Karl Hartl (1899–1978)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>Walter Robert Lach was born in Vienna. It was there that, attracted by the great skill of this excellent cameraman, G. W. Pabst, the well known film director, engaged him and took him to Berlin to become his permanent collaborator. It would be impossible, within the limits of the available space, to enumerate all the G. W. Pabst films photographed by Walter Robert Lach; those who know what great importance G. W. Pabst attaches to the pictorial quality of his productions will be able to conclude from that circumstance alone that Walter Robert Lach is a cameraman of the very first rank. The latest films photographed by this brilliant cameraman include, among others, “Arm wie eine Kirchenmaus”, “Weekend im Paradies”, “Der Finanzdirektor”, “Seitensprünge”, “Drei Tage Mittelarrest” and “Bockbierfest”. This is a very much abridged list that could be considerably extended, but sufficient to give a true and adequate idea of the work of this cameraman, who possesses the rare capacity of reflecting on the screen most effectively the ideas of the author of the story as well as those of the director.
That this is not easy to accomplish, particularly in the case of the talking film, is recognized even by the layman. Walter Robert Lach may justly claim to have always succeeded in his endeavour to interpret the idea of the film to the spectator with the greatest artistic effect.
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Walter Robert Lach ist Wiener. G. W. Pabst ist in Wien auf die Qualitäten dieses ausgezeichneten Kameramanns aufmerksam geworden und hat ihn nach Berlin gebracht, wo der Operateur ständiger Mitarbeiter des bekannten Regisseurs wurde. Es können hier nicht alle die vielen Pabst-Filme aufgeführt werden, an denen Walter Robert Lach mitgearbeitet hat — wer weiß, wie großen Wert G. W. Pabst gerade auch auf die künstlerische Bildwirkung seiner Filme legt, der kann schon daraus allein den Schluß ziehen, daß der Kameramann Walter Robert Lach zu den Ersten seines Fachs gezählt werden muß. Von den letzten Filmen, die dieser glänzende Operateur gedreht hat, nennen wir nur „Arm wie eine Kirchenmaus”, der ein Welterfolg geworden ist, „Weekend im Paradies”, „Der Finanzdirektor”, „Seitensprünge”, „Drei Tage Mittelarrest” und „Bockbierfest”. Die Liste könnte noch wesentlich erweitert werden, aber sie gibt bereits ein ausreichendes und zutreffendes Bild vom Schaffen dieses Kameramannes, der es wie selten einer versteht, den Ideen des Filmdichters und des Regisseurs in der wirkungsvollsten Form auf den Filmstreifen zu bannen.
Daß das nicht leicht ist, besonders heute beim Tonfilm, das weiß heute auch der Laie. Walter Robert Lach darf die Ehre für sich in Anspruch nehmen, in allen seinen Arbeiten mit großem Erfolg danach gestrebt zu haben, der Idee des Films den besten, künstlerisch wirkungsvollsten Bild-Ausdruck gegeben zu haben.
Berlin-Tempelhof, Friedrich-Karl-Straße 84 | T: Südring G5 3984 | X: —10
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Robert Lach (1901–1971)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>Paul Verhoeven is one of the most talented of the younger generation of German stage actors. He Started his stage career in Munich, scoring a very notable personal success in the part of Barend in Hoffnung auf Segen. His portrayals of the Student in Gespenstersonate, of Christopher in Teufelsschüler and of Stogumber in Bernard Shaws St. Joan provided ample evidence of his great and comprehensive talent. From Munich Paul Verhoeven transferred to Dresden, where he appeared with equal success in modern plays such as Der arme Vetter, Des Kaisers Soldaten, and Dreigroschenoper, and in the lighter dialogue play, such as Josephine, in which he played the part of the young Napoleon.
At the Vienna Kammerspiele, he appeared principally in modern dialogue plays, after which he went on tour with Erika Glaessner, covering Hamburg, Cologne, and Düsseldorf. Later Paul Verhoeven secured an engagement at the Schauspielhaus in Frankfort, where he won the recognition of press and public alike on his first appearance in the part of Hibbert in Journey’s End. It was here that his great talent reached its full development. In the opinion of the press, Paul Verhoeven resembles Werner Krauss by the intensity of his acting and his capacity for characterisation. In the great company of this first-class cultural theatre, he occupies a prominent place and the field covered by him is almost unlimited.
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Paul Verhoeven ist eine der stärksten Begabungen des deutschen Bühnen-Nachwuchses. Er begann seine Laufbahn in München und hatte in der Rolle des Barend in Hoffnung auf Segen seinen ersten ganz großen Erfolg. Der Student in der Gespenstersonate, der Christoph in Teufelsschüler und der Stogumber in Shaws Die heilige Johanna zeigten seine umfassende große Begabung. Von München ging Paul Verhoeven nach Dresden, und hatte sowohl in Werken der Moderne (Der arme Vetter, die Figur des Lobele in Des Kaisers Soldaten und Mackie Messer in der Dreigroschenoper), wie im Konversationsstück größten Erfolg.
In den Wiener Kammerspielen trat Verhoeven hauptsächlich im modernen Konversationsstück auf, begleitete dann Erika Glaessner auf einer Tournee nach Hamburg, Köhl, Düsseldorf, und verpflichtete sich schließlich dem Frankfurter Schauspielhaus, wo er schon mit seiner ersten Rolle, dem Hibbert in der Anderen Seite, Publikum und Presse für sich gewann. Hier entfaltet sich sein großes Talent zur vollen Reife, und die Kritik sagt von ihm, daß er durch die Intensität seines Spiels und seine Gestaltungskraft an Werner Krauß erinnert. Im großen Repertoire dieses erstklassigen Kulturtheaters ist Paul Verhoeven erste Kraft, sein Rollengebiet fast unbegrenzt. Der Radius seines Könnens umfaßt das ganze Theater, von der Operette bis zur Tragödie. Alles weist darauf hin, daß die nächste Station seines Weges Berlin und der Tonfilm ist.
Frankfurt a. M., Schauspielhaus | M: Bühnen-Nachweis, Berlin W 9, Potsdamer Str. 4 | T: Lützow B 2 3318/19
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phot: Atelier Hess, Frankfurt a. M.
Paul Verhoeven (1901–1975)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
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[Transcriber’s Note: This Paul Verhoeven is not related with the Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven]
]]>Those who have been fortunate enough to see Emil Jannings as Professor Unrat in “Blauen Engel”, in “Liebling der Götter” or in “Stürme der Leidenschaft”, in the latter of which he played opposite Anna Stens, must regard the hours spent with Emil Jannings as their most memorable artistic experience. As a portrayer of characters that are out of the common Emil Jannings is to-day unequalled. His power of delineation is nothing short of marvellous.
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Emil Jannings — der stärkste und erfolgreichste deutsche Filmschauspieler! Er ist 1888 in Brooklyn geboren, kam zehnjährig mit seinen deutschen Eltern nach Deutschland zurück und stand schon in sehr jungen Jahren auf der Bühne. Mit vielen Standardwerken des stummen Films ist sein Name unlöslich verbunden — wir erinnern nur an seinen „Henry VIII”, an seinen „Nero”, „Othello”, „Peter den Großen”, „Faust”, „Tartuffe” und viele andere. Schon hier zeigte er sein außerordentlich starkes Talent und die große Kunst, das Publikum auch ohne das gesprochene Wort nicht nur zu interessieren, sondern Stärkstens in den Bann seines gewaltigen Temperaments zu zwingen. Trotzdem ist der Künstler selbstverständlich zum Tonfilm übergegangen, und es hat sich gezeigt, daß gerade der Tonfilm die Wirkung seiner Kunst noch wesentlich zu vertiefen vermag.
Wer das Glück gehabt hat, ihn als Professor Unrat im „Blauen Engel”, oder in „Liebling der Götter”, oder in „Stürme der Leidenschaft” — im letzteren Film als Partner Anna Stens — zu sehen, wird die Stunden bei Emil Jannings zu seinen stärksten künstlerischen Erlebnissen zählen. Als Verkörperer über das Mittelmaß hinausragender Charaktere ist Emil Jannings heute unerreicht; die Kraft seiner Charakterisierung ist in höchstem Maße bewundernswert.
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phot: Ufa
Emil Jannings (1884–1950)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>It was not until her father’s death that she was able to go on the stage. She had the great good fortune to be discovered by Inkischinew, the great Russian actor, and was later trained for the Russian talking screen by S. M. Eisenstein [Sergei Eisenstein]. At present she plays exclusively in German and has reached the summit of her career. She scored a sensational success in “Bomben auf Monte Carlo” and recently played the leading feminine role in the great Ufa talking film “Stürme der Leidenschaft”.
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Am 1. Dezember 1910 wurde dem Ballettmeister an der Kaiserlich Russischen Oper in Kiew eine Tochter geboren: Anjuschka Stenski — heute Anna Sten, einer der bedeutendsten Tonfilmstars Europas. Wenn der Vater Ballettmeister und die Mutter Primaballerina an der Moskauer Oper ist, gibt es für das Kind nur einen Beruf: Ballettänzerin. Mit vier Jahren wurde die kleine Anjuschka Elevin; der russische Staat hatte die Sorge für ihre Ausbildung übernommen. Der Vater ging an die Front, die Mutter mit. Im Jahre 1917 war der Krieg zu Ende, aber das russische Kaiserreich und damit die kaiserliche Ballettschule auch. Wo Anjuschka war, wußte kein Mensch. Man fand die Neunjährige im Moskauer Technikum, einer Art Kunstschule; sie hatte das Tanzen aufgegeben und sich dem Sprechtheater zugewandt. Der Vater holte sie zurück und fügte sie einer Tanz- und Akrobatengruppe ein, mit der er durch Rußland zog. Mit elf Jahren war Anjuschka der Star dieses wandernden Zirkus.
Erst nach dem Tode ihres Vaters konnte sie zur Bühne gehen; sie hatte das Glück, von Inkischinew, dem großen russischen Schauspieler, entdeckt zu werden. S. M. Eisenstein [Sergei Eisenstein] bildete sie für den russischen Tonfilm aus. Heute spielt sie nur Deutsch, ist auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer Laufbahn, hat in „Bomben auf Monte Carlo” einen Riesenerfolg gehabt und spielte zuletzt in dem Ufa-Großtonfilm „Stürme der Leidenschaft” die weibliche Hauptrolle.
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phot: Ufa
Anna Sten (1908–1993)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>Paul Hörbiger is an Austrian. He studied chemistry and took part in the war as an active officer before going on the stage. To-day his name as a stage and screen actor is known far beyond the confines of Austria and Germany. He began his stage career at the Reichenberg theatre, where he stayed for a year, after which he was attached to the Deutsches Theater in Prague for six years, scoring many successes. Followed several engagements in Berlin: three years with Reinhardt. one with Barnowsky, one with Charrell, and another two years with Max Reinhardt. For the screen Paul Hörbiger was discovered by Director Preßburger and has played principal roles in no fewer than fifty-five silent and talking film. He made his first screen appearance in “Sechs Mädchen suchen Nachtquartier” and further collaborated in the Fritz Lang film “Spione” and a large number of silent Ufa productions.
He made a most auspicious talkie debut in “Ich glaub’ nie mehr an eine Frau” and also played leading parts in “Zwei Herzen im ¾ Takt, “Der Herr auf Bestellung”, “Hoheit befiehlt“, and many other talking films. At the time of writing he is engaged on the new Aafa film “Lügen auf Rügen”. However, Paul Hörbiger does not content himself with his reputation as an actor alone and is rapidly making another as a film writer. He is responsible, among others, for both the story and scenario of the well known Tauber production “Das lockende Ziel”.
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Paul Hörbiger ist Oesterreicher. Er studierte Chemie und machte den Krieg als aktiver Offizier mit, ehe er sich der Bühne zuwandte. Heute ist sein Name bei Bühne und Film weit über österreichische und deutsche Grenzen hinaus bekannt. Er begann seine Künstlerlaufbahn am Theater in Reichenberg, blieb dort aber nur ein Jahr, bis er ein Engagement ans Deutsche Theater in Prag erhielt, wo er sechs Jahre lang erfolgreich tätig war. Dann kam Berlin: Drei Jahre Reinhardt, ein Jahr Barnowsky, ein Jahr Charell, und für die nächsten zwei Jahre hat Paul Hörbiger wieder einen Vertrag mit Reinhardt. Für den Film wurde er von Direktor Preßburger entdeckt. Seither hat er in nicht weniger als 55 Stumm- und Tonfilmen tragende Rollen gespielt. Sein erster Film war „Sechs Mädchen suchen Nachtquartier”, ferner war er für den Fritz-Lang-Film „Spione” und eine große Anzahl der stummen Ufa-Filme verpflichtet.
Beim Tonfilm debütierte er außerordentlich glücklich in „Ich glaub’ nie mehr an eine Frau” und spielte ferner Hauptrollen in „Zwei Herzen im ¾ Takt”, „Der Herr auf Bestellung”, „Hoheit befiehlt” und vielen anderen. Zur Zeit arbeitet er an dem neuen Aafa-Film „Lügen auf Rügen”. Paul Hörbiger begnügt sich aber nicht damit, sich als Schauspieler einen Namen gemacht zu haben; auch schriftstellerisch hat er sich erfolgreich betätigt; u. a. stammt Manuskript und Drehbuch für den bekannten Tauber-Film „Das lockende Ziel” von ihm.
Berlin-Zehlendorf, Glockenstraße 1a | T: Zehlendorf G 4 1522
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phot: Walter Lichtenstein
Paul Hörbiger (1894–1981)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>To-day Lilian Harvey is the darling of the cinema-going public all over the world. Her graceful presence, her great beauty and her incomparable charm, as well as her convincing and natural acting, amply explain why the Ufa counts her among its foremost stars. She is the type of leading lady which is at present most popular both on the stage and on the talking screen. To see and hear this exquisite actress is always a joyous experience.
