The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 46

PAGE 4 Section A THE SDN, BALTIMORE. SUNDAY MORNING. FEBRUARY 3. 1946 Bachelor Fritz Lang Knows About Women Hedda Hopper On Hollywood She's Doing Quite Well Without Glamor Coat GRAHAM i i a v. jL'-r-- ill hfrrr VsnX St? 7 4 V-; Meet Victoria Elizabeth James, who's nearly 2 with her mother, Betty Grable Money-Making Mama With but eight lines of dialogue in "The Spiral Staircase," she was practically a mute.

A neat trick in our films that talk and talk and talk. The studio now is rewarding her by letting her blossom into a beautiful young war widow in "Till the End of Time." She's doing that one with Bob Mitchum and Producer Dore Schory is cutting handsprings over her work in her first glamor part. ForWarmmg.Dorothyt I remember the first time I ever saw her. She -was trying on sweaters for. "Claudia." They were trying to have her fill but the Lana Turner kind, but Claudia I mean Dorothy kept saying: "I just want a simple, loose sweater that any country girl would wear to keep warm in not the kind that keeps the audience warm." And after an hour's try they found the kind she meant, but it took a heap of digging by the studio fashion designers.

Dorothy admits, though that her fine new duds have boosted her morale considerably. Studying the script from all she gets so involved in the roles she plays it affects her private life. That's why she wouldn't go to see "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." 'That poor woman got me down." she told me. "I was depressed throughout the whole picture." Not that she didn't like the role she loved it It's not every youngster who gets a lead in a best seller as her second picture. Encounters Frank Critic Success, however, has left her modesty intact The main reason she doesn't like to see herself on the screen is that she always feel, upon viewing her performances, she could have done it better: She had to be coerced into going to see "Claudia." As the pixyish character of the young bride unfolded on the screen a man sitting near Dorothy muttered: "Good Lord! How could any man stand her?" That ended the picture for Dorothy.

She said, "He's right," got up, and left the theater. This sensitivity is no pose. When I lunched with her I had a dickens of a time talking about Dorothy McGuire. "Actresses should think carefully before talking," she said. What a healthy thing for this town if all could have that attitude! She has her own ideas about acting, but, unlike many youngsters coming here from Broadway, Dorothy's too wise to start telling producers here how they do it in New York.

I asked her what she thought could be done to improve pictures and she said: "Why isn't the whole cast called together to discuss the script before shooting begins? Let everyone give out ideas before production costs hit the big brackets. Seems to me that'd cut expenses and up efficiency." I told her that's the way it seemed to me, too, but there are things in this business that don't follow logic. Some of our best pictures were rehearsed two or three weeks by the whole cast before shooting started, but they tell me that's too expensive a method now. In the old days plenty of money was saved that way. An Old Complaint "Like not shooting in story continuity," she grinned.

"How can a girl be expected to give her best when they have her jumping all over the script?" "That," I explained, "is something actors have been screaming about since the first camera turned." "Anyhow," she said, "I like pictures." Well, pictures surely like her. After "Till the End of Time" she is to complete the cycle by appearing in "Claudia and David." That we may say, is where she came in. But it's certainly not going to be where she goe3 out. Dorothy McGuire can have! just about anything she wants, because when she's acting that comes first and everything else fades into the background. That attitude will keep her name in the lights as long as she wants it there.

By ROSALIND SHAFFER her ambitions, her marriage and her home. "I want more children," she said. "Eventually I'll retire, and then we'll live on our ranch with the children." Her hours and those of her husband, Harry James, orchestra leader, conflict now constantly. Betty rushes home to dinner at 6 with Harry and Victoria Elizabeth, almost 2, and then Harry has to leave for his night-club work. He has two nights off a week.

One of these is Sunday, and they make the most of this, taking care of the baby themselves, and usually going out to their ranch. Both Betty and Harry are horse enthusiasts, and they ride a great deal. When Betty is working on a picture, James takes local engagements. When she's free, they go on tour together. They still are hoping to have a vacation together, but so far it's only a plan.

Their town home is an informal place, with a fieldstone fireplace decorated with copper and, brass utensils, comfortable chairs and sofa's and low tables. It's interesting to note that the typical glamor blonde dislikes bleached hair and lets hers go back to its natural ash-blond shade between pictures. She wears it that way for the first time on the screen in her current picture. She's actually prettier with the softer color; she looks more girlish, and has a daintier shaped mouth without her screen makeup. Just for the record, the pinup queen is 5 feet 3Vi inches, weighs 112 to 117, and has a flawless skin and blue eyes.

