'Hello Muriel!' he yelled in my ear, 'how are you, I heard, oh let's go somewhere where we can talk!' No, he hadn't changed." To go back again — her next show was "The Jolly Roger," in which she played the lead for nine months at the Savoy Theatre. This taste of comic opera revived a latent grand-opera ambition and she retired for a year to polish up her singing. A nervous breakdown, and appendicitis added to it, forced her to stay out of the theatre for two years instead of one. Upon her recovery she faced the problem of making a comeback — at the age of twenty-two. Visiting a friend's dressing room one night, she was obliging the friend by running through a new song for her when another visitor heard her. He offered to back her in any show she chose. For five months it was a complete reversal of the usual great-play-no-backer situation. When she did find exactly what , she wanted she made theatre history with it— "Balalaika," which broke all records in