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Der deutsche Tonfilmstar Lilian Harvey ist in London im Jahre 1906 geboren, kam aber schon in früher Jugend nach Berlin, wurde hier von Mary Zimmermann für die Tanzkunst ausgebildet und ging, um ihre Studien fortzusetzen, nach Wien. Trat dort zunächst in großen Revuen auf und wurde von Richard Eichberg für den Film entdeckt. Was sie heute für den Film bedeutet, das braucht nicht erst gesagt zu werden. In einer Reihe von stummen Filmen spielte sie sich zum anerkannten Star hinauf, ging 1928 nach London und spielte für die British Pictures eine führende Rolle in „A Knight in London” und in „The Temporary Widow” und wurde dann wieder der Ufa verpflichtet. Größte Erfolge: „Der Liebeswalzer”, „Der Kongreß tanzt” und „Zwei Herzen und ein Schlag”.
Lilian Harvey ist heute der anerkannte Liebling des Kinopublikums; ihre graziöse Figur, ihre Schönheit und nicht zuletzt ihr unvergleichlicher Charme und ihre immer überzeugende, frisch-natürliche Darstellungskunst lassen es begreiflich erscheinen, daß die Ufa sie in die allererste Reihe ihrer Stars gestellt hat: sie ist der Liebhaberinnen-Typ, der augenblicklich am allermeisten Anklang auch im Tonfilm findet, und es ist in der Tat eine wirkliche Freude, die entzückende Künstlerin zu sehen und zu hören.
Berlin-Westend, Ahornallee 16 17 | T: Westend C 3 6366
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phot: Ufa
Lilian Harvey (1906–1968)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>Offers to play the same part reached him from England, France, Italy, and America, but Lederer refused them all in favour of an offer from Laurillard, London, where he made his debut in My Sister and I, followed by the leading role in Basil Dean’s production of Autumn Crocus, which has been running for a year in Shaftesbury Avenue, and is the greatest play success of the season.
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Dieser junge Schauspieler begann seine Laufbahn am Deutschen Theater in Prag; anschließend war er als jugendlicher Liebhaber an den Bühnen in Brünn und Breslau tätig. Durch eine Empfehlung Käthe Dorschs, die bei einem Gastspiel in Breslau mit ihm zusammenspielt, kommt Lederer nach Berlin. Erster Erfolg „Coeur Bube” im Renaissance-Theater. H. Porten [Henny Porten] sieht ihn und verpflichtet ihn als Partner für den Film „Zuflucht”. Dann spielt Lederer bei Pommer „Die wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowa”! Max Reinhardt engagiert ihn für seine Romeo-Inszenierung mit Elisabeth Bergner. Hier sieht ihn Lillian Gish, die ihn sofort mit einem dreijährigen Kontrakt nach Amerika verpflichtet. Als dieser gerade in Kraft treten soll, hört man in Hollywood auf, stumme Filme zu drehen, und der Vertrag wurde annulliert, da Lederer damals die englische Sprache nicht genügend beherrschte. Sein erster Tonfilm ist dann „Atlantic” (Regie Dupont), und „Ihre Majestät die Liebe” (Regie Joe May). Da engagiert ihn Dr. Klein für den Gigolo in Die Wunderbar.
Nun kommen Angebote aus England, Frankreich, Italien und Amerika für diese Rolle; Franz Lederer aber akzeptiert ein Angebot von Dir. Laurillard, London, wo er in My Sister and I zum ersten Male auftritt. Dann wird er von Basil Dean für Autumn Crocus engagiert. Dieses Stück läuft nun mit Franz Lederer in der männlichen Hauptrolle seit einem Jahr in der Shaftesbury Avenue.
M: Arthur Hirsch, Berlin-Charlottenburg 9, Reichsstraße 81 | Tel: C 3, Westend 8618
M: Eduard Laurillard, Piccadilly-Theater, London | T: Gerard 2397
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Francis Lederer (1899–2000)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>Conrad Veidt was born in 1893 in Berlin and made his first appearance on the stage before he was twenty, under the management of Max Reinhardt. He soon established contact with the silent film, playing his first great screen part in “Tagebuch einer Frau”. Then success followed upon success, both on the stage and on the screen. When he played in Cabinet des Dr. Caligari he had already worked his way to the front rank of German screen artists. “Der Student von Prag” was one of his outstanding successes. His performance in that film clearly showed that Conrad Veidt has a particular bent for parts of a sinister nature, and it is characteristic of the personality of his great artist that he is capable of exploiting all the possibilities of his gifts in that direction without going to extremes. In the year 1927 Conrad Veidt went to America and worked at Hollywood with considerable success. His performances in “Die magische Flamme” and “Die letzte Kompanie”’ are unforgettable. Later he had an engagement at Elstree, England, after which he returned to Germany to play the part of Prince Metternich in the Ufa production of „Der Kongreß tanzt”. The consummate artistry with which he portrayed this character has earned him unanimous appreciation all over the World.
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Conrad Veidt ist 1893 in Berlin geboren und debütierte als noch nicht Zwanzigjähriger bei Max Reinhardt. Nach kürzerem Aufenthalt in der Provinz kehrte er zu Reinhardt zurück. Sehr bald kam der junge Künstler in Beziehungen zum stummen Film; seine erste größere Rolle war im „Tagebuch einer Frau”. Sehr rasch stiegen seine Erfolge auf der Bühne sowohl wie im Film. Im Cabinet des Dr. Caligari stand er bereits in der ersten Reihe der deutschen Filmkünstler. Besonderer Erfolg: „Der Student von Prag”. Es zeigte sich hier bereits sehr deutlich, daß Conrad Veidt für die Verkörperung von Rollen, die irgendwie eine starke dämonische Nuance hatten, sich in ganz besonderem Maße eignete, und es ist für die Wesensart dieses großen Künstlers bezeichnend, daß er die Möglichkeiten, die in dieser Begabung liegen, wohl auszunützen versteht, ohne sie aber zu übertreiben. 1927 ging Conrad Veidt nach Hollywood und hat dort drei Jahre lang mit größtem Erfolg gearbeitet — unvergessen sind seine Leistungen in „Die magische Flamme” und „Die letzte Kompanie”. Nach kurzer Tätigkeit in Elstree ist der Künstler nach Deutschland zurückgekehrt und hat in dem Ufa-Film „Der Kongreß tanzt” die Rolle des Fürsten Metternich in einer künstlerischen Vollendung dargestellt, die von Publikum und Presse enthusiastisch anerkannt wurde. Ein Künstler größten Formats!
Berlin-Halensee, Paulsborner Str. 2, bei Freudenberg
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phot: Ufa
Conrad Veidt (1893–1943)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>
Lisl Karlstadt cannot be mentioned without Karl Valentin. For two decades she has never appeared on the stage with anyone else. It was as his partner that she sang at the Kabarett der Komiker in Berlin, it is with him that she sings at the Kolosseum in Munich, with him that she is heard on the many gramophone records bearing the name of Valentin. But she is far more than merely the assistant of the great comedian. Though it is hardly possible to think of Lisl Karlstadt without Karl Valentin, it is not much easier to think of Karl Valentin without Lisl Karlstadt. Her pertness, the entirely individual manner in which she gives her partner his cues. her freshness and naturalness and. above all, her brilliant humour, have all combined to make her a public favourite. To hear her and her partner is always an experience. These two gifted artists have already appeared on the legitimate stage and their talking film debut is almost overdue.
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Lisl Karlstadt kann nur mit Karl Valentin zusammen genannt werden, denn seit zwei Jahrzehnten tritt sie ausschließlich mit ihm auf: mit ihm zusammen hat man sie in Berlin am Kabarett der Komiker gehört, hört sie im Münchner Kolosseum und auf den vielen Schallplatten, die den Namen Valentin tragen. Aber sie ist mehr, als nur der Gehilfe des großen Humoristen — man kann sich allerdings die Lisl Karlstadt kaum ohne Karl Valentin vorstellen, aber fast ebensowenig Karl Valentin ohne die Lisl Karlstadt. Ihre Feschheit, die absolut selbständige Art. in der sie ihrem Partner die Stichworte bringt, ihre Natürlichkeit und Frische und vor allem ihr glänzender Humor machen sie zum Liebling des Publikums — sie und ihren Partner zu hören, ist immer ein ganz großes Erlebnis. Auf der Sprechbühne haben diese beiden begnadeten Menschen schon gespielt — warum nicht auch einmal im Tonfilm?
München, Maximilianstraße 29 III | T: 22948
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phot: Anton Sahm, München
Lisl Karlstadt (1892–1960)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>Karl Valentin is the German Charlie Chaplin [Charles Chaplin]. This unique humorist and character comedian was born in Munich. became a cabinet maker, travelled all over Germany with a musical box built with his own hands, and eventually went on a tour of the provinces with a troupe of comedians. Returning to Munich, he began by giving Performances as a patterer at inns. Subsequently he secured a permanent engagement, and to-day he is the greatest humorist not only in Munich, or in Bavaria, but in the whole of Germany. His peculiar. irresistible humour has been analysed in books, while hundreds of thousands of records have carried his art to countless homes, to cheer and entertain an endless number of people. Together with Lisl Karlstadt, his partner for many years, Karl Valentin is something unique, something that only happens once, a veritable king of humour inspired by all the spirits of gaiety.
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Karl Valentin — der deutsche Chaplin! Dieser einzigartige Humorist und komische Charakterdarsteller ist in München gehören, wurde Tischler, reiste mit einem selbstgebauten Musikapparat durch ganz Deutschland und ging endlich mit einer Komikergesellschaft in die Provinz. Nach München zurückgekehrt, fing er mit komischen Vorträgen erst in Gastwirtschaften an, fand dann festes Engagement und ist heute der große Humorist Münchens, Bayerns, Deutschlands. Bücher sind über seinen überwältigenden Humor geschrieben worden, und Hunderttausende von Schallplatten haben seine große Kleinkunst in ungezählte Häuser gebracht und unendlich vielen Menschen Freude und Heiterkeit vermittelt. Zusammen mit Lisl Karlstadt, seiner Partnerin seit vielen Jahren, ist Karl Valentin etwas Einziges, Einmaliges: ein von allen fröhlichen Geistern gesegneter König des Humors!
München, Kanalstraße 8 | T: 224 45
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phot: Müller-Hilsdorf, München
Karl Valentin (1882–1948)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>At the age of three Dolly Haas used to dance to the improvised dance tunes of her father. No wonder that her talent should have manifested itself so early, for she had inherited it from her ancestors, Caroline Jagemann and Schröder-Devrient. It was only with great difficulty that her mother was able to prevent Steinrück from presenting Dolly Haas to the Ufa, when, on a Hamburg visit, he saw her play the part of Franziska s child in “Franziska”. Already as a schoolgirl she appeared as a dancer at the Hamburg Opera and as a solo dancer at Olga Brandt’s Ballet School. She made her debut in the Massary-Pallenberg Operette “Die Königin”. Charell happened to see her in that play and informed her through Pallenberg that he had liked her Performance. She wrote to him and although Charell’s reply was rather lukewarm, she paid him a sudden visit in Berlin und was immediately engaged for the part of Put Put in “Mikado”.
Followed minor engagements. but the beginning of her brilliant career was marked by her improvisations at the “Katakombe” cabaret. She secured contracts with Director Haller and Max Reinhardt, and after appearing in the revue “Wie werde ich reich und glücklich” she was engaged by the Ufa to play in “Dolly macht Karriere”. Subsequently she played in Thiele, Ball and Pallenberg films. Her acting is characterized by an enthralling charm, accentuated by a graceful mobility and a highly developed sense of fun.
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Als dreijähriges Kind tanzte die kleine Dolly Haas zu den improvisierten Tanzmelodien ihres Vaters. Kein Wunder, daß sich ihre Begabung schon früh zeigte: sie hat das darstellerische Talent von ihren Vorfahren Caroline Jagemann und Schröder-Devrient geerbt. Ihre Mutter konnte nur mit Mühe verhindern, daß Steinbrück, der Dolly Haas bei seinem Hamburger Gastspiel in „Franziska” als Franziskas Kind spielen sah, sie gleich der Ufa präsentierte. Sie trat bereits während ihrer Schulzeit als Tänzerin an der Hamburger Oper auf und als Solotänzerin in der Ballettschule von Olga Brandt. Sie debütierte in der Massary-Pallenberg-Operette „Die Königin”. Zufällig sah Charell sie darin und ließ ihr durch Pallenberg bestellen: sie habe ihm gefallen! Sie schrieb an ihn, erhielt zwar nur eine laue Antwort, aber fuhr kurz entschlossen zu ihm nach Berlin. Sie wurde gleich für die Put Put in “Mikado” verpflichtet. Kleine Engagements folgten, ihre Improvisationen im Kabarett „Katakombe” aber wurden das Sprungbrett für eine glänzende Zukunft. Dir. Haller und Reinhardt engagierten sie, und nach der Revue „Wie werde ich reich und glücklich?” holte sie die Ufa für „Dolly macht Karriere”. Anschließend spielte sie beim Thiele-, Ball- und Pallenberg-Film. Bezaubernde Liebenswürdigkeit. Komik und Beweglichkeit verleihen ihrem Spiel hinreißenden Scharm, und es ist immer eine Freude, ihr auf die Bühne oder auf der Leinwand zu begegnen.