Betty is very proud of her little daughter, who has red-gold hair, blue eyes and perfect skin like mama's. Ambition to be a dramatic actress is disclaimed by Betty. "I'm doing all right as I am. Why should I want to change?" she said. JJETTY GRABLE has hit the first ten at the box office for the third time.

Yet the pinup queen of filmdom suffered from indifference and poor contracts early in her career and it was her 'dogged insistence on hard work and her astute strategy that finally got her the right kind of deal in pictures. Today, if Betty Grable is in a picture, it makes money. There was a joke that went the rounds at the time that Darryl Zanuck made the elaborate prestige picture, "Wilson." "If 'Wilson doesn't make money, I'll never make another picture without Betty Grable," Zanuck was quoted as saying. My first meeting with Betty was when she was 14 and she was singing with Jay Whidden's band. Pretty and blonde, Betty then didn't seem unusually promising.

She'd sung with other bands, including Td Fio Rito's. Danced In Chorus She got a small contract dancing in a studio stock chorus; she was a chorus girl in Eddie Cantor's picture, "Whoopee." She was in the Barbara Stanwyck-Frank Fay stage production, "Tattle Tales." She worked in pictures with Wheeler and Woolsey, went on a tour with them; did a specialty number with Edward Everett Horton in "The Gay Divorcee." The studio was perennially billing her in college-girl roles when she decided to switch back to the stage, and this time, in "DuBarry Was a Lady," she was the hit of the show. This led to her present contract with her present studio, where she has made her greatest success. We sat in her lavishly furnished Victorian suite at the studio, where she is making "The Shocking Miss Pilgrim," and talked about or a total of Straub added that been given to athletic Hollywood, By SHEILAH Wh, Hollywood. EN Virginia Gilmore went to New York and found herself a husband, people in Hollywood said, "I wonder what Fritz Lang will do?" Fritz Lang has always done very well as a director and a bachelor.

I remember asking him at the time he was seen con-, stantly with Virginia. "Why don't you get married?" His answer then was, "Why should I told him that he was being selfish. And he still is, but I know of few men who have as good time as the monocled European from the standpoint of "doing what I want to do when I want to do it" As for marriage, here is what Fritz says: "I don't think that anyone in the picture or theater business should get married. It's unfair to the other party. Take me no girl in Hollywood has been able to) when I'm making a picture (Fritz recently completed 'Scarlet Street') I get up at 6 o'clock in the morning.

I don't want to talk to anyone, just want my breakfast read the papers I read five newspapers a day then go to the studio. I get home at about 7 PJVl and by the time that I've had a bath and changed and eaten it's 9. and I still don't want to talk to any- -one. I want to read and think and listen to music, maybe. No Young Wife For Him "If I had a wife," continues Lang, "she'd want to go out at night naturally; she's been home all day.

I don't like to go out much at night You get awfully tired of the same old faces at Romanoff's and -the Players. But when I do go out, I want to see young people (I think that Fritz means "young women'). I like to find out what young people are thinking about after all they are a big part of the theater audiences." But when I suggest that he could get all this by marrying a young woman, Fritz adjusts' his monocle and demands, "Do I look crazy?" Fritz was married once a long time ago, in Europe and you don't have to be a detective to know that it didn't take. But that marriage and subsequent experiences with the fair sex taught Lang a lot about women. He knows that for some odd reason we seem to prefer the tough type of male.

And that's one of the reasons why he has built up tough-guy Dan Duryea into a top-flight lover on the screen. "Surely hope you see Dan in 'Scarlet Street' Fritz gets really enthusiastic. "There's one scene where Joan Bennett is hanging round his neck begging him to love her. And he laughs in her face!" Later in the picture Dan kicks Joan as she lies in the gutter. And it's awful but true that this sort of thing is causing countless women to write love letters to Mr.

Duryea. It happened to him after he slapped Miss Bennett's face in "Woman in the Window," which was also directed by Mr. Lang, who is completely sold on the boy. Gave Joan Bennett Chance Lang rescued Joan Bennett from dull films. "No one ever gave her a chance to act before," he tells me.

"She's a natural actress." Joan was on the producing board of "Scarlet Street." together with her husband. Walter Wanger, Lang and writer Dudley Nichols. They work under the banner of "Diana Productions," with Fritz as president of the board. I ask Lang about returning to Europe, if he has any plan or desire to return to Germany where he made some of its best pictures among them "Metropolis" and before the Nazi regime caused him to flee for his life. Naturalized Six Years Ago "For me," says Fritz, "Europe now has no reality." That's the sort of thing they usually say about Hollywood.

