Talking Screen (Sep-Oct 1930)

How They Get That Way do an animal act. The high-salaried stars of M-G-M's popular canine comedies often swagger into the make-up department for individual attention. When a police dog could not be found to do a certain bit of business, the make-up man, with crepe hair, spirit gum, and mascara turned an astonished dog of' uncertain parentage but good intentions into a thoroughly convincing German shepherd. Then there was the bloodhound that had to cry copiously. Ordinarily, glycerine would have been dropped directly into tha pooch's eyes ; but the director wanted the tears to fall and cease at will. Rubber tubing from an ordinary snapshot camera was concealed in the very pliable skin of the bloodhound's back and carried out of the scene, where a make-up man squeezed a rubberbulb and caused the tears to flow only when needed! In a recent production, a $38,000 Arabian stallion was used. When retakes were necessary, the gorgeous animal was not available. The casting office found a 100 per cent American horse that was a perfect duplicate save for the luxuriant mane and tail. These the wig-maker supplied with such ingenuity that even the cast did not recognize the second animal as a double ! A UNIQUE position is held by Jack Dawn of Fox Films. A sculptor as well as a make-up artist, he models characters as he visualizes them from reading the "working script." From these tiny models are created the odd characterizations later developed on the screen; from them [^Continued from page Si} also, the casting officials choose types to duplicate from the ranks of extras and featured players. Dawn has just finished th:figurines for The Big Trail, and is on location with the company in Wyoming, pers'onally making up Tyrone Power, Tully Marshall, and others as he origmally created them in clay. The only make-up truck in existence is owned by Fox Films, and was designed and patented by Joseph Riley — formerly a lieutenant-detective of the New York police! Riley chanced to observe the discouraging attempts of a make-up artist to prepare a girl for a screen test on location, using a studio car for a make-up room. He bought a large auto truck that could be attached to an ordinary car in a few moments, and outPft'd it with three well lighted make-uo tables, a manicure desk, a wash basin with hot and cold water, a frigidaire, full length mirror, and a chest foe supplies. • Its cost, approximately $6,000, will soon b.e paid fo" in time and labor saved and in final results. Fox expects to have a fleet of' these make-u^^ trucks, to be ready at a moment's not ce to go on distant locations, or even to sections of the studio grounds that are inconvenient! far from the regular make-up departmen* Riley's idea is intrinsically so simple, yet so practical, that every other studio in Hollywood is wondering why it never thought of a make-up truck during the last ten years! A MAKE-UP anist does with grease paints, powders, and brushes what a plastic surgeon does with a knife — and no blood is shed, even when your favorite actor emerges from a ferocious batde with gaping wounds. In Way for a Saiior, John Gilbert copiously sheds "blood" of glycerine and carmine lipstick. Black eyes are only lumps of putty or cotton covered with blue and brown eye-shadow, while scars are made quite painlessly with liquid collodion, which puckers the skin into a perfect temporary wound. So strong is its astringency, however, that it cannot be used on leading men or players who must appear daily in such make-up. In time the collodion would form a real scar. On these individuals raised scars of cotton are usually created harmlessly yet with equal effectiveness. Glass eyes set in a putty foundation that round out the cheeks are often used for drunks oT hideously deformed characters, while openeyed blindness has been effected once or twice with almond-shaped pieces of egg skin fitted over the eyeball itself. Chinese eyes are formed by drawing the forehead tightly upward with fishskin at the sides, while Oriental teeth are made of rubber. THESE various make-up tricks, apparently so simple, are the result of many years of experimenting, usually with several of Hollywood's best make-up minds collaborating on each individual problem. The supreme importance of make-up on the screen has caused this department to become one of the most highly specialized sections of the entire motion picture industry. Janet Gaynor Interviews Janet Gaynor I couldn'f. That's why I say 1 have something to protect." "You mean your dramatic ability; your flair for playing persecuted, down-trodden girls, and tragic figures?" "Yes. I want to do dramatic things. " It was beginning to sound like a professional interview. It's easy, really, to do these things." I'D LIKE to do Barry things," said Gaynor, giving critical attention to a patch of sunburned leg. "Liltle M'misier, and then, too, Tully's Bird of Paradise." "In the meantime, you're sitting here waiting, and Hollywood is talking about your future — " Gaynor's coppery head nodded. "Let's," she said, "talk about something else. Let's, for instance, talk about the Islands. I want to go there, sometime, and stay forever. Everything is soft, air and breezes, and the high mountains come abruptly to the sea." " We have to talk about your dramatic life. This is an interview." "My life has no drama." "Every life has drama. You can't live without it. To you it is nothing — uneventful. Now you were born — " "In Philadelphia. Find drama in that." " Well," thinking fast, "it has historical {Continued from page 35'\ significance. Look at Ben Franklin and Independence Hall and . . ." " I can't. I've sand in my eye. But, no, I'm funning you, Mrs. Peck. It's a lovely city, with broad, impressive streets. Helen, that's my sister, older than me, and I lived there until I was eight. Then mother and the two of us went to Chicago. I was little and thin and awkward. I went to school and hated the stuffy studies; I d rather read fairy tales — " "And eat strawberry sodas. You were a normal child." THANKS, " laconically. "I wintered in Florida, occasionally, with relatives, because the northern climate was too cold. Later, mother remarried. That was when Jonesy. a great and tender-hearted man, entered the scene. He told me I would be a dramatic actress." "He never thought otherwise, did he.'" "Even when I was a kid. In San FranC'sco, where we eventually moved — he had plans for mining near there, gold, copper, silver, everything — and I worked in shops and offices, during summer vacations, he insisted I would be an actress. But that's not dramatic." "You think not? And then, after that, to Hollywood, Gaynor'" "About six years ago." . . " A stenographic course — " "For a couple of weeks. Typewriting whipped me." " And then the casting offices. Helen discovered them first, didn't she?" "Yes." " And then endless tramping from studio to studio with the eternal "nothing today.' Footsore, heartsick, weary . . ." CUT it, Mrs. Peck! You're getting me down. Cut the sentiment. You're going to be romping on about Heartbreak Boulevard in a minute, and 1 11 be romping into the house. Struggles, sure. But don't we all have them, in one form or another? I'm glad for every experience I ve had. There isn t one that I would have avoided. I love this life. I want to work and do some good pictures. That's all I ask. But drama . . . not in my life." "Isn't there drama in being selected from all Hollywood to play Diane in Seventh Heaven? From obscurity to the dizzy heights of prominence?" " Drama to me, at the moment, my dc,<:, would be a hamburger sandwich with In a relish, mustard and — yes, even onions," s,' cl Gaynor, scrambling to her feet. And that was the end of fhe inr.^rvicw. 93