Berlin-Charlottenburg 9. Reichsstraße 9, b. Kraft | T: Westend C 3 3149 | X: 9½—10½
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phot: Atelier Binder. Berlin
Dolly Haas (1910–1994)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>Leni Riefenstahl was trained in the Russian Ballet, under Mary Wigmann and Jutta Klammt and achieved her first great successes in 1924, at the age of seventeen, at the most important German and foreign theatres. In the same year she was discovered for he films by Dr. Arnold Fanck and was given the leading role — that of the dancer Diotima — in “Der heilige Berg”. During the production of this film the leading players met with various accidents, in which Leni Riefenstahl was rather seriously involved. During her first ski trials she sustained a fractured ankle, and later had her face scorched in the torch scene, so that it took two years to complete the film, which was only shown for the first time in 1927. From then onwards Leni Riefenstahl devoted herself entirely to screen work and for some years only worked with Dr. Arnold Fanck, at first for the Ufa and later for the Sokal-Film and the Aafa-Film. In 1928 she made her second film “Der große Sprung”, followed, in 1929, by “Die Hölle vom Piz Palü” and, in 1930, “Stürme über dem Montblanc”. At the time of writing she is at work on the new Fanck film “Die weißen Teufel”. Her most outstanding personal successes were achieved in “Der heilige Berg” and “Die Hölle vom Piz Palü”. These two films made terrific demands on the vitality and courage of this true artist, and that is probably why her performances in them surpassed even her own unusually high standard.
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Leni Riefenstahl wurde als Tänzerin im russischen Ballett, ferner bei Mary Wigmann und Jutta Klammt ausgebildet und hatte ihre ersten großen Erfolge 1924 als Siebzehnjährige auf den größten in- und ausländischen Bühnen. In demselben Jahre entdeckte Dr. Arnold Fanck ihr filmisches Talent, und sie erhielt die Hauptrolle der Tänzerin Diotima im „Heiligen Berg”. Die schweren Unglücksfälle der Hauptdarsteller — sie selbst brach sich bei ihren ersten Skiübungen beide Knöchel und verbrannte sich bei den Fackelaufnahmen das Gesicht — dehnten die Arbeit an diesem Film über zwei Jahre aus, so daß erst 1927 die Uraufführung stattfinden konnte. Die Künstlerin blieb von dieser Zeit an beim Film und arbeitete in den nächsten Jahren nur mit Dr. Arnold Fanck. Anfangs war sie bei der Ufa tätig, später beim Sokalfilm und beim Aafa-Film. 1928 kam ihr zweiter Film „Der große Sprung” heraus. 1929 folgte „Die Hölle vom Piz Palü” und 1930 „Stürme über dem Montblanc”. Gegenwärtig arbeitet sie an einem neuen Fanck-Film, „Die weißen Teufel”. Sondererfolge brachten ihr unter anderem „Der heilige Berg” und „Die Hölle vom Piz Palü”. Gerade diese beiden Filme stellen große Anforderungen an die Tatkraft und den Wagemut dieser wahren Künstlerin; weitere Erfolge werden diesem jugendlichen, überragenden Talent zweifellos beschieden sein.
Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Hindenburgstraße 97 | T: Uhland H 2 1456
AA • AC • CA • CB • EE
phot: Ufa
Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>by William H. McKegg
Examples in Hollywood of deeply wounded dignitaries from Europe and elsewhere — who have listened speechless and mortified to casting directors, telling them that being a star in Dalmatia, or anywhere else, means nothing minus in America — are too numerous to mention. The main point at issue, however, is to describe how one player came from abroad and succeeded against all odds.
When George K. Arthur sailed blithely into New York harbor, he believed his position in American pictures would be quite secure. Was he not a favorite in England?
“It was like this,” George remarked at the M.-G.-M. studio. “A film version of H. G. Wells’ ‘Kipps’ had made me quite popular in England. Don’t think this is boasting — nothing like that — but Wells himself said to me, ‘Why, you are Kipps in real life.’”
This was an unusual compliment. For an author is rarely given to praising a screen representation of one of his brain children.
With plenty of encouragement, George “Kipps” Arthur sailed with his wife and parents to America. But two years passed before the fans ever saw him on the screen.
How did he manage to stick it out and make a place for himself where others from abroad had failed?
Possibly because George was born in Scotland, at Aberdeen, where porridge is eaten every morning for breakfast which — according to the muscle-bulging, weight-lifting, supermen in the advertisements — develops the eater’s power of resistance.
“It takes fully two or three years to become known in Hollywood,” George said. “And I am speaking of people who have already created a place for themselves abroad — real professionals. The first six months I made the rounds. The casting directors saw my face. There was, of course, nothing doing. The next six months, they learned my name. Then they remembered me. The following six months, they perhaps thought I bore a resemblance to some higher-priced actor. In this way I could say I was gaining a foothold.”
If any newcomer wishes to try this out to appease his desire for work in the movies, he may do so. It takes only two or three years! What to do in the meantime? What did our strategist do while storming the studios for two years?
The canny young Scot opened a grocery store, up on the hillside. The cliff dwellers naturally, patronized him rather than ride down into Hollywood. Thus trade prospered.
Usually, actors are somewhat snobbish about their art. To suggest to any European actor that he open a store while waiting to become known, would be the insult of insults. But it was not so with George K. who, you remember, was born in Aberdeen. He is both democratic and wise.
“Being in the army knocked a lot of stupid ideas out of my head,” he confessed. “I ran away from school to join the army. I went, of course, into the Scottish. One day, a six-foot Canadian came to me for a new uniform. ‘You can’t have one unless you have a pass,’ I informed him with authority. Without arguing, he hit me on the jaw. I was out for hours.
“That, and many other similar incidents, altered my viewpoint. When I came to Hollywood and saw how hard it was for a person to break into the movies, even when he is a professional, I figured out a way to earn money on the side while I made the grade.
“Oh, I even opened a beauty shop when the grocery business flourished. Bet your life I can tell you all about marcels, shampoos, and wind-blown bobs!”
The war did not have that democratizing effect on every one. It did, however, cause many an English youth to seek the stage. Olive Brook, Ronald Colman, and Ralph Forbes all appeared behind the footlights when they returned from France.
After the war George played with Sir Frank Benson’s Shakespearean company. His first pictures gave him straight leads with Mae Marsh and Edna Flugrath, Viola Dana’s sister, who played with him in Kipps, which the late Harold Shaw directed.
His first leading role was in James Cruze’s Hollywood. Though he might as well not have been in it, for that picture, excellent though it was, did nothing to advance any of the actors it featured. Yet “The Salvation Hunters” — dreary film though it proved to be — won George instant recognition.
Perhaps he made a wrong start by playing in dramatic stuff, for he is essentially a comedian. It is supposed to be true that all comedians detest their comic existence — that off the stage and screen they go about in a woebegone mood.
In case you believe George has a “Ridi, Pagliaccio” complex, let it be known that he has not.
“No, not at all,” he grinned. “I’m quite content. The only thing I’d like — secret aspiration sort of thing — would be to become a Jean Hersholt of comedy. If there is such a thing. Does that sound crazy?
“I want to do comedy, but I hope to get a different type, a different personality, into each picture. Lloyd, Keaton, and Langdon [Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon] are definite types. Now, I should like to have people to say, ‘Let’s go and see George K. Arthur. He’s different.’”
This would-be Lon Chaney of comedy, and competitor of the great, has gained ground already in the pursuit of his desires.
Personally, he is a pleasant, humorous chap. Ambitious to gain what he hopes to get. He is a good business man — as the grocery and beauty shops revealed — and so he ought to prosper.
Let us hope that, for their own sakes, all the other foreign players will show such canny business instinct as George K. has displayed.
[a]
Mr. Arthur did not starve while casting directors slowly discovered his acting ability — he simply opened a grocery store.
[b]
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, May 1928
]]>by John Stafford
Amid the fleshpots of Hollywood, stewing in a welter of worldliness. there has been wrought a miracle. The power of prayer has rolled away the stones from the dreary tomb of oblivion which has hidden Winifred Westover through ten weary years. After a decade of solitude she has emerged in radiance to amaze the multitude. For her faith has brought her triumph in the year’s most wonderful role.
Never such a furor as that created by Lummox. Never such contention as that for the starring role in the film. It was certain that whatever actress characterized Fannie Hurst’s strange heroine for the screen would be assured of fame, not to mention fortune. Thus was covetousness born in the hearts of many who had never been denied by the gods of the movies.
Many skilled in intrigue sped deft arrows here and there — pulled this wire and that — brought mysterious influence to bear in important quarters. Some pleaded, others begged. Keen minds connived in behalf of favorites. Campaigns were planned, and executed, oh, so carefully, so skillfully. Publicity, the life blood of filmdom, played its part. Silken beauties besieged Producer Joseph M. Schenck and Director Herbert Brenon. Inducements were offered, with bartering in the market place. This star would enact the role for nothing; that one would actually pay for the privilege. But in the end prayer won. Prayer, and Winifred Westover.
If your picture wisdom dates ten years back, perhaps you remember her. As a little girl, fresh from the cloisters of the convent at San Rafael, the old master, David Wark Griffith, reproduced her loveliness in his great screen canvas, Intolerance. There were giants in those days. The Swansons, Von Stroheims, Fairbankses and the rest were laying the foundations upon which were to tower the lofty turrets of their fame. And Winifred forged forward by their sides. The Talmadges, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, the Marsh sisters — all that brilliant brood hatched on the old Fine Arts lot [D. W. Griffith, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Constance Talmadge, Norma Talmadge Natalie Talmadge, Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, Marguerite Marsh].
She played with — and for — the best of them. Those whose names endure: Ray, O’Brien, Tearle, Carey, Harron, Russell [Charles Ray, George O’Brien, Conway Tearle, Harry Carey, Robert Harron, Harold Russell] among the actors. And she responded to the call of “Camera!” issued by Browning, Ford, and the Franklins [Tod Browning, John Ford, Chester Franklin, Sidney Franklin]. Then the lightning of tragedy seared her fortunes at their pinnacle.
She had returned from the first foreign triumph ever enjoyed by an American star. Sweden, the home of her ancestors, had called her. In the land of the vikings she had been starred in four films. Her victory bestowed the laurels of success upon the first American invasion of the overseas cinema. Then she tossed aside a career to follow a mirage of love.
The man was William S. Hart, then one of the fixed stars in the ever-changing film firmament. Appropriately her romance with him endured from December until May. After all, it was a May and December romance. Her son was born. She heard his first cries alone. It was then that she learned to pray.
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help,” she breathed. And somehow she lived.
The years merged together like drops of mercury. “Little Bill” became a tall, strong boy. the sort of sun every mother prays for. His mother’s prayers were answered. During all this time she had been barred from the screen by the terms of her legal settlement. No acting, it said. No personal appearances, no pictures, she was an exile — an outcast. But he didn’t mind. Her heart was filled with the little life which had flowered from it. Her soul was sustained in the worship of God.
Then, in 1927, Fannie Hurst poured something of her soul into type. The result was Lummox. The name was applied derisively to the leading character in her novel. This is Bertha, an odd, clumsy creature, with a song in her heart that never reaches her lips. In the heart-stilling tale she suffers betrayal, bears her child in solitude and is a pariah scorned by the Pharisees.
Before it reached book form, the story was published serially in a magazine. The first installment somehow found its way to Winifred’s hand. She never missed a single one of those that followed. She found absorbing interest in Bertha the Lummox. As chapter followed chapter, she found an astounding similarity between this fictional being and herself. Slowly it dawned upon her that she must enact the role. She prayed to be shown the way, and light came. That year the court granted her permission to resume her career. This was before any producer had purchased the motion-picture rights to Lummox.
She watched as, step by step, Lummox progressed haltingly toward the screen. First it went to a company which scheduled Belle Bennett for Bertha’s role. The night this news came, Winifred’s heart was near to breaking. Things looked pretty definite. There was to be no Lummox for her. And she had wanted it so much — more than anything, she thought. She had asked Heaven’s help so humbly, but her prayers had not been heard. For the first time faith faltered.
It was the boy who renewed it. He found her sobbing, and did his best to comfort her. Failing, he reminded her, “Why don’t you pray, dearest?” he asked. “I’m sure your prayers would be answered. They always have been. You have a pull with God, I know.”
It seemed as though a message had come to her through his lips. As such she accepted his words, and acted upon his advice. A little later she heard that through one of those buying and selling complications which arise in the picture business, the rights to Lummox had been transferred to United Artists. Now United Artists has its own stars, too. For one, Norma Talmadge wanted to be Bertha. But somehow the situation didn’t seem so irrevocably settled. There was a chance. And it was then that Winifred remembered that God helps those who help themselves.
Herbert Brenon lives next door to her. But, as is frequent at Malibu, where picture people go to be alone, they had never met. Word came that tests were being made for Lummox. Rumors, printed as facts, stated that Belle Bennett, Bodil Rosing, Louise Fazenda, Anna Q. Nilsson, Louise Dresser, Pauline Lord, would be the final choice. Winifred Westover was never mentioned. No one thought of her, no one considered her. Only she and God knew what was in her heart — no one else in all the world. When it was announced that Mr. Brenon was in New York to scrutinize the stage for Lummox candidates, it seemed time for quick and concrete action.
Winifred packed — and prayed. Before she followed the director East, she sought aid. Arrangements were made so that the Unity Prayer Center in Kansas City, Missouri, sent the united supplications of its members along with her own.
“I’ve followed you from Hollywood to tell you that I am Lummox,” Winifred told Mr. Brenon. Then she explained why — told of her tragic romance, her son, her aloneness, and how every crisis of her life had found her unable to voice the thoughts that struggled in her heart for utterance. One may imagine the director’s thrill after months of search and the haunting fear that he would finally be forced to accept a makeshift Bertha. Here she was, come out of the night to him! Winifred Westover was Bertha personified. It was uncanny. For once the director, discoverer of a score of stars, doubted his own judgment. Had he been carried away by this girl? Her story, her earnestness, her intensity? A phone call to Fannie Hurst followed the interview.
“I’m sending some one to see you,” he told her, “I’ll reserve my opinion until I hear yours.”
And of course Fannie Hurst recognized her Bertha in Winifred Westover. But she preserved her poker face, and so did Mr, Brenon. Winifred wasn’t told.