"Yes, I know what you mean," replies the director when I mention this. "But Hollywood has more influence on the rest of the world than any other place." And I suppose that, too, is true. Lang became a naturalized American in 1939. He's done everything, seen everything with him on the station platform at Silver Spring. The tuberculosis rate in Baltimore county is continually increasing, while most other major diseases are on the decline.

John Steele Resigns John D. Steele, chairman of the Commission on City Plan since June, 1939. Friday resigned. The United States Employment Service has launched a State-wide canvass of employers in an effort to place more than 80,000 veterans and displaced war workers. Grafton L.

Brown. Maryland USES director, announced Thursday. The Board of Estimates authorized the city's purchase of the Cur-(Turn to Next Parte) Gob Humor I From the Crow's Ktst Genealogist One who traces back your family as far as your money will go. I 1 and if he has another successful picture-which he has it's mere repetition. There Is one thing only that Fritz has not had children.

"I nvy you your daughter," he tella me. "it gives you a very full life." Which brings us back to where we started. It must be fine to be a bachelor, with no responsibilities and lots of success. But isn't life that way a little bit empty? ii 777 'Joan Lorring Birthplace: Hong Kong By PEGGY PELOTA A Hollywood. LTHOUGH Joan Lorring is only 30.

she has a mature dramatic talent that combined with her exotic appearance, is pushing her right up the ladder. In her next picture, "The Verdict" her studio is giving her star billing with Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Loire, although officially she still is only a featured player. Joan is a tiny, intense person. 5 feet 2 and weighing, 103 pounds. She's of Arabian, Russian, Spanish and British descent She was born in Hong Kong, where her father was a stockbroker, and was educated in British schools In China before coming to the States.

She was graduated from University High School in Los Angeles. Her early environment gave her a slight English accent and a more mature outlook: than most American girls her age. Radio played a considerable part in the dramatic development of a girl that the studio considers one of the best of its younger players. Joan and her mother came here from Hong Kong in 1939, but soon were thrown on their own resources when the father, who had stayed behind to wind up his financial affairs, was caught by the Japanese. The Nipponese held him prisoner until late 1945.

Fortunately, Joan had brought a letter of introduction to Douglas Fairbanks, from the famous Chinese actor Mei Lan Fang, and this, although she was only 13, helped lead to a role in a picture. Steady Work In Radio She did well in radio, where her flexible, cultivated voice brought her steady work. Later, she went back to pictures to play a role In the "Song of Russia." and appeared, with Nazimova, in The Bridge of San Luis Rey." Her acting reputation grew steadily. Then she got the role of Bessy Watty In Tho Corn Is Green," after Betty Field had been rumored for the part Joan, who has a tinge of oriental philosophy about her. had gone to bed resigned to losing the role after hearing a radio announcement that Miss Field had been given the part Next morning the studio called her to teU her that she had it Men and marriage are topics that confuse) and worry Joan.

She confesses that she would like to imitate her mother and marry young so that she could have her children as companions. But she says she's 'a little over-critical of men and so far has had no serious attachments. Likes Her Profession Acting, Joan says, is the best profession for women. "It pays well," she says, "gives a woman more freedom than any other career, and is compatible with marrying and having a family." Professionally, Joan has her own ideas of how best to interpret her radio and picture roles, and, while she appreciates good direction, she's not bashful about stating her views. Personally shy, she's all confidence and competence in her work.

Joan lives with her pretty blond mother, a strong contrast to Joan's own dark beauty, in a tiny apartment the two have decorated themselves. Joan, who likes to paint, is busily planning the home to which she hopes to welcome her father, now in London after his release from Stanley prison camp in Hong Kong and subsequent hospitalization. Ready For Sfi lower Hollywood. Trying to outfit a glamor chorus with raincoats, umbrellas and overshoes isnt an easy matter, especially when June Alyson and the chorus are to perform the title song, "Till the Clouds Roll By." Oiled silk is impossible to obtain: but Designer Helen Rose, who shops around like any housewife, had seen some glamorous-looking shower curtains, newly back on the market since the war. She bought several bolts of the material, in pink, blue and white; 1 m.

-B a. i. oiuc i or me men, pins; lorwune ana wmie ior the chorus girls. The matter of rubbers and galoshes was solved by a timely sale ol army stock surplus. Uj vS' V.

1 I Wh Hollywood. 'EN I asked Dorothy McGuire how she happened to enter the acting profession she said, "All children play-act and I guess I just never grew up." That could be true, but for a youngster she has snagged some mighty adult roles in our town. And there'll be plenty of opportunity for her to continue. Already she has enough movie commitments to keep her busy for two years. After thatthough she's happy in pictures and happily married she'd like to go back to the stage.

