We Nominate for Stardom — Tala Birell (1932) 🇺🇸
Motion Picture presents the coming stars — They’ll be your future favorites!
Tala Birell was born in Roumania twenty-three years ago, and doesn’t mention the fact that her mother was a famous Polish baroness. When likened to Garbo, Tala — who’s famous in her own right abroad — objects. She doesn’t want to do the Garbo type of rôle. She’ll surprise you!
Tala Birell — Universal
Tala is a mystery girl. Universal has had her under contract for almost a year, and yet you have never seen her on the screen. But you soon will. She is working now on her first picture, “Mountains in Flame,” in which she plays a peasant girl. After that she will play a sophisticated rôle in Nana, by Zola.
She was born in Bucharest, Roumania, and christened Natalie Bierl; her mother was the former Baroness Schaydakowska of Poland. Tala speaks seven languages as though they were her own. Her beauty is unlike that of any other screen star, though, like most foreign newcomers, she has been compared to Garbo. Blonde, with blue eyes. Tala has the cameo-cut features of an aristocrat. She is at once direct and dignified, simple and strange. Carl Laemmle has great plans for Tala. That is why you have not seen her yet.
A pupil of Max Reinhardt in Berlin and Vienna, she was a Continental favorite at twenty. Now, at twenty-three, she bids fair to become a great American favorite as well.
She was brought to Universal City for the German version of “The Boudoir Diplomat.” Completing that, she was assigned a supporting part in an American picture: on the second day, she was taken out of the cast.
Already studio prophets sensed that here they had something rare and different. They decided that Tala Birell should be kept for only the most important things, and not wasted on unworthy parts and small pictures. Her long wait over, she is now on her way at last.
We Believe in Her
- Because she is beautiful and gay and Viennese.
- Because she is a new type of beauty and the screen needs change.
- Because she has proved herself a great actress abroad.
- Because she has a contract with yearly renewal clauses, instead of six-month renewals.
- Because Universal is prepared to back her with all its resources.
We shall soon give you her surprising story. Watch for “Mountains in Flame” and “Nana” — and Tala Birell.
As the leading magazine of the motion picture industry, we are here not only to write of stars already established — but to kelp to build the stars of tomorrow. We have been giving you advance information on promising newcomers for twenty-one years. Heretofore, however, this information has been somewhat scattered. With this issue, we are starting a monthly department to answer that always-intriguing question: “Who will be the stars of tomorrow?”
From our inside knowledge of what goes on at the studios, we know what producers honestly think of newcomers, what they are planning for them, and which ones are showing great promise in their first parts. Each month we shall tell you about them, show you pictures of them — invest space in our magazine in them. But we want your help in our “star-making.” We want you to go to see their first pictures, yourself, and write us what you think of our candidates for stardom. — Editor.
Source: Motion Picture Magazine, May 1932