She left for Hollywood without word. But she wasn’t worried, because she knew. And as she held again her sturdy, manly son, fervent thanks went Heavenward. Now came a time of waiting. While the pot of rumor boiled regarding all her rivals, she kept her own counsel. And while she waited, busied herself with thread and needle fashioning the costumes Bertha was to wear. Then Mr. Brenon’s decision.
There must have been other prayers, you say? What of them? Why were Winifred’s answered? She will tell you. Because of faith. She believed. Because her prayers were unselfish. Her supplications pleaded that all the others might have their disappointment mitigated by the joys and triumphs of even greater roles. Another Stella Dallas for Belle Bennett— good things — better things for all. But for her Lummox. just Lummox, only Lummox. Because all of her life she has prayed for one chance for self-expression — to express at last that which fate had stifled within her. That which had been denied when its liberation might have changed her tragic life to one of happiness. Home, husband, lighted candles, love. It is, perhaps, her reward for a cross bravely borne. A crown of thorns transformed to laurel leaves.
I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered and set me in a high place. — Psalms 118:5.
Winifred Westover, her faith faltering, was inspired by her little son to redouble her prayers when he said, “You have a pull with God, I know.”
Photo by: Russell Ball (1891–1942)
[b]
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, August 1929
]]>His next films in this medium were “Barcarole”, with Alexa Engström as leading lady, then “Gloria”, in which he plays opposite Brigitte Helm.
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Gustav Fröhlich, heute einer der ersten deutschen Filmdarsteller — Partner von Gitta Alpar in „Madame entdeckt ihr Herz” — hat einen schweren Weg zurücklegen müssen. Der Fünfzehnjährige begann in einem ganz kleinen Theater, wo er als Statist und Kulissenschieber sein Brot verdiente. Später gelang eine Anstellung an einem kleinen Provinztheater, und nun war der Flug in höhere Regionen keine Unmöglichkeit mehr. Eigentlich entdeckt wurde Gustav Fröhlich erst von dem weltberühmten Autozubehörfabrikanten Kommerzienrat Bosch, der der Bühnenkunst stets großes Interesse entgegengebracht hat. Das Heilbronner Theater war die erste bedeutungsvolle Etappe in Fröhlichs Künstlerlaufbahn, dann folgte ein Engagement an die Volksbühne, Berlin, wo seine Begabung endlich Gelegenheit fand, sich voll zu entfalten. Hier sah ihn auch Fritz Lang, der ihn zum Film brachte und damit seiner Bühnenlaufbahn ein Ende setzte. Nun reihte sich Erfolg an Erfolg für den jungen Künstler: Von „Metropolis” zu „Asphalt” bis zu seinem großen Erfolg „Hochverrat” gewann der charaktervolle Rollengestalter fortwährend an innerer Festigung.
Beim Tonfilm waren ihm große Erfolge in „Der unsterbliche Lump” und „Voruntersuchung” beschieden. Seine nächsten Tonfilme waren „Barcarole”, mit Alexa Engström als Partnerin, ferner „Gloria”, mit Brigitte Helm.
Berlin-Zehlendorf, Zietenstraße 3 • T: Zehlendorf H 4 5546
AA • HA • BG • BC • BD • CA • CB • EA
phot: Ufa
Gustav Fröhlich (1902–1987)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>To-day he is the star of the Ufa Organisation and his name is indissolubly bound up with the success of the German talking film.
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Unter den erfolgreichsten deutschen Filmschauspielern der Gegenwart steht Willy Fritsch in der vordersten Reihe. 1901 in Kattowitz — damals noch deutsch — als Sohn eines Fabrikbesitzers geboren, sollte er ursprünglich Ingenieur werden, studierte aber in der Reinhardtschule Schauspielkunst und spielte auf der Bühne tragische Rollen. Die Ufa holte ihn zunächst für eine Reihe stummer Filme, aber die ganz großen Erfolge setzten für Willy Fritsch erst ein, als der Tonfilm seinen Siegeslauf begann. „Ein Walzertraum”, „Der letzte Walzer”’, „Die Geheimnisse Ihrer Exzellenz”, „Ungarische Rhapsodie”, „Melodie des Herzens”. „Liebeswalzer” — wer den Künstler in diesen Filmen gesehen hat, dem wird die Leistung unvergeßlich sein. Seine große Kunst steigerte sich noch; in „Drei von der Tankstelle”, „Der Kongreß tanzt” und „Ronny” hat Willy Fritsch wohl das Höchste geboten, das man im Tonfilm überhaupt erwarten kann. Was ihm die Herzen aller der Millionen erobert, die ihn auf der tönenden Leinwand sehen, das ist seine frische, junge Natürlichkeit, sein Scharm und die große Kunst, seine Rolle mit wirklichem Leben zu erfüllen.
Willy Fritsch ist heute der Star der Ufa: mit seinem Namen sind die Erfolge des deutschen Tonfilms unlösbar verknüpft.
Berlin-Charlottenburg 9, Kaiserdamm 95 • T: Uhland H 2 5420
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phot: Ufa
Willy Fritsch (1901–1973)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>The son of an old aristocratic Austrian family, Arthur von Diossy was born in 1889 and was originally intended for a diplomatic career. However, while pursuing bis studies in that direction, he took secret lessons from the Hofburg actors v. Zeska and Rub, and eventually went on the stage himself. At first appeared at various provincial theatres and later achieved success on the variety stage, making his last Berlin visit in a dance sketch with his partner Lia Doria at the Scala in the year 1920. During the following ten years A. v. Diossy was in Switzerland as manager of the Revue-Theatre, Zürich, from where he toured Basel, Bern, Lugano, Paris, Nice, Cairo, etc. Made his film debut in 1913 in “Die Krone der Kaiserin von Indien” (Mutoscope, Berlin) with Louis Ralph in the leading role, followed by many other appearances in German and foreign films. Latest talkie: “In Wien hab’ ich einmal ein Mädel geliebt”.
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Arthur von Diossy, 1889 geboren, entstammt einer alten österreichischen Aristokratenfamilie. Er studierte und war für die Diplomatenlaufbahn bestimmt, aber dann kam, was so häufig kommt: Er nahm heimlich Unterricht bei den Hofburgschauspielern v. Zeska und Rub und wurde selbst einer. Zuerst trat er an verschiedenen Provinzbühnen auf und war später erfolgreich beim Varieté. 1920 sein letztes Gastspiel in der Berliner Scala (Tanz-Sketch i. Fa. A. de Diossy und Lia Doria). 10 Jahre war A. v. Diossy in der Schweiz, und zwar Leiter des Revue-Theaters in Zürich. Er gastierte in Basel, Bern, Lugano, Paris, Nizza, Kairo usw. Sein erster Film war 1913 „Die Krone der Kaiserin von Indien” (Mutoscope Berlin) mit Louis Ralph in der Hauptrolle. Mit Unterbrechung seiner Theaterlaufbahn wirkte Arthur von Diossy nun in unzähligen Filmen in- und ausländischer Produktion mit. Sein letzter Tonfilm: „In Wien hab’ ich einmal ein Mädel geliebt”.
Berlin W 30, Nollendorfplatz 6 • T: Pallas B 7 3861 • X: 9—11
M: „Bühnennachweis”, Arthur Hirsch, Berlin • W9, Potsdamer Str. 4 • T: Lützow B 2 3318/19 • X: 14—16
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Arthur von Diossy (1889–1940) (A. Edler von Schleppnik)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
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see also S. Z. Sakall
]]>Among the film artists who have recently come to the forefront of public interest, Szőke Szakáll occupies a prominent position. Within the past year this excellent actor has given the impress of bis wonderful humour and his unique personality to no fewer than seventeen talking films, including such productions as “Zwei Herzen im 3/4 Takt”, “Ihre Majestät die Liebe”, “Cousine aus Warschau”, “Susanne macht Ordnung”, “Der Zinker”, “Walzerparadies”, and other well-known successes. ‘‘Die schwebende Jungfrau”, which is a typical Szőke Szakáll film, has just been generally released and acclaimed by press and public alike. Prof. Dr. Max Glass Produktion have decided to make three Szőke Szakáll films per annum — good news for the many thousands of people who go to the cinema to laugh and enjoy themselves. Szőke Szakáll’s mastery of humour is complete and that is why it is always a joy to see and hear him on the talking screen.
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Unter den Filmkünstlern, die in der letzten Zeit ganz besonders in den Vordergrund des Interesses getreten sind, steht Szőke Szakáll mit an erster Stelle. Dieser ausgezeichnete Darsteller hat im letzten Jahr nicht weniger als 17 Tonfilmen den Stempel seines wundervollen Humors, seiner prächtigen Komik aufgedrückt — darunter Filmen wie „Zwei Herzen im 3/4 Takt”, „Ihre Majestät die Liebe”, „Cousine aus Warschau”, „Susanne macht Ordnung”, „Der Zinker”, „Walzerparadies” usw. „Die schwebende Jungfrau”, ein wirklicher Szőke-Szakáll-Film, hat eben erst die größte Anerkennung bei Publikum und Presse gefunden, und in der Prof.-Dr.-Max-Glaß-Produktion werden jährlich drei Szőke-Szakáll-Filme erscheinen — eine frohe Botschaft für die vielen Tausende, die im Kino auch von ganzem Herzen lachen wollen. Szőke Szakáll beherrscht alle Register des Humors vom lustigen Lächeln bis zum befreienden Lachen.
Berlin-Dahlem, Hohenzollerndamm 102 • T: Pfalzburg H 1 884
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phot: Harlip, Berlin
S. Z. Sakall (1883–1955)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
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see also Arthur von Diossy
]]>It does not often happen that an almost unknown small part actor becomes a world famous stage and screen star, but Hans Albers is one of those who have succeeded in accomplishing this feat. Originally he was apprenticed to a business office in Hamburg, but, finding no joy in commerce, he decided to go on the stage. He started right at the bottom of the ladder — with a Company of “barn-stormers”. It was wonderful — Wilhelm Tell, Räuber Moor and — a little sceneshifting thrown in. Also, on occasion, acrobatics.
Then one day he was offered a very acceptable contract by the Hamburg Schauspielhaus; but before he was able to start on this engagement war broke out and Hans Albers fought throughout at the most dangerous fronts. A wound brought him to Berlin, where he deputized one evening for Guido Thielscher, scored a resounding hit, and was marked down as a comedian. It was only Dr. Klein who recognized that Hans Albers was more than that. and gave him a leading part in Bruckner’s “Verbrecher”. After that he scored success after success until his sensational triumph in “Liliom”. He was one of the first actors to appear on the talking screen, portraying a racing motorist, reporter, detective, artist and furniture remover before he reached the summit of his film career in “Bomben auf Monte Carlo” and “Draufgänger”. To-day Hans Albers in the most successful and most prominent of German film actors.
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Es kommt nicht allzu häufig vor, daß jemand den Weg vom kleinen, ziemlich unbekannten Schauspieler zum Bühnen- und Filmdarsteller von Weltruf zurücklegt — Hans Albers hat dieses Kunststück geschafft. Hans Albers hat in einem Hamburger Kontor „Kaufmann gelernt”, aber er hatte keine Freude an dem Beruf; es trieb ihn zur Bühne. Erste Etappe: die Schmiere. Wundervoll war das: Wilhelm Teil, Räuber Moor und nebenamtlich Kulissenschieber. Und dabei noch gelegentlich ein wenig Akrobat.
Aber eines Tages bot ihm das Hamburger Schauspielhaus einen recht annehmbaren Vertrag — ehe Hans Albers diesen Vertrag antreten konnte, brach der Krieg aus. Hans Albers hat ihn an den schlimmsten Fronten mitgemacht — eine Verwundung brachte ihn nach Berlin. Hier sprang er eines Abends für Guido Thielscher ein. hatte großen Erfolg und — war als Komiker abgestempelt. Erst Dr. Klein erkannte, daß in Albers mehr steckte: ein ernster Künstler. Er gab ihm eine Hauptrolle in Bruckners „Verbrecher”, und nun ging es von Erfolg zu Erfolg, bis zu der großen Sensation in „Liliom”. Beim Tonfilm war Hans Albers von Anfang an. Rennfahrer, Reporter, Detektiv, Artist und Möbelpacker — das waren die ersten Stationen vor dem filmischen Höhepunkt, den er mit „Bomben auf Monte Carlo” und dem „Draufgänger” erreichte. Hans Albers ist heute der erfolgreichste und prominenteste deutsche Filmdarsteller.
Berlin W 9, Lennéstr. 7
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phot: Ufa
Hans Albers (1891–1960)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>There are few names which appear to be so closely associated both with the German talking film and with the talking film in general as that of Billie Wilder, in spite of the fact that he only became a film author a comparatively short time ago. Billie Wilder was a Journalist and wrote his first screen story, “Menschen am Sonntag”, in 1930. It was a conspicuous artistic success, and it is not surprising that the UFA should have engaged him as their dramatic reader on the strength of that first attempt. He wrote, in collaboration with Hirschfeld and Siodmak [Curt Siodmak, Ludwig Hirschfeld], the book of “Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht”; in collaboration with Paul Frank, that of “Ihre Hoheit befiehlt”; then, entirely on his own, “Emil und die Detektive” after Kästner’s charming juvenile story.
—
Billie Wilder owes his reputation mainly to the originality of his ideas, displayed with such striking results in his first film. He has the faculty of raising into the sphere of art the ordinary things which others pass by. He has a happy instinct for freshness and naturalness and it is highly gratifying from the point of view of German talking films that an artist of Billie Wilder’s calibre is able, by reason of the Position he occupies, to influence production on the story side. Latest work: “Es war einmal ein Walzer” to Lehár.