That's where she started. She made her debut at 13 opposite her fellow townsman, Henry Fonda, in "A Kiss for Cinderella." It was a guest appearance for Henry, who'd returned to Omaha fresh from triumphs on Broadway. But Cinderella held her own against the seasoned trouper. Of her, one critic wrote, "She's like a breath of spring." Years were to pass, however, before she got on the pumpkin coach again. Fresh From Wellesley Dorothy went to New York fresh from a college course at Wellesley.

A girl with big ideas, she soon discovered that Broadway didn't get its name, "the Hardened Artery," for nothing. It was just that. Dorothy wore out plenty of shoe leather trudging from one producer's office to another. They were unimpressed by the rather plaia little girl with the whimsical face and came up with great, large "no's." The producers Dorothy interviewed had forgotten that little Helen Hayes as no great beauty either. Finally Dorothy landed a bit in "Bachelor Born." The play promptly flopped.

She was back to ringing doorbells again. Jed Harris, who'd previously turned her down colder than a dog's nose, gave Dorothy her first break in "Our Town." She understudied Martha Scott, and when Martha came out here to do a picture, Dorothy slid into her role in the play. It was a good spot, but the publicity it might have given her earlier in the run was chilled now. After six months she made a big jump from this gentle, nostalgic play to John Barrymore's "My Dear Children." Everyone knows what the Great Profile did with that one. Dorothy, always the idealist, was shocked by Barrymore's uninhibited performance.

And when the play caused eyebrow lifting among old friends, in Omaha, Dorothy chucked the opportunity of a New York opening, left the play, and returned to New York on her own. Signed Up By Rose Franken What she really had her heart set on was Philip Barry's "Liberty Jones." But the Theater Guild couldn't see her in it. That was a major disappointment. In a. disinterested mood, she went to inquire about a play Rose Franken was trying to get produced without being able to find a leading lady for it.

That was "Claudia." And when Dorothy walked in with wind-blown hair and wearing her air of indifference, Author Franken let out one big v.hoop and signed her up. It was a happy b'cnding. Dorothy made the play, and "Clau-cia" made her. It took no seven-league boots to jump from her hit to pictures. Hollywood may be unimpressed by many things, but success isn't one cf them.

Studios rolled out the carpet for Dorothy and made a star out of her in her very first picture. Why, even the great Ina Claire played her mother. She's handled her career here wisely. In movies a girl usually goes from glamor to character, but Dorothy, reversing the procedure, has done just the opposite. She has the gift of plainness.

And that's a rare item in this place. She has hit the jackpot playing ugly ducklings and letting glamor go Remember her as slum-ridden Katie Nolan in "A Tree Grows in Or the poignant home body in "The Enchanted Cot The Sunday Sun, Jhe Week's News (Continued from Page 1) a permanent injunction restraining Louis Cohen, operator of the French Apparel Shoppe, in the 200 block West Lexington street from requiring customers to buy cotton mesh hose in order, to obtain Nylons. Not A Thing To Wear One of the best-dressed women In town last week was faced with the possibility of not having a thing to wear when a thief broke into the Sidney Zell home, at 4014 Greenway, and walked off with Mrs. Zell's three fur coats, one fur scarf, four tweed coats and ten or twelve hats all original models. All her dresses and lighter clothing were lef intact.

Mrs. Zell for a while thought she was going to be in a mighty bad way for protection against the winter winds, for she had no coat However, one of the local furriers with whom she has been dealing for years came to her rescue and lent her a mink jacket to wear until police uncover some trace of her missing finery. George William Rife, 85, of 3908 Canterbury road, former city collector and manager of the Bureau of Tax Receipts, died last week. The State limited the dog quarantine to Baltimore city and a portion of Baltimore county included in the Ninth election district Maryland Airlines began a twice-daily service from Baltimore to Easton and Rehoboth, Monday. 100 Streetcars Junked More than 100 old streetcars of the Baltimore Transit Company were sold to the Boston Metals Company for junk.

Dr. Oliver S. Lloyd, director of surgery and Dr. Samuel L. Fox, director of orolaryngology, at the South Baltimore General Hospital, completed an operation last week of replacing with a shaped metal plate almost a fifth of a youth's skull which had become infected and been removed.

surgeons who performed the operation on Ernest Dixon, 18-year-old Negro boy. of 806 South Sharpe street, said the plate might well be one of the largest ever installed after the bone had become infected. Capt Robert Brown, recently ficer bird ported Enchanting provei beautiful have was one membert the transferred and Baltimore's The in The Sunday Sun, Baltimore, February 3. 1946 I 1 Baltimore, February 3. 1948 cent since V-J day, 1.486.

