Man Whose Job it is to Find Film Starlets Mr, Bill Grady, the talent scout, looked long and hard at his desk calendar, penciled a ring around "June" and heaved a sigh.
"It won't be long now," he said. "Only a matter of hours before on big jam session begins—and I don' mean swing, either. Its going to b a mighty bad June again this-year.
Grady was referring to the close of school and college terms through-gut the country and to the hordes youngsters released from classrooms who seize vacation periods to scamper westward—all with one thought in mind—the movies.
Through the long winter months back home, they've memorized tac ines of standard plays, waved their arms and spilled their emotions before what they thought were spellbound audiences of relatives and friends. They've been told by doting kin folks that their stars lie along the movie horizons that Gable has nothing on them and that Myrna Loy is just standing-in, waiting until they reach the.movie capital "Mr. Grady and half a dozen other apprehensive studio talent executives have. ched their annual campaign to keep the kids at home—at least to keep them off Hollywood's doorstep.
Cry Is "Stay Home"
The movie-makers haven't been content in recent years with merely wishing the youngsters would stay home. Joined by the Hays office and ithe Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, they've been resorting to dcvious and ingenious devices in an effort to convince heads of schools and colleges that even the most pro-Mising dramatic pupils should be discouraged from making the long and j|hopeless trek to the film capital. and Fight" ubi Wallace Beery and Robert Taylor have the starring roles at the Nanki today, associated (players including Florence Rice, "Helen Broderick and Charles Pickford. The story has to do with slave-running.
favourite novitiate, and the party she the fact that the citizens, while de-gives for Miss Darnell is the object lightful, are. so conservative. of her concern.
Alan Mowbray is quite concerned Miss Maxwell says that her prin-about the health of Bobby Breen. cipal complaint about Hollywood is He is "appearing with the young that she is a' highly-organized per-singing star in "Way Down South," son in a highly-disorganized indus-Sol Lesser's current discussion of try. Such things'as being' awakened culture on the plantations. After at 6:30, reporting at the studio at 8 working with Bobby for three or four and not being needed until 11 irritate days, Mowbray went to Bernard her. She says that disorganization Vorhaus, the director, and, said has affected her so greatly that when "You'd better get those electricians the picture is finished she will have to change their terminology. They to-go to Europe for a rest. Otherwise keep yelling, "Kill that junior." she is quite enthusiastic about the Then, fixing an eye on Bobby, he continued, "One of them might misknow, money means nothing derstand."
she says. "With me it's a "Way Down South": will be one of of loyalty. That is why Im Master Breen' more pretentious happy here. They have won my offerings. It has to do with the slave loyalty. It makes all the difference Hays on the old Breen plantation, a the world to work with gentlemen, wicked lawyer, a faithful servant men at Fox are gentlemen. and glamour in the form of Stefi a'success and remain in pic-Duna. Clarence Muse and Langston Hughes, Negro composers of considerable note, have arranged eleven She describes Zanuck as a wizard, spirituals to be sung by the Hall the Marconi of the films who is Johnson Choir, as well as some head and shoulders above any other Original music which Bobby will genius in Hollywood. "I love Mr.|sing.
Zanuck," she says simply. She says she loves Gregory Ratoff, her direefor, too. 3 Miss Maxwell believes that she is able to cope with Hollywood because of her sense of humour. She says she makes a practice of taking serious things lightly and frivolous things seriously. Before she leaves town she hopes to give a party that will quite' outshine anything Hollywood has known. She is troubled by "Much of the action takes place in the slave quarters at the edge of the sugar cane For an authentic, touch, the studio had several tons df cane shipped from Louisiana, but when it arrived at the California border it was found that agricultural restric tions prohibited bringing it in. sperate because of the time element, they discovered that sugar cane is about 100 miles from Hollywood.
"But it won't do any good," said the dejected Grady. "No matter how much propaganda we spread, each [June sees an increase in out-of-town applicants. Last June, for instance, ithe casting departments of seven maier lots reported a total of more than 2,000 boys and girls coming here from all parts of the nation, many from distant points in Canada and a number even from foreign count:
"In spite of all our warnings and our attempts to explain that we wish to find our own prospects rather than have them find us, I venture to say that this June will break all invasion records."
If you happen to know of a boy or' girl preparing for a, summer on-slaugh on Hollywood gates, you'll be saving heariaches, possibly tragedy, if you. pass: along. this emphatic message from Grady—one in which all talent executives heartily concur.
"First of all" he begins, "don't come. to Hollywood. "When that point's settled, begin to prepare yourself at home for that movie career.
Find a good teacher and study every possible moment. You can do this at home as easily as anywhere else. Get into every play you can and play any kind of-part. Do radio work li you can."
If the determined aspirant to film fame still feels Grady is merely opping off" in an effort to keep his doorstep clear and his job easier, Check over the backgrounds of practically all the most promising youngsters contracted by Hollywood studios during the past year.
With only a few miraculous exceptions—such as Arleen Whelan, who zoomed out of a manicurist's booth in a barber shop, and Ellen Drew, plucked from behind a candy counter—best prospects among starlets of screen land today are those who let talent scouts discover them—in small stage plays or in radio stations, Take Loraine Day, regarded as the best young femme prospect on the M.-G-M. lot She played Little theatre stock for three " before a scout brought her into the studio. The Little theatre was a done-over known in quantities near Bakersfield, freight station near Long Beach, but that didn't impair the girl's acting.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.