Es gibt nicht viele Namen, die mit dem deutschen Tonfilm, mit dem Tonfilm überhaupt, so eng verbunden erscheinen, wie der Billie Wilders, obwohl er erst seit verhältnismäßig kurzer Zeit als Filmautor tätig ist. Billie Wilder kommt von der Tagesschriftstellerei — erst 1930 schrieb er seinen ersten Film „Menschen am Sonntag”. Es war ein ganz außerordentlicher künstlerischer Erfolg, und es ist begreiflich, daß die Ufa sich daraufhin Billie Wilder als Dramaturgen sicherte. Zusammen mit Hirschfeld und Siodmak [Curt Siodmak, Ludwig Hirschfeld] schrieb Billie Wilder den Text zu „Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht”, zusammen mit Paul Frank „Ihre Hoheit befiehlt”, ferner allein „Emil und die Detektive”, nach Kästners köstlichem Jungenbuch.
Was Billie Wilder in der Hauptsache bekannt gemacht hat, das ist die Originalität seiner Ideen, die sich schon in seinem ersten Film so außerordentlich glücklich zeigte. Billie Wilder versteht es, auch die Dinge, an denen hundert andere achtlos vorübergehen, in die künstlerische Sphäre zu heben; er hat den Sinn für Frische und Natürlichkeit, und es ist für den deutschen Tonfilm im hohen Maße erfreulich, daß ein Künstler wie Billie Wilder die Produktion in seinem Sinne vermöge seiner Stellung zu beeinflussen vermag. Seit zwei Jahren ist Wilder freier Schriftsteller; er schreibt augenblicklich den Text zu einer Lehár-Operette „Es war einmal ein Walzer”.
Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Sächsische Straße 63 • T: Pfalzburg H 1 65
AH (🇬🇧 Author | 🇩🇪 Autor)
Billy Wilder (1906–2002)
Collection: Universal Filmlexikon — 1932
]]>Where are all the new men to keep up with the new girls? Will some of the boys assembled here supply the demand? The Editor wants to know!
]]>by Delight Evans
But where, oh where, are the new Colmans and Coopers, the Powells and the Barthelmess’s (we simply can’t spell that out), the Holmeses and Montgomery’s and the Ayreses? Yes, I know these are tongue-twisters; but we’re terribly, terribly serious about all this. Something has got to be done. And soon.
Out in Hollywood today there are very few new and dashing heroes to play with these new and lovely ladies. Oh, there are enough actors — there always have been and always will be. But where among them will you find the male equivalent of our Garbo or our Dietrich or our Landi? Is there a thrill in a carload? Look them over and see. [Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, William Powell, Richard Barthelmess, Phillips Holmes, Robert Montgomery, Lew Ayres]
In the interests of all the eager young ladies of the moving picture audience, we have asked the young men of Hollywood to assemble more or less in a body and be reviewed. It isn’t at all fair to them — we know that; but what can they do? They aim to please or they wouldn’t be in pictures. Besides, among them are some glowing exceptions who may turn into potential Colmans and Coopers [Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper] before our very eyes. And they are just the boys we have been looking for!
Don’t be bashful, boys. And don’t crowd, girls. We’re all just one big quarrelsome family. Some of us like that grinning young man in yon upper left-hand corner; others may prefer that soulful-eyed gentleman to the right. Let’s all get together and have an argument. But no biting and scratching, please.
To begin, Mr. Pat O’Brien, step right up here, please. Will you move your head just a little bit to the left? There, that’s better. Now! Mr. O’Brien will tell us all about himself. What? Oh, you won’t, Mr. O’Brien? Well, then we’ll have to tell on you. And how will you like that? It doesn’t matter. You can’t deny that you were born and brought up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and educated at Marquette U, where you studied law and starred in football. Then — stock companies and finally Broadway, where you won plaudits in The Up and Up and Overture, until Howard Hughes bought your contract from a stage producer and brought you to Hollywood and “The Front Page.” You look very good to us, Pat, and if “Personal Maid” with Nancy Carroll gives you half a chance, you’re with us to stay. Married? Yes.
It isn’t Joel McCrea’s fault that he has been most widely publicized as Connie Bennett’s current crush rather than as a good actor. He’s such a big, good-looking kid that we’re apt to overlook his ability as a trouper. But in Born to Love he shows signs of acting talent. He’s a Hollywood boy who has made good in his own home town.
A far, far different type is Spencer Tracy. From the stage, where he scored in The Last Mile, Tracy brings a real punch to pictures as you know if you saw him in “Up the River,” “Quick Millions,” “Six Cylinder Love,” or the forthcoming “Goldie,” with Jean Harlow. He prefers heavy leads. Threw his hat away as soon as he came to Hollywood. He’s married to Louise Treadwell and they have one son, five years old. The real thing, Spencer Tracy.
Ivor Novello has made the girls’ hearts beat a little faster — a little faster? pardon us, a whole lot faster! — by his Latin good looks, his English accent, and his fine technique in stage plays. He made one silent movie in America, D. W. Griffith’s The White Rose, with Mae Marsh; and many movies in England. He should be good in M-G-M films if he has the right sort of romantic role. He’s an older, wiser Novarro, if you want comparisons. Not married.
Two of the most promising and picturesque new young men in Hollywood today are James Cagney and Clark Gable. In fact, they are so darned good they get stories by themselves, because we’re getting so many letters crying for information about them. If you want to know our private opinion, these are the two boys most likely to succeed in 1932. But we don’t like to play favorites. In fact, we flatly refuse. So — on with the show!
There’s Charles Starrett. It’s hard to tell about him. because he has always been pretty much part of the background in every picture in which he has appeared — not that it’s his fault, you understand. Remember him in “The Royal Family of Broadway?” He can do better than that. He played football at Dartmouth, made his screen debut in Richard Dix’s “The Quarterback,” had his best part so far in “Fast and Loose” with Miriam Hopkins, and is hoping his Paramount contract will give him his big chance.
Warren William, who makes his bow in Expensive Women, Dolores Costello Barrymore’s come-back picture, has had a long and honorable career as a Broadway leading man with famous stars. William went on the stage to escape being what his father ordered — a newspaper man. He’s from Minnesota, and served in the war, and after the armistice he stayed in France for a while with a theatrical troupe. He’s suave and rather subtle, and he just may develop into a Powell-Lukas menace.
As we have said elsewhere in this issue of Screenland, Leslie Howard hasn’t been done right by so far in Hollywood. In Norma Shearer’s “A Free Soul” he is somewhat submerged by the more brilliant roles of Lionel Barrymore and Clark Gable, while to Broadway audiences who raved about “Berkley Square” it comes as something of a shock to see their Leslie in “Never the Twain Shall Meet.” But sooner or later they are sure to cast the clever Mr. Howard in a properly poetic role, and then watch him. He is an Englishman, married and a devoted father, and writes clever satire in his spare time.
“Don’t say Geoffrey Kerr. Say Jeffry Karr. Not that June Walker’s charming husband is a stickler for pronunciation. He doesn’t care so much what you fans call him just so you call him. He’s a well known actor from Broadway with an impressive English stage background, and his father is that delightful old actor, Frederick Kerr, whom you liked in Ronald Colman’s Devil to Pay.
Another stage recruit is Hardie Albright, who has made his mark in pictures with his performance in “Young Sinners.” He is scheduled to play opposite Janet Gaynor. Albright hails from Pittsburgh and is a graduate of Carnegie Tech. He isn’t married.
You liked Kent Douglass in “Paid,” with Joan Crawford, “Daybreak” with Novarro, and “It’s a Wise Child,” with Marion Davies. He was born in 1907, in Los Angeles, and began acting as a boy in community theatres, performing in everything from classics to musical comedy. No wonder he’s good! He’s six feet tall and prefers character leads to straight. A lad of promise.
William Boyd — we refuse to designate him as William (Stage) Boyd, because the other Pathé Boyd is known definitely now as Bill — is hardly a newcomer. He’s a veteran from Broadway with years of experience. He likes to play bold, bad roles. Paramount has him under contract and will present him next in Murder by the Clock.
And then there’s Donald Dillaway. Donald was born in New York City on March 17, 1905. He went to Cornell University and the University of Buffalo but he did not graduate from either university. Donald studied law but quit to go on the stage. His first talking picture role was in Min and Bill, his next is “Over the Hill.” He is six feet tall, weighs 150 pounds, has brown hair and brown eyes and is a bachelor!
Another comer is Ray Milland who was born in Drogheda, Ireland, and who played in “Bachelor Father” and “Strangers May Kiss.” His first stage experience was in London which accounts for his grand British accent.
Probably the most colorful new man on the screen is Metaxa — first name Georges, but call him Metaxa — programs do. He plays with Claudette Colbert in Secrets of a Secretary and if you like him he’ll be shoved into more and more important roles. Metaxa’s father was a judge in Bucharest. His grandfather was General Metaxa of the Russian army, and his antecedents were of Greek origin, having migrated from that land through Russia and into Roumania. Plenty of picturesque background, you see, to say nothing of a grand voice and genuine acting talent. He is married, and has a seven-year old daughter, Yvonne. And admits it. You like Metaxa — yes, no?
Joel McCrea — Connie Bennett’s [Contance Bennett] boy friend on, and, some insist, off.
Below, Spencer Tracy likes heavy leads, and how he can play ‘em!
Above, Pat O’Brien, right off “The Front Page,” now with “Personal Maid.”
Ivor Novello, above, is something of an older and wiser Novarro. English— and very nice, too.
Left, James Cagney. See Page 21 for full particulars.
Above, Warren William from the Broadway stage, who makes his screen bow in “Expensive Women.”
Right, Charles Starrett, whom you met in “Fast and Loose” and “The Royal Family of Broadway.” Like him?
Above, Leslie Howard, waiting for a role to make him as popular on the screen as on the stage.
You saw Hardy Albright in “Young Sinners” with Dorothy Jordan. He’s good.
Right, Kent Douglass, a tall, blonde lad who won plaudits in “Paid.”
Boyd of Paramount who isn’t the Bill Boyd of Pathé. Seen in “Murder by the Clock.”
Metaxa plays opposite Claudette Colbert in “Secrets of a Secretary.” He was a succession the Continent. First name, Georges.
Ray Milland has a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Remember him in “Bachelor Father?”
Donald Dillaway’s work in “Body and Soul,” with Charlie Farrell [Charles Farrell], resulted in a Fox contract. His next picture is “Over The Hill.”
Collection: Screenland Magazine, August 1931
Delight Evans, Screenland Magazine, 1930s, 1931
]]>Hard-working, efficient producers like Jerry Wald hold the key to Hollywood’s continued domination of the film world
]]>by Dwight Whitney
“Yes, I know,” said the other morosely. “They say he steals all his ideas, too. I wouldn’t have a man like that working for me if I could get him for $500 a week, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” replied the first mogul. “Let’s make a pact. We’ll both agree not to hire him.”
“Excuse me,” said the second mogul, and arose from the table. Five minutes later he returned. As he sat down he whispered to his wife, “I couldn’t get through to Jerry Wald because our host already had him on the telephone.”
The man they were trying to hire is the happiest, best adjusted movie maker in Hollywood. While other producers are losing sleep over skidding box-office receipts and wondering how to turn out their accustomed epics on a strictly cut-rate basis, Wald is facing the future with the enthusiasm of a hungry man sitting down to a 10-course dinner. His specialty is turning out moneymaking movies in quantity, and often turning them out faster and better than anyone else.
Last month he was shooting six major productions at once, a prodigious feat, while having no less than 11 others in various stages of preparation for filming. To all his movies, good, bad or indifferent, he manages to impart a sort of breathless urgency and high cinematic polish which serve to elevate them above the general run. As in the case of “Johnny Belinda” last year, he frequently contrives to convert the most shamefully old-fashioned melodrama into the freshest hit of the season. If, as sometimes happens, his latest picture fails to turn out as well as he had hoped, Wald never worries. He always has half a dozen more coming along to take its place.
Approaching 38, Wald is a rotund, loquacious, good-natured man who likes to call people “Coach” and always seems to be in a hurry. He operates on the theory that if a man has a sufficient number of ideas working for him at once, one of them must surely pay off. In this connection he has developed a storytelling and selling technique which is second to none in the industry. He thinks so rapidly that his tongue often has difficulty keeping up.
Yet it takes a strong man to resist him and it is said that, if Jerry put his mind to it, he could talk his employer into making a movie based on the Los Angeles telephone directory. For this proficiency he receives $2,700 a week and the distinction of being the most sought-after individual producer in Hollywood.
Of all Wald’s gifts perhaps the most potent is his ability to cover failure with success. His production accomplishments during the past year constitute a dazzling object lesson in how to get ahead in Hollywood. Wading in with the combined energies of a coal heaver and a Brahman bull, he produced no less than nine films for Warner Brothers.
Only Two Were Really Good
Several of these, including “Adventures of Don Juan,” “One Sunday Afternoon,” “Flamingo Road,” “John Loves Mary” and “To the Victor,” were not likely to have made a lasting impression on anyone short of the Warner Brothers themselves. But Johnny Belinda, with a deft assist from “Key Largo,” was enough to make Jerry Wald Hollywood’s man of the year in anybody’s estimation. Belinda, which had for its heroine a deaf-mute, surprised its studio by becoming one of the year’s conspicuous successes.
For its star, Jane Wyman, it won the Academy Award; for its producer, Wald, it won the highest honor in the industry, the afore-mentioned Thalberg Award which has usually been reserved for the year’s top studio head or executive. It has seldom been given to individual working producers.
The headache and the ulcer are very real occupational hazards in Hollywood. Most producers find that scheduling two or three pictures at once is enough to engender both. Wald has no headaches. He does have ulcers. But it is his proud boast that they result from his stormy career on the old New York Graphic in the early thirties. “I am the only man in Hollywood,” says Jerry, “who brought his ulcers with him.”
Wald’s childlike enthusiasm for his work is as touching as it is genuine. “If I were a wealthy man,” he explains solemnly, “I would make this business my hobby. I am happy in the Happy Medium.”