John and William started to work century ago in their at Roland avenue more enth street retired last week. The brothers have watched Baltimore grow up and surround the country store which today, complete with the pot-bellied-stove, is as typical as any that can be Poor Children's Camp Planned The St. Vincent de Paul Society. Catholic organization composed largely of business sional men, had tract in the Green for a $100,000 summer camp for poor Rodney J. Brooks, Houser, who than half a father's store, and found.

and profes bought a 48-acre Spring Valley society, announced Liquor Commis ten licenses on liquor to minors future penalties Heights school Speaker of the filed his candi for the Demo assurance has 1 authorities of the United States Naval Academy and that the three Navy games scheduled for the Stadium with Duke, Notre Dame and North Carolina will be played here. Book On Wheels Talbot county's bookmobile is now completing its fifth year of continuous service. Books from the Talbot County Free Library are brought to people in every corner of the county by means of the mobile ssjelves. Complying with a magistrate's order, Franklin D. Fulton, a retired engineer living alone on a twelve-acre farm off the 4900 block of Windsor Mill road, turned over fifteen of his seventeen mongrel dogs to the S.P.CA.

for destruction. Neighbors of Fulton had complained that the dogs were destructive and ran loose without licenses. Pleading guilty to second-degree murder, Frederick Emil Roessler was sentenced to eighteen years in the Maryland Penitentiary for second-degree murder in connection with his wife, Clara, whose body was found buried in the cellar of their home at 6908 German Hill road, near Dundalk, last November 30. Game Program Adopted The State Game and Inland Fish Commission adopted a cooperative farm game program whereby wildlife refuges and sanctuaries on farm land will be designed to "greatly increase the population of small game and fur bearers native to Maryland." The plan is the first of its type in the State. Members of the Lexington Market Authority asked the Board of Estimates to advance it $25,000 president of the Thursday.

The Board of sioners suspended charges of selling and warned that will be "stiff er." The ODonnell children are on strike again. Residents of the housing project voted unanimously at a mass meeting to keep their children out of Elementary School No. 228 until a definite improvement is offered, either by way of school-bus service or by a new school building approachable Holding a top spot in the memory 0 nearly erery service man from Baltimore is this corner at North avenue and North Charles street by "safe and reasonable routes. John S. White, House of Delegates, dacy at Annapolis in city funds, declaring a lack of working funds is delaying prepara tion of plans and Virginia Gardner that some of the moit of American actreMes come from burlesque.

Virginia of the most eyenlling of the cast of loveliet in Hunt Stromberg production, "Lady of Burlesque" liminary to tne construction of the Bay Training Station and nava! magazine, retired last week. Dr. David E. Weglein, superintendent of public instruction, paid an unexpected visit to the Booker T. Washington Junijr High School for Negroes last week and found the school overcrowded and badly in need of repair.

An agreement was reached by city and union negotiators providing a wage boost of a few cents an hour for municipal labor forces. Dear "Old" Van When asked for her opinion of Van Johnson, Virginia Tanner, editor of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's monthly magazine, who rode from Chicago to Washington bringing the pinup man and other movie stars to the Capital for the big March-of-Dimes party Thursday, could only say "Hubba-hubba." Miss Tanner not only had the pleasure of sitting beside The Freckles during an hour and a half inter-View but had her picture taken cratic nomination for attorney general. Renew Lease Butler Brothers renewed its lease for fifteen years on two large buildings it occupies at 200-208 West Baltimore street and on Wicomico street between Ostend and Scott streets. Several hundred residents, of West Baltimore passed a resolution calling on the Mayor, Police Commissioner, Buildings Engineer and other city officials to enforce sanitary and building regulations in that section of the city. C.

Kirk Straub, president of the Board of Park Commissioners, said all condemned and broken seats at the Municipal Stadium will be repaired and the plant will have its full seating capacity of approximately 60,000 before the opening of the 1948 football, season. Mr. proposed new and ton Market with space. Admiral Reinburg Rear Admiral LeRoy Reinburg, other steps pre modern Lexing roof parking Retires years in com is about two from Camp Dietrich, lor the past eight mand of the Coast Guard yard, with military control over the Curtis became special services football coach at Hola- Signal Depot coal stocks were re Gob Humor From to Crow's Nestl dangerously low last week. number of Federal employes Maryland has dropped 4.1 per A woman's intuition tturas suspicion..