Talking Screen (Sep-Oct 1930)

Training Voices for Talkies [Conlinuad from page 69] the stage success. The Student Prince, who recently signed a long contract with First National. Other Hughes' students are Madge Bellamy and Jacqueline Saunders (taking voice lessons) and Renee Torres (taking lessons in singing). Lawrence Tibbett IS still another very prominent star who studied singing with Mr. Hughes. Jeanette MacDonald used to take lessons from Torraini, who originated the Torraini method of singing. After his death, she continued with his associate. Miss Grace Adele Newell, who now has her studios in Hollywood. Because of strenuous work at the Paramount studios on Ernst Lubitsch's Monte Carlo, Miss MacDonald has not been able to go to Miss Newell s studio, so the vocal teacher has been giving the lessons for one half hour every day at the studio dressing room of the popular singing star. SEEMS like eveiyone is taking voice or singing lessons in Hollywood these days. In fact, vocal abilities are becoming so prominent that they jokingly tell you at one studio that a scenario writer, when recently applying for a position, was asked by force of habit how his voice was and if he could sing' Ruth Chatterton has been taking singing lessons from Mark Markoff for about three months. Mr. Markoff says Miss Chatterton has outstanding qualifications for an operatic career. Regis Toomey takes lessons from Harold Hurlbut, who, by the way, is endorsed by Galli-Curci. Before coming to pictures, Toomey studied voice in Europe. June CoUyer takes voice lessons from Mrs. Paul Sloane, wife of the well-known director. She takes them three times a week. One day she went to Mrs. Sloane's house and when she stopped, discovered to her dismay that her car was burning. She flew into the house and called her garage on the telephone. Mrs. Sloane seemed delighted rather than otherwise. "Fine! fine!" she exclaimed, "your car is merely smoking, but we'll have the vocal lesson just the same and see how your voice sounds when you are really excited!" So June had to go through with her lesson, which she did with one eye on her teacher and the other on her smoking car. t"1ARY COOPER takes singing lessons J from Glorie Mayne. She is a personal friend of the family as well as Gary's teacher. Zelma O'Neal and Jeanne Kent (Mrs. Robert Armstrong) take vocal lessons from Marie Patridge Price, while Kay Johnson studied under the direction of Madame Elizabeth Major for her role in Madame Satan. Ramon Novarro, who plans a two months' vacation in the East and Middle-west, during which he will appear in his much-heralded broadcast of songs from New York over the National Broadcast network, studies singing and voice with the famous Louis Graveure and has been doing so for many years. Long before the talkies came. Even ex-presidents open vocal studios in Hollywood! Adolfo de la Huerta, picturesque Mexican exile and former president of wartime Mexico, has done so. He used to slip music pupils up the back steps of the capitol building at night when he was president of Mexico and give them lessons. De la Huerta has often said he would much rather develop a great voice than a great country. Since the age of seven he has studied voice and for a number of years he was one of the most famous vocal teachers in Mexico. Now he is fast becoming one of Hollywood's most noted teachers and pupils are flocking to him. A NDRE DE SEGUROLA, former member jf^L "^^^ Metropolitan Opera Company, and who for the last few years has been playing featured roles in pictures, is one of de la Huerta's pupils. De Segurola's friends say his voice today is far superior to the one which he disclosed in his days as leading basso with the Metropolitan. It is higher, smoother, more luscious in quality and steadier in emission. De Segurola is eager to give credit for the restoration and the change to de la Huerta, with whom he has been studying for more than a year. The usual fee for vocal instruction in Hollywood IS anywhere from $1.50 to $10.00 a lesson. The De Luxe Academy of Music and 'Voice charges $1.50 a lesson. These ;fre given under the direction of Gene Wolff, former principal in the stage productions. Blossom Time and The Vagabond King. Felix Hughes asks a fee of $5.00 for each vocal lesson he gives. Other teachers charge about the same — although sometimes a little more or less. Perhaps the most humorous incident with regard to the influx of musical and voice teachers in Hollywood was a recent letter sent to Ned Sparks, soliciting his business. Sparks answered the letter and asked: "What can you teach me?" Back came a reply about the importance of the voice to talking pictures. The letter ended with — "and we guarantee to teach you to talk. ' Ned's reply had a decidedly humorous vein to it. He wrote: "Gentlemen: I learned to talk when I was a mere child and I could quite likely do better than many adults of the screen today. If you can teach me to throw my voice so that 1 can sit down alone and enjoy dialogues with myself, you've won a pupil !" SPARKS is one of the real veterans of the stage and screen. He was a footlight star for twenty years and the coming of talking pictures has elevated him to an enviable position on the screen. His laugh rt)les in Street Girl, The Fall Guy, The Deril's Holiday and other recent pictures have brought about a tremendous demand for his presence in pictures. From what we can gather, he and Arthur Lake are about the only two players who aren"t taking vocal lessons or haven't taken any. Young Lake, who is now under contract to RKO studios, is probably the only person in pictures who was told, at the inception of talkies, that he should under no circumstances study voice training. The studio officials declared that they had found in Arthur a young person whose voice really sounded young and who could take parts such as the one he portrays in She's /My Weakness. His voice possesses that quality of changing' that all young people have, and this demand was written into his contract so that there would be no danger of Arthur stealing off to some voice specialist and turning up one day at the studio with a large and varied assortment of "ah's" ! The strong and silent man of yore? "Why, he was just a \'okel ! The players of a modern day are elegantly vocal. The hero must enunciate with clarity and vigor ; ; 11 ingemier's atiractive laugh must supplement 'i.r "figger;" The vamp has keyed her luring words to low and tlirilling tunes — ...7 who can do the voices for the animal Voices Wanted Those weird and mystic runes Of cats and ducks and 'coons, "'OChat voice could do full justice to the animal cartoons? I'm glad I'm not the President — the life he leads is trying; I'm much too frail and nervous to go in for ocean flying. Let flagpole sitters roost for eye; Igt Babe keep cracking bati. I do not envy pugilists or 'Wall Street plutocrats. But this is my ambition (would 'twere one of Fortune's boons): I'd love to do the voices for the animal cartoons ' My inmost spirit croons Of lions, mice, and loons; I'm sure that I could vocalize the animal cartoons. — Jerome Barry. 75