Today the importance of such a man in the Hollywood scheme has multiplied astoundingly. Once a producer with a reputation could afford to make pictures at a lazy pace, relying on one picture a year to maintain his studio’s affluence and his own prestige. But now the war boom is over and revenues are diminishing. The British still persist in their efforts to cut down Hollywood’s take in the foreign market. Yet the cost of making movies remains astronomical.
All producers, from executives in major studios to the lowliest independents, are finding it necessary to make cheaper pictures. To make matters worse, as audiences become poorer they also become more critical. It is no longer considered good business to disguise a thin idea in a gaudy set. Anyone in Hollywood today will tell you, in a windy blast of rhetoric, that what is needed is more pictures in which the idea will outshine the setting.
No one knows better than Wald that this is more easily said than done. “You see,” he explains with the air of a man composing his own epitaph, “no one deliberately sets out to make a bad picture. It is simply that, in this business, too many things can happen. Start out to make a good picture and the Little Gnomes always slip in.”
The Little Gnomes are an important yet little-publicized force in Hollywood.
They may turn up in the form of temperamental leading ladies who do not deign to play scenes which, in their opinion, do not suit their talents; directors with grandiose ideas for script changes, or studio bosses who shy away from anything untried or new. Wald is the acknowledged champion gnome fighter of the movie colony.
His allies in his gnome-fighting activities include the telephone and the memorandum. It took him three days of solid talking to persuade Joan Crawford to wear simple $8 dresses without shoulder pads in Mildred Pierce. For Miss Crawford, the celebrated clotheshorse of another decade, this was tantamount to a request that she hawk popcorn at the opening of the Met. Wald convinced his star with 16 phone calls, three and a half memo pads and seven “story conferences.” The result made the difference between Miss Crawford’s professional demise and a bright new career in motion pictures. Mildred Pierce was one of the hits of the 1945 season and the critics praised it for its realistic feeling.
Wald campaigns so effectively for what he thinks is cinematically right that his studio habitually gives him second-best material and even second-best stars in the belief that he will somehow conjure up luster where none exists. His bosses have learned that all they have to do is shed crocodile tears on his shoulder and murmur sadly, “Jerry, we’re in trouble.” Wald reacts as if he had just backed into a hot stove.
“What?” he bellows. “You can’t lick the script? Now, look. Here’s the way I see it. There’s this salesman, Robert Montgomery, who meets this sexy dame, Lana Turner, in a night club, see? Now, the guy that owns the night club is Pat O’Brien and he wants Lana to…”
Wald’s associates at Warners have dubbed him “Bubble Boy” or “Roman Candle” in deference to this talent for effervescent action.
Many Hollywood people sneer at Wald as an opportunist and a borrower. Indeed, the subject of Jerry’s originality — or lack of it — may be the town’s most consistently controversial after-dinner topic. One widespread notion is that he may have been the model, along with others, for Sammy Glick, the predatory hero of the Budd Shulberg novel What Makes Sammy Run? From this assumption they conclude that he cribs other people’s ideas. Wald is guilty to this extent: He retains most of what he reads, hears and sees. He has the knack of drawing out the best in the people who work for him. He cannot smell a flower on the way to his office without instinctively figuring how to work it into a scene for his next picture.
Qualifies a Producer Needs
lf this constitutes borrowing, then Wald is a borrower. But these qualities, by definition, are also those which go to make up a good producer. In his feverish search for “good” pictures, he leaves no stone unturned. He subscribes to 69 magazines and periodicals. A Beverly Hills bookstore has a standing order to send him each new play as it is published. “Pride of the Marines” was suggested by a short news item, and Destination Tokyo was a front-page story in the New York Times.
“No one man makes a picture.” says Wald. “He can’t, because a picture is a collaboration of the most intimate and complex kind. But, nevertheless, good pictures are made possible by one stubborn mind. I have just one policy. I don’t make any Westerns.”
Wald prefers to create trends of his own. The attitude began shortly after he was promoted from writer to producer in 1941. “I just sat down and figured it out,” explains Jerry. “There was a war on and I didn’t want to be known as the producer who made the best musicals. So I decided to find out what made most war pictures so horrible.”
The result of Wald’s research is a sort of white paper on movie clichés. He discovered that war plots traditionally fell into one of three classifications:
(1) Two men fight over the same girl (Quirt and Flagg in “What Price Glory?”).
(2) The coward (played by Richard Cromwell) goes to war and in reel seven he saves the regiment. And
(3) the spoiled playboy arrives on the post swinging a tennis racket. In reel seven he gets his comeuppance. In reel eight the general pins a medal on him.
This breakdown, which sounds merely funny in the telling, actually turned out to be a sensible antidote for what ailed Hollywood’s conception of war. Wald realized that the public would no longer swallow the old oil about war being fought between dances at the local country club. Armed with this rudimentary but valuable information, he set out to make what he calls “destination” pictures. Instead of fighting over ingénues, his soldiers merely progressed from place to place in an orderly fashion. The emphasis was shifted from plot per se to a more honest evaluation of character.
The result was five war pictures of superior quality. “Air Force” (which Wald conceived and wrote, but did not produce) simply reported the flight of a B-17 to Manila and back. “Action in the North Atlantic” took a freighter through German U-boats to Murmansk — and back. Destination Tokyo detailed life on a U.S. submarine during a mission to Tokyo Bay — and back. Pride of the Marines showed a blind Marine making the trip back to his home in Philadelphia. And “Objective Burma” took the audience along on a paratroop invasion of Burma.
In recent years Wald has gone in even more heavily for films with topical themes. Most of them stem from his “Future Book” or the “Project File.” The former is a plain black notebook in which he jots down ail possible grist for the movie mill. At the present moment it contains more that 5.000 notations on plays, books, stories or original thoughts. As a subject becomes “hot,” it is placed in the “Project File.” When a “project” folder becomes an inch thick, Jerry reasons it’s time to make a picture about it.
Wald began conditioning himself for Hollywood at a tender age. His early life is a snapshot of the typical urban American boy whose basic instinct is to be successful. He couldn’t sing and he couldn’t act, but he was determined to be accepted on the same level as those who could. Success was the answer to everything, not in terms of money but in what other people would think of him. His compensation was the acclaim and good fellowship of all the people. And he himself dates his existence from the time he first began to be successful.
Jerry was born Jerome Irving Wald on September 16, 1911, the eldest son of a Brooklyn dry-goods merchant. He inherited his gift of storytelling from his father who was, in many ways, the living reincarnation of Willy Loman, the tragic hero of the current Broadway prize play, Death of a Salesman.
Father Goes on the Road
The senior Wald was a large, kindly, solidly built man who brought to salesmanship the romance of the early American medicine man and the ardor of a crusader. Due to reversals in his business he found it necessary in the mid-twenties to go on the road. He became famous as a salesman’s salesman, a drummer in the classical sense of the Word. Along with his bargains in underwear and hosiery he brought gossip, news and his own ineffable good humor and gregariousness.
When Rudy Wald came home he still told stories. Jerry and his younger brothers, Harold and Malvin, were brought up in “an aura of storytelling.” From the senior Wald, son Jerry picked up inventiveness; from his mother, a nervous, tongue-tripping style of delivery. It was from her that he first learned how to hurry.
For 20 years the family lived in the same stucco house on Nineteenth Avenue. Jerry was a skinny kid who ran with the pack. His scholastic record at P S 153 was impaired only by his passion for extracurricular activities.
At Boys’ High School, and later at the new James Madison High School, his classmates were Irwin Shaw and Garson Kanin, two pretty successful young men of the theater in their own right today. Jerry played soccer and managed the team, ran the half mile in track, and reported and wrote a column for the school paper. His youngest brother. Malvin, now a successful screen writer in his own right, remembers that Jerry was “an energetic big gun.” When he was graduated, Jerry’s classmates paid him a backhanded compliment. The senior yearbook elected him “Class Pest.”
During his high-school days Jerry hung around the offices of the Century Publishing Company, doing menial jobs and picking up a taste for journalism along with a little spending money. In September, 1929, he became a freshman at New York University. Because he was majoring in journalism, he got a job as office boy in an advertising agency, but this proved unsatisfactory for a man of his talents. Thus one day in the fall of 1930 a thin, scraggly ferret of a kid turned up in the office of Ted Von Ziekursch, managing editor of the tabloid New York Graphic. He wore a frayed tennis sweater and carried a notebook bearing a NYU sticker.
“I would like to write a radio column,” the sophomore said stoutly.
“Well,” purred the editor, letting him down as gently as possible, “I’ll tell you what you do. Just send in a sample of your work.”
Young Jerry had decided on the radio column by laudably cool and logical processes. A radio column was the only kind of column the Graphic did not already have! And so he took Von Ziekursch at his word.
Lucky Start as Radio Scribe
Because he knew nothing about radio, he plunged in directly at the source. The next day he turned up at the offices of the Columbia Broadcasting System. Here, by a lucky happenstance, he was greeted by a publicity employee named Robert Taplinger who was just as green and just as ambitious as Jerry was. Taplinger, mistaking Wald for the big operator that he even then wanted to be, seized on the opportunity to promote himself. He took Jerry by the hand and introduced him as a big-shot radio columnist to Ted Husing, Tony Wons and several other important figures at CBS.
Jerry played the part to the hilt. Armed with his new-found sense of power, as well as several sheafs of studio publicity handouts, he hurried home, concocted six columns, and mailed them to Von Ziekursch. A week later he opened up the Graphic to read Not on the Air, by Jerry Wald. Shortly thereafter he was hired at the princely sum of $12.50 a week. “It was an incredible experience,” Wald enthuses today. “I was entranced. For a nineteen-year-old kid it was a glamorous adventure.”
Jerry soon began to make a mark for himself in his new job. He cultivated all the press agents and celebrities he could get in touch with. He made it his business to know the exact time and location of all the best testimonial dinners and other possible sources of free meals. His column, Not on the Air, whose title by this time had been changed to The Walds Have Ears, began to take apart everyone from Rudy Vallée to Merlin Aylesworth, president of the National Broadcasting Company.
When Vallée, enraged by repeated digs at his talent, took a sock at Jerry outside Lindy’s restaurant one night, the ensuing unpleasantness made the front page of the Daily News. Crooner and Columnist in Bloody Battle, screamed the headlines.
His feud with the NBC president resulted in his being barred from the company’s broadcasting studios. Finally the executive relented and called Jerry in for a peace conference. When he saw what his young adversary looked like, Aylesworth burst out laughing.
By this time Wald had quit NYU after two years and his salary had been raised to $50 a week. But his well-being was short-lived. On July 16, 1932, he slammed the sports announcer, Graham McNamee, in his column and slammed him a little too hard. Von Ziekursch could no longer put up with the numerous complaints lodged against his radio reporter. He fired Wald.
Now there is no sadder spectacle than a columnist without a portfolio. The characters up and down Broadway were not quite as anxious to please as they once were. And the waiters at Lindy’s gave him the cold shoulder. But he bounced back with a job as press agent at the Park Central Hôtel. He busily set about corralling celebrities to liven up the hotel ballroom. But three weeks later the Park Central fired the young bail of tire.
Luckily, Jerry had several other irons in the tire. He used his radio connections to talk Warner Brothers into letting him make six short subjects featuring radio stars. The series was called Rambling ‘Round Radio Row. He also dabbled in fan magazine writing.
He ghostwrote a piece for the late Russ Columbo, who was fast supplanting Vallée as the singing idol of the day, called Columbo Discovers. Through a friend the story was brought to the attention of Dick Powell, then a reigning Warner Brothers star, who thought the life story of the crooner would make a capital musical. Thus its author, Wald, came to Hollywood in the fall of 1933 to collaborate on the script. The result was “Twenty Million Sweethearts” starring Powell, Pat O’Brien and a newcomer named Ginger Rogers. But when the picture finished, Wald was rudely dropped by the studio. Licking his wounds he returned to New York.
The following March there took place an incident as dramatic as anything that ever occurred in a Wald movie. The head of the studio, Jack L. Warner, was taking his first look at Twenty Million Sweethearts in a New York projection room. At the back of the room sat Wald. When the lights came up and Warner’s enthusiasm for the film was evident, a well-meaning friend. pushed Jerry forward and introduced him to Warner as “the man who wrote Twenty Million Sweethearts.”
“Well,” said Warner in surprise. “What are you doing back East? A little vacation?”
“No, sir,” replied Wald gloomily. “Don’t you remember? You fired me.” The next train took Jerry Wald back to Hollywood for good.
Real Talent Develops Slowly
In the years between 1934 and 1941, Jerry wrote or collaborated on 32 movies, including one with Vallée, now an old friend. Most of them were characterized by footloose characters out of the quasi-cosmopolitan world he knew best, and by titles like “Hard to Get,” “The Kid from Kokomo,” “Naughty but Nice,” and “Three Cheers for the Irish.” The fast [INCOMPLETE]
Wald himself, was a recurrent figure in most Wald pictures, and was supposed to have been Wald’s invention. But not until the late thirties did his real talent begin to assert itself.
Meantime he had married a small, dark. rich girl named Eleanor Rudolph in 1935. The marriage broke up in less than a year. Jerry moved into a two-bedroom duplex with some friends. This modest edifice, known to its habitués as Boys’ Town, was a sort of catchall for unattached young geniuses. In Jerry they found a peerless new ringleader.
Wald was no longer the skinny runt he had once been. Too much free chicken à la king had taken its toll and he was known as Porky.
By the time he became a producer in 1941, making movies had become for Jerry an all-consuming passion. He was like a miler running against the clock. It was as if he lived in mortal terror of waking up one morning to discover that he no longer had an idea, that Hollywood had forgotten Jerry Wald, or that he was again just a grubby little radio columnist out of a job. One of his many unofficial biographers has explained it: “Jerry always has had a fiery compulsion to produce as many pictures as he could. His prolific output is evidence for him that he is where he is.”
