Warren William — A New Favorite With The Women (1939) 🇺🇸
The very newest screen lover — Warren William — is keen for Hollywood girls, and Hollywood girls are keen for him. With a Barrymore profile, the roving eyes of Edmund Lowe and the easy manner of Ronald Colman — he should appeal to feminine fans everywhere
by Betty Willis
Warren William has been labeled by Hollywood as a sophisticate and is expected to live up to it, though he doesn’t in the least agree with the movie-town’s conception of one. In “The Vinegar Tree,” where the Warner Brothers discovered him in New York, he played a very experienced man of the world — an “older man.” This gave rise to the superstition that, even in his own apartment, he must be bored and blasé and, above all, impervious to the crude and obvious charm of Hollywood’s women.
When you don’t yet know a handsome male newcomer very well and aren’t up on his likes, dislikes and family history, it’s pretty safe to ask him what he thinks of filmland’s beauty brigade. It’s a never-failing way of thawing out strangers from the stage — even the sophisticated-looking kind. Keeping his reputation in mind, I tried it on Mr. William.
“You’ll never get me to say anything bad about girls,” he smiled. “I love girls — not only Hollywood girls, but New York, Minnesota, and any other kind you can name.”
His smile was a tip-off on Hollywood’s big mistake in character-reading. He is a sort of discreet blend of John Barrymore, Ronald Colman and Edmund Lowe. He has the Barrymore profile, and the manner and accent of Ronnie. But he has the roving blue eye of a Sergeant Quirt, without the slang and cuss-words. He gets the effects without the actions.
“Besides,” he continued, “I don’t want to get in wrong with the ‘Hollywood babes,’ as a friend of mine calls them. I haven’t seen much of them, but the ones I’ve seen are lovely.
“I’m always inclined to find excuses for everyone — probably because I need to make so many for myself. And I make them for the Hollywood girls.
He Alibis for the Girls
“They’re accused of being ego-maniacs — selfish, conceited, and absorbed in themselves and their careers to the exclusion of everything else. It may be true. But I can understand it perfectly. In this business you are kept so close to the grindstone — up at six-thirty or seven, working from nine till seven at night, and often till eleven or twelve, and back at nine the next day. By the time you’ve done that for a few months, you’ve lost the ability to look around and become interested in anything besides yourself. All your thoughts and efforts are concentrated on yourself. There’s no breathing space in which to know or care about anything else.
“I should think it would be a great fight to keep from becoming an ego-maniac. Pictures in the paper. The whole world writing you fan letters. How could you help it? Some of them, who’ve come from nothing into sudden wealth and fame, who’ve had nothing before that to anchor to, are swept away by it and lose their heads. I think it the most natural thing in the world. I don’t see how they could be expected to do otherwise or be otherwise. “They’re accused of having no personal feeling about men, no real emotion, but of merely collecting scalps — of boasting about who gave them this diamond bracelet or that emerald necklace, or who committed suicide for love of them. No doubt it’s so. But isn’t that typically feminine? All women love to be admired and desired. It’s only nature. Moving picture actresses are more extreme about it. That’s because they’re more plentifully endowed with beauty and charm and the things that set them off. They are more attractive, and they have more admirers. And more bracelets. All women would boast about their bracelets — if they could get them.
Source: Movie Classic Magazine, September 1939