Two Good Influences at Work
Wald’s “fiery compulsion” might have been merely ridiculous had it not been for two powerful influences. One was his old Broadway friend, Mark Hellinger, who by 1936 had switched from newspaper columning to producing pictures, and the other was Connie Polan, whom he married on Christmas Day, 1940. Hellinger taught him the difference between being merely flashy and lending certain overtones of detachment and interpretation to his flash. For Wald this distinction was, and still is, discerned more by instinct than by intellectual evaluation. The powerful roadhouse scene in “They Drive by Night,” featuring the truck drivers, waitresses, tarts and hangers-on that he knew so well, still marks the moment when Jerry became semiliterate as a movie maker.
Connie Polan taught him how not to waste his energies on unimportant matters. A small-town girl from West Virginia, she had done some modeling for Hattie Carnegie in New York before she came to California and met Jerry. She quickly perceived that any woman silly enough to marry Jerry would have an eternal, insuperable rival — the movie business. And just as quickly, she married him anyway.
The Walds live with their children, Robert, seven, and Andrew, three, in an elaborate New England-style farmhouse strategically located in the middle of fashionable Beverly Hills. The master of the house rises at seven thirty and sits down to a medically prescribed breakfast of toast and coffee. He leaves for the studio in his 1947 Sedan shortly before 8:30 a.m. But if he is particularly pressed that week, he may get to the studio as early as six thirty in the morning. He finds it easier to work in the early hours.
His day is hectic, but well organized in the sense that he is a busy man who has time for everything. The first two hours of the morning are reserved for mail, memoranda or wires to New York to find out what’s cooking at Forty-second and Broadway. At ten thirty, conferences begin with writers, art directors, actors, location managers, couturières, publicity men, columnists or just about anyone else who insists on seeing him.
His phone keeps up an interminable obbligato throughout. He is never too busy to exchange the latest studio gossip with a friend or to chat with a female columnist. If the phone should not ring a decent number of times, he actually feels neglected. And he makes many calls himself. They may be to old cronies from his Boys’ Town days, to “sources” in New York, or merely to casual friends.
Wald finishes at the office by five-thirty or a quarter of six, just in time to see the day’s rushes. He is home by seven. The first thing he wants to know is whether anyone is coming for dinner. If so, he hurries into his book-lined study in order to get in a little reading before the guests arrive. Twice a week he runs a double feature at home, using a pair of 35-mm. projectors. And twice a week he goes to bed early (at eight o’clock) in deference to his doctor and his mild case of stomach ulcers. As often as not, his friend Oscar Levant calls or comes by of an evening. Levant occupies a special position in Wald’s world. Jerry first brought the professional pianist and wit to Hollywood for the movie “Rhapsody in Blue,” and Oscar liked the atmosphere so much he stayed. Jerry promptly staked out Levant as a friend of his. Levant was not Hollywood. Instead, he was Broadway — Smart sophisticated Broadway, a cut or two above the Broadway in which Wald had been schooled. Levant became an important milestone along the road to what Jerry, among other things, would dearly love to be: a true cosmopolite. Wald, on the other hand, appears to be some kind of milestone in Levant’s life, too. The two of them chatter on endlessly, trying to outdo each other’s stories and top each other’s jokes. It is miraculous, then, considering his heavy schedule, that Jerry still finds time for his children. But he does. Saturday afternoons are devoted to long 16-mm. sessions of Tarzan and Mickey Mouse, eagerly attended by Jerry himself. On Sunday he sleeps until, at noon, it is time to take the kids to the beach. “Yes,” says Connie, “Jerry is a good father. He manages that very well, too.”
Varied Themes for New Films
Since early last month Wald has been busier than ever before. In addition to shooting six pictures and preparing to shoot 11 more, he is mulling over a myriad of other projects. They include movies dealing with such dissimilar subjects as socialized medicine, unwed mothers and the life of Jack Benny (played as a lampoon of screen biographies). Already he is well into the filming of Young Man with a Horn, the story of the late, great cornet player, Bix Beiderbecke; “The Glass Menagerie,” from the Tennessee Williams play and starring Jane Wyman; a Milton Berle comedy called “Always Leave Them Laughing;” “The Cage,” a story about a women’s prison with an all-female cast; and “Perfect Strangers,” a study of 12 jurors who come to serve justice and bring their prejudices with them. In addition, he will be pushing forward with plans for a new $2,000,000 playhouse with which he and his partners, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Henry Fonda, Gene Kelly, Deborah Kerr and several others, hope to bring the legitimate theater to Beverly Hills. In between times he is thinking about television. “At the moment,” he explains, “I am just an interested looker. Television is in such a crude stage that nobody knows. But I will be there when the time comes.”
What Movie Makers Don’t Know
If Wald has a weakness, it is perhaps that, because he is so busy making movies, he is deprived of the normal experience of everyday living. This can prove to be a serious limitation, but one which he shares with many other movie makers. They are apt to know little about the ordinary man whose trials and tribulations they try to interpret on the world’s screens. They have forgotten what it is like to live on $75 a week, Wald has an advantage over them. He cares neither for swimming pools, gin rummy, parties nor any of the other fripperies which normally characterize life among the Hollywood great. He does not smoke or drink. And he can remember all too vividly the day when he had to scramble to determine where his next meal was coming from. The memory of that spurs him on. Then, too, he is trying to live down Sammy Glick. But Wald doesn’t have to worry. His professional competence and fervor for his work combine with an insatiable curiosity and fondness for people to make him a sort of poor man’s white hope for the movie industry. There is not much that escapes Wald’s notice, but occasionally something does. Recently a friend suggested that Jerry had completely passed up one of the best movie bets of all, namely, his own life story. “Say, that’s great,” he cried. “Now, look, here’s the way I see it. There’s this hep young punk from Brooklyn, Robert Montgomery. He tries to get a job on a big New York daily, but the tough editor. Pat O’Brien, tries to give him the brush-off, see? Well, pretty soon…”
The End
Photograph for Collier’s by Phil Stern
Collection: Collier’s Magazine, August 1949
]]>His father wanted him to become a farmer, and his mother hoped he would follow the law. But he became an actor because that was the one career that interested him.
]]>by Warren Reed
Ralph Ince was a cartoonist before he was an actor. Alan Hale was an osteopath before he was known to the screen. These examples could be multiplied indefinitely. It is seldom that you find an actor who really hoped and dreamed and planned to follow a stage career from boyhood. Once in a while you do. Such a one is Henry B. Walthall.
Walthall was born on a Southern plantation. His father had the patriarchal idea of inheritance, and wanted him to become a farmer; his mother, on the other hand, was ambitious that her son should become a great lawyer, and encouraged him in the study of Blackstone.
During the long Southern twilights, after a day’s work in the field, Henry Walthall would sit with his mother while she read Shakespeare to him. This was his first inspiration to become an actor. He became a student of Shakespeare, and when alone in the cotton fields he was mentally transformed into a Shakespearean hero, reading his lines to an imagined audience in a great theater. He listened to his father’s advice about farming, and studied law to please his mother, but through it all he was heeding a voice that was calling him toward another career.
That he did not answer the summons sooner was due to but one thing — he had promised his mother that he would never go on the stage so long as she lived. He kept his word.
At last, however, the time came when he was released from that promise, and he went to New York City.
Thrown into that crucible, he fought his way until, when his funds were about exhausted and his spirit nearly broken, he at last secured an engagement with a small road company which played one-night stands in small towns. That was his beginning as an artist in the amusement world — a beginning which was followed by successes and failures, victories and heartaches, until at last he became recognized, and was engaged to appear in the support of Henry Hiller in the Great Divide.
It was while playing in this company that Walthall met James Kirkwood, the well-known screen director. Kirkwood had been playing in pictures in the old Biograph Company, which had its studios in Fourteenth Street, New York City, and when the season was over, he took Walthall down with him to visit the studio. Here he was introduced for the first time to David W. Griffith [D. W. Griffith], who asked Walthall to do a small part in a picture he was making.
When the picture was finished, Griffith was so well pleased with Walthall’s work that he offered him a place in his stock company. But Walthall was of the opinion held by many actors of that time, and declined the offer because he thought that appearing in pictures was beneath the dignity of an actor in the articulate drama. The following season he rejoined Henry Miller’s company, and left for Europe.
The Great Divide, being strictly an American play, was not received with the same enthusiasm as it had enjoyed in this country, and after a brief engagement the company closed.
Upon his return to this country, through the persuasion of James Kirkwood, Walthall again visited the Biograph Studio and accepted an offer to become a permanent member in David W. Griffith’s company. The phenomenal success of Henry B. Walthall from that time is well known to every picture fan throughout the entire world.
Being a man of high intelligence, and endowed with a keen sense of dramatic values, success followed success, until at last he was looked upon as the foremost dramatic delineator of the screen.
When the Birth of a Nation was in the making, he was selected by Mr. Griffith to play the exacting role of the Confederate colonel, a part which stood out in that great spectacle with such prominence that Mr. Walthall was referred to by many of the foremost critics as “the Mansfield of the screen.”
Some time ago Walthall decided to become an independent producing manager at the head of his own organization. That plan has become a reality, and in the future his will be the final word of authority in choosing the stories in which he is to appear, in selecting his cast of players, and in the thousand and one matters which constitute the making of a photo play.
His first step in organizing the new company was to procure the services of Miss Mary Charleson, who had played opposite him in many of his greatest successes.
His first production, which has just been completed, is a visualization of His Robe of Honor, the story of a shyster lawyer who becomes an upright judge through the influence of a woman. He is now working on his second play, which is to be entitled Humdrum Brown.
And if, instead of following the call which haunted him from boyhood, he had followed either of his parents’ advice, he might to-day be an obscure barrister or an unknown farmer on a Southern plantation.
Walthall is now head of his own producing organization.
Henry B. Walthall and William Aaronson, his personal manager, estimating how long it would take to act a portion of a script.
He has been called the “Mansfield of the screen.”
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, March 1918
]]>An inquiry into one of the more or less overnight sensations of 1929.
]]>The big talkie and sound men are exploiting Lupe Velez as another one of those pronoun girls, putting her up in the same tins as Alice White and Clara Bow, with a Mexican label to add a dash of chili, which is always good for the box office.
by Malcolm H. Oettinger
Lupe is one of nature’s children, playful, boisterous and as natural as a gullible fellow would be led to suspect.
When Lupe came to New York, advance word had it that the big town was in for a treat, so to speak. Here was everything from the Flame of Hollywood to the original Mexican jumping bean. This was the little girl who tore up Santa Monica Boulevard by the roots, addressed DeMille without saying “Please, sir,” and danced on tables as opportunity presented. She was alleged to be a lovable vixen, a madcap ingénue, a composite of Dolores del Rio, Olive Borden, Jetta Goudal, and Louise Fazenda.
Lupe, the ballyhoo intimated, had captured the hearts of many in very much the manner that Grant once took Richmond. The western world was at her little feet. It was all very moving. So, with a not unprecedented blast of trumpets, the tabasco baby wheeled into Broadway and Forty-Second Street. And Broadway managed to keep its head. There were no riots, no panics, and no more traffic jams than usual.
It was not altogether difficult to find her at the Rialto Theater, where she was making personal appearances at such odd moments as she was not trying on new frocks, feting the press, watching photographers’ birdies and radioing sweet nothings to her pooblic.
She popped into the room and registered the madcap stuff without wasting time.
“I steal things!” she announced. “I lot to steal things.”
That settled, she proceeded to point out on the table several incandescent bulbs “stolen” from the backstage lighting a floor below.
“Ever since a child, I lof to steal.” Lupe told me. “But I always give things back.” This was a reassuring touch.
She wore a simple, flowered dress, shoes with heels a shade higher than the Singer Building, and no stockings whatsoever.
It was difficult to commune with the Mexican flash, because she was busily trying on shoes which had been brought from a near-by Broadway shop. A patient salesman sat by and told her how well each shoe looked on the Velez foot.
“What the ‘ell!” exclaimed Lupe. “You try to choke me?” A shoe was tossed to the ceiling with a lusty kick. “That’s too damn tight! Aha, that’s betaire. That’s the bébé!”
So it went; pink shoes, brown boots, yellow and mauve. There were pert handbags to match.
“Griffith — ah, Lupe lof him. He great director. Yas, he was a fine man. Lupe lof him. Happy to work for him? Yas. Trouble with Goudal? Who have trouble? Lupe nevaire have trouble with any one. Unless she want to. Lupe nevaire give trouble. No fight. But when she fight — look out!”
On the screen la Velez is a chesty soubrette with eyes heavily accented, and an- early Biograph touch to her histrionics. Offscreen the girl is a vital young savage chafing under the restraint of impending stardom, irked by custom and precedent.
The little girl doesn’t act. She simply permits the cameras to deploy her flamboyant personality to the screen. She suffers the photographer to transpose her madcap charms to the films. Although she can hardly be accused of taking herself seriously, it is pertinent to guess that she is gradually transforming herself into the sort of person her press agents paint her. This is never a happy metamorphosis, inasmuch as it is rarely achieved without overacting.
Her New York sojourn had been one of continuous travail: personal appearances, interviews, state luncheons and similar ordeals had rendered her life as private as a dance at the Hotel Astor. The goldfish was a sequestered creature in comparison. Even between stage stints was she not harassed by boot venders? I felt sorry for her.
Without warning Miss Velez seized a photograph from its place of honor on her dressing table, and showered it with exclamatory kisses. “Ah-h-h,” she sighed heatedly, “my Gicko; I lof him so! And soon I will see him again. In six, eight — how many days?” Straightway she brought to light a calendar, already covered with x’s that canceled the days past. “Six, seven — ah. eight!” she cried. “Eight more days and I will see my man!” I waited for the refrain, but in vain. Her man, she told me, with no little eloquence, played opposite her in “Wolf Song,” a picture one recalls as having no wolf and too much song, and from the first day they were, as Walter Winchell so aptly puts it, that way about each other.
Lupe was skyrocketed to prominence by the enthusiastic Fairbanks, for whom she acted up in “The Gaucho.” From that picture forward she was destined to be a spitfire.
D. W. Griffith took her in hand to add a touch of canned heat to his little opus called Lady of the Pavements, the theme song of which could happily have been Lady of the Pavements, I’d Walk a Mile for You!
Now Lupe is one of those United Artists, and rather inordinately proud of the idea. She speaks of herself as Lupe, flashes her eyes extravagantly, avoids the conventional in speech and posture, and registers gayety untrammeled at any cost.
She is sought after by advertisers who want her endorsement on suspension bridges, cyclone fencing, canary feed, health lamps, stainless-steel can openers and similar impressive products. She has made a phonograph record that plaintively inquires Where Is the Song of Songs for Me? and it may be dismissed with a gentle pat: and there have been numerous radio appearances during which Lupe has cried greetings to her dollinks and sweet pipple, all of which may or may not be good publicity. In any case Lupe has enjoyed a widespread campaign that has employed the deadliest weapons known to the crafty exploiteer.
“Joe Schenck [Joseph M. Schenck] has me under contract,” she said gayly. “I no give a damn how many mergers go. Lupe is set!”
By this time the patient shoe salesman had vanished with his mountain of boxes, the Velez eyes were heavy with kohl, the Velez lips were lavishly carmined, and belowstairs the orchestra was vamping till ready.
“Let’s go!” shouted the Mexican wild cat. “Lupe’s ready!” And the storm of applause greeting her entrance on the stage clearly demonstrated that the great American public knows precisely what it wants.
[b]
Off the screen Lupe Velez is a vital young savage chafing under restraint of impending stardom, irked by custom and precedent.
Photo by: Irving Chidnoff (1896–1966)
Ever since a child I lof to steal — but I always give things back,” said Lupe Velez to Malcolm H. Oettinger, whose story opposite reports a visit to the much-discussed Mexican girl in the excitement of her invasion of Broadway.
Photo by: Irving Chidnoff (1896–1966)
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, October 1929
]]>]]>
by Madeline Glass
A number of famous stars including Will Rogers, Tom Mix, and Monte Blue boast a small strain of Indian blood, yet their heritage is not sufficiently strong to influence their appearance or characteristics.
Dorothy Janis is at present the chief Indian representative on the screen, although she is only a quarter blood. However, that one quarter is Cherokee, one of the most important of all the tribes, so it is a matter of moment.
On finding that Dorothy was being assigned increasingly important roles, I decided to hunt her up and get her Indian reactions to fame and fortune. After meeting explosive foreigners from every quarter of the globe it would be, I thought, very restful to meet a quiet, domesticated little Cherokee.
The little Cherokee turned out to be domesticated, as per expectations, but I don’t recommend her as a nerve tonic. I do, however, recommend her as a joyous, enthusiastic little pal for any one who can keep up with her. For all her Indian pigmentation, Dorothy has the soul of a white girl, a sprightly, laughing, bubbling white girl. Her favorite recreations are dancing and driving and partying. Pocahontas rescued John Smith from danger, and diminutive Dorothy rescues men from boredom.
After waiting half an hour for her, I got up to go home. Then out from behind a pillar popped Dorothy looking as cute as a spotted pup and not much larger. This 1930 version of Minnehaha is just four feet, eleven inches in her French heels, and weighs ninety-four pounds in clothes and make-up. When I walk along street with her I feel as if I should have her on a leash to keep from losing her.
“Several times,” she told me, “I have lost leading roles in pictures because of my size. When I stand beside a tall star I come only to his waist. I wish I were like Greta Garbo, so tall and willowy. Then I could wear clothes.”
That, of course, is a rhetorical remark and shouldn’t be taken literally.
Besides clothes Dorothy also likes to wear jewelry. Heavy, barbaric pieces. Earrings that fall to her tiny shoulders, and bracelets like napkin rings. This tendency is, so far as I have been able to detect, her only Indian characteristic.
“I got into pictures by a fluke,” she tells you readily, the Texas intonation of her speech increasing with her enthusiastic recital. “I went with my cousin to the Fox studio to have her costumes fitted. A woman in the fitting room said they were looking for a girl to play the lead in Fleetwing. One hundred and fifty girls had been considered for the part. This woman asked if I could do a Nautch dance. I didn’t know exactly what she meant, but I said I had studied dancing a great deal. So I was taken to the casting director and got the part.
“I’m telling you, when I heard I was chosen to play a lead I was nearly thrilled to pieces. But as you probably know, the picture turned out to be a horse opera in disguise. We went out on the burning, passionate desert sands to make it and I nearly froze to death. I wore enough metal jewelry to anchor a yacht, and the metal being cold all the time helped to keep me cold.
“After that I made a picture with Fred Thompson. He was an awfully nice man.
“Lummox was the first talking picture I made. In that the very first scene we did was the one where I, as the maid, am drying the dishes. I’m telling you, I was so scared that when I put the dishes on the table they rattled as if I had the palsy. The scene had to be remade because of it.
“You know, I don’t like make-up men. They all have a crazy habit of wanting to experiment with my face. On one of the first pictures I made the make-up man was drunk all the time, and he used to fix up my face like a sunset. He put the men’s mustaches on upside down, too. Now, I make the experts stay away and fix my own face. I can do it better than they can.
“When we went to the South Seas to make The Pagan, I put olive oil on my face every day and sat in the sun on the upper deck. When we arrived I had such a tan that I didn’t have to wear dark make-up.”
Who says the little Cherokee isn’t serious about her art?
I commented on the diamond which she wears on the “engagement” finger.
“My father gave it to me when I was a child,” she explained, “because I didn’t cry when the doctor took the nail off that finger. My father is dead and I still wear it in memory of him.”
Taking a powder puff from her bag, she dabbed at her nose and poked at the dusky loops of hair which curved gracefully from under her felt hat. Her eyelashes, incidentally, are so luxuriant that fans write to ask if they are false.
“Not long ago,” she continued, “a stranger back East wrote that he was coming out here to marry me. Imagine! I’m telling you, I get some of the strangest letters from fans, particularly men. But then men are strange, aren’t they?
“A few weeks ago I had an unusual experience. A friend introduced me to a nice-looking man who seemed to have about all the money there is. He was very pleasant and when we had become fairly well acquainted, he asked to take me out one evening. I accepted and we had a good time dining and dancing and meeting people that we both knew.
“It was rather late when we started home, and as we were driving along he suddenly turned the car and began driving in the wrong direction. I asked him where we were going, but he didn’t say anything — just smiled and kept on driving. When we got out near Inglewood he stopped the car.”
“Sure. He was out of gas,” I interrupted.
“No, he didn’t pull that old line. He just stopped and sat and looked at me with that amused smile. I’m telling you, I began to get nervous. Finally I asked him if he was taking a rest cure. He still didn’t say anything. After ten minutes of nibbling at my finger nails, my nervousness turned to anger. It was a cold night and late. What did he think I was — an owl? I told him that if he didn’t take me home I would smash the speedometer with the sharp heel of my shoe. He didn’t think I would, and dared me to. So I went ahead and smashed it. But even then he wouldn’t take me home, but just smiled more and more. So then I poked my heel through the clock in the car, and he began laughing his head off.
“I told him my mother would be anxious about me, but he just wouldn’t be serious. Finally I said, ‘If you don’t start the car I will smash the windshield.’ But he wouldn’t go, so I put both feet together and pressed with all my might against the glass. It gave way with a crash and my giggling escort thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. Later, I found out that he just wanted to see what I would do in such a situation. Well, he saw!”
You’ll have to admit that diminutive Dorothy is some papoose.
Dorothy is only four feet eleven in French heels, and weighs ninety-four pounds in clothes and make-up.
Though Dorothy Janis is part Cherokee Indian, the is very much a Hollywood flapper, her high spirits and characteristic chatter being neatly captured by Madeline Glass in the story opposite, which further describes Dorothy’s adventures alter dark.
Photo by: Ruth Harriet Louise (1903–1940)
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, October 1930
]]>She is ungodly beautiful. It takes a good while to surmount that fact and recognize the underlying structure. Her face is so unreasonably lovely that the aesthete is loath to look further.
by Margaret Reid
Which explains, in part, her relegation to nondescript vehicles on the screen. The general idea seems to have been that a series of close-ups of the Dove, in varying moods, would carry any story, be it ever so puerile. To a certain extent it would, and has. But our civilization is not quite sufficiently Greek in feeling to be entirely satisfied with beauty alone. For which reason Billie has left First National, and is in quest of cooperation more to her liking.
Coincident with the rumor that she will sign with Caddo, the producing company of Howard Hughes, is the probability that she will marry the young millionaire. Hughes, if only for sponsoring the delightful “Two Arabian Knights” of a few seasons past, has indicated his worth as a producer. If Miss Dove does become affiliated with this company, it may be the resuscitation of a meteor previously burned out on weak story selection.
No one knows more thoroughly than Billie how bad her current pictures are. Six pictures made in eight months could not possibly he good, but Billie thinks they needn’t have been quite as bad as they were. Yet, contrary to the prerogative of harried stars, she doesn’t dwell on the ill treatment accorded her.
Billie, the Dove, has a disposition that must have been molded to her name, so neatly does it fit. She is gentle, warm, tranquil, even in displeasure. Anger arouses her to no violence, sorrow to no desperation. Experience does not continually model anew the contours of her mind and emotions. She is already too complete a person to be a reed in the wind. Life is, instead, absorbed by her serenity, experiences savored and made a part of her beauty and instinctive calm.
The antithesis of vivid, she is — if a biographer wished to become flossy — a pure sky-blue in emotional color, such being the accepted shade for tranquillity. Yet, recognizing the fine distinction between tranquillity and the less sensitive placidity, she has none of the latter. She is keenly, even if quietly, aware of herself and of things. That she is quiescent does not indicate that she is not alert. She knows, but is serenely unalarmed.
When she was a child her present attitude was unconsciously established. Recently going through a trunk full of old letters, school reports and such, she found a scrap of paper on which she had copied, in careful writing, a maxim that even then appealed to her. “Yesterday is past; do not regret it. To-morrow does not exist; don’t worry. Today is here; use it.”
Yet there is no hysteria in her disregard of yesterday and to-morrow, in her prodigal use of today. Her life, albeit full, is leisurely. She is repose, undisturbed by the anomaly of a noisy age and a turbulent profession.
The close of her contract with First National saw the beginning of her first real vacation in several years — three months set aside for play. Weary of studios and studio business, she took a large, sprawling Spanish house on the edge of the Toluca Lake district. Set well back from the unpaved road and surrounded by smooth lawns, riotous gardens and fruit trees, the present domicile of the Dove approximates her constant yearning for stillness and peace. There is little traffic beyond the fence protecting her from the road, and the only sounds are from birds and tree toads, and the five Scottish terriers which are her delight.
The good old Scotch family was founded by Lassie, whom Billie has had for several years. Lassie’s daughter recently contracted a shocking mesalliance, as proved by two children — one an aristocrat, but the other having white paws. And Lassie’s son has asthma, so what with one thing and another. Miss Dove has plenty of troubles. She greeted this holiday with almost childlike pleasure. Contrary to the impression she gives of having had a sheltered, comfortable life, she has worked very hard since she was little more than a child. In adolescence she had already shouldered, of necessity, responsibilities that many an adult would have tried to evade. Financial burdens and moral obligations have attended her along the climb from obscurity in the chorus to her present celebrity and wealth. And hers was no lucky break, no accident of fortune. She has worked honestly and valiantly for everything she now has.
With her vacation, she discarded all thought of studios and pictures. Luxuriating in her home, which she had previously seen only in brief snatches, she hates to stir out of her own grounds. She is learning to play tennis. She swims. She walks, accompanied by the brigade of Scotties, through the rural fields adjacent. She lies in the cool patio and reads. She writes.
Because Billie is so sheepish about her verse, it must be mentioned only briefly. It is, she says, a purely personal thing, a safety valve for random thoughts. Few people know of its existence. Which is a pity, because it is good poetry. It has no amateur ring of sentimentality or sugar. It is, rather, warm but sophisticated in feeling and deft in meter.
She paints, less expertly than she writes, but still with none of the effulgence of the novice. In oils, water colors, and crayons she understands her medium. She would rather paint dogs than anything. One of her best pictures is a pastel of a wire-haired terrier that is really excellent.
She has a passion for first editions, having nearly completed a set of Hergesheimer. She is avid for a first of “Sister Carrie,” to complete her collection of Dreiser, who is first among her favorite authors. Her taste in literature is instinctively good. She shies away from vulgarity and poor craftsmanship. She leans slightly toward the realistic in prose.
She seldom goes to restaurants, having a complex about public places.
Her dark hair, cut short now and brushed in a soft wave behind her ears, is threaded with premature gray.
Even when she is not working she rises early, liking the morning and reluctant to miss any of it.
She doesn’t like to talk movies and can’t be inveigled into making conversation about her own.
She is singularly lacking in conceit, but will listen sympathetically to other people’s exposition of ego. This is partly because she shrinks from hurting any one’s feelings, and partly because she thinks that almost any one is really smarter than she is.
Good breeding is very evident in her manners, her dignity and her congenital delicacy. A gentlewoman born, one would say, out of her time. But a welcome decoration in a day of flappers forever in a hurry.
Only her intimates know that Billie Dove writes verses and paints in oils and water colors.
Long Shots
Billie Dove is well named, decides Margaret Reid, opposite, for she is tranquil, neither joy nor sorrow disturbing her calm; but she is aware of more than her own loveliness, for her interests are many, her life full, her future refulgent.
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, October 1930
]]>by Margaret Reid
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, September 1930
]]>by Margaret Reid
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, August 1930
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by Margaret Reid
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, July 1930
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