Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 39

Arizona Republic, Phoenix Sunday, October 22, 1939 REPUBLIC Patricia Morison, above, is Paramount's current candidate for glamor. The studio says she is making "rapid advancement," which isn't hard to believe. Hollywood used to hail every new girl "star" before the ink on the contract was dry. Now filmdom waits for the public to pick 'em out BY Lucie Neville HOLLYWOOD OMEDAY Hollywood is going to hollei Star!" once too often and nobody is to pay any attention. Movie fans can be expected to keep on believing predictions that every new cutie is better la Berr.hardt.

nen that happens. Hollywood is going to lo the quick, because it believes it now is aowina marvelous restraint. Instead ot calling 3 .1 star before she has appeared in a single udl now wait until she has played at one minor role. A really conservative pro- Ucei ma Put her in as many as three bits. He lnr 'he public hasn't recognized her a slat by that ti me le might as well be sent 1C or selling candy.

he new an 0 casllng a compromise be- 47 I COUP earl er ractices lllal brought aches to Hollywood. Back in the days of JMtn ncl Simnne Simon, studios had the 'Wd" 3 arS manu aclure and SHE public whether they could act Hot. CS fl Pi hen brou ht on a Iic l' ot tU'sSerl 3 5111 ens young players lan- bits'tti, 'L Sl ck contracts an atmosphere Fans lou ave een done by extras. and began to wail about seems Ste ar Columnists charged youngsters never got a chance. ut geltlns lnelr chances now, all right, 0 um nly a a nd a skip before they have saraeT'j 1 meilght Here a sample, by studio that bailyhooed Simone Simon: TPWENTIETH-FOX hired the precocious, A 15-year-old Linda Darnell and gave her the romantic lead in her first picture, "Hotel for Women." Up to then all that Hollywood had seen of Miss Monetta when she visited here as an unsuccessful contestant in a radio talent hunt.

Optioned by RKO, she was sent home to grow up, but two years later the option was dropped. However, 20th-Fox boldly billed her in the credit titles of the picture: "Introducing Linda Darnell, the Screen's Newest Star." Meanwhile, Miss Darnell had been sent on location to Utah for a role secondary to Claudette Colbert's in "Drums Along the Mohawk." But when the "Hotel" preview brought kindly nods from critics, this announcement went out: "Because of the tremendous success scored by Linda Darnell in 'Hotel for Darryl F. Zanuck took a totally unprecedented courrc of action as a build-up for this new screen sensation. Zanuck ordered Miss Darnell withdrawn from her secondary role and all scenes scrapped in which she appeared. The great reception given her by press and audiences led to an immediate decision that henceforth she shall appear only in starring roles." So there went a lot of scenes from an expensive three-week location trip.

And there went Nancy Kelly's chance of co-starring with Tyrone Power in "Daytime Wife," because Miss Darnell got the job. Miss Kelly probably expected it, because she got Arleen Whelan's job once, and she knows it's just part of the new system. Brenda Joyce, blond Los Angeles co-ed. was plucked from the cover of a mag'azine and given the second lead in 20th-Fox's expensive epic. "The Rains Came." Previous dramatic experience: None.

Her publicity didn't mention the afternoon she played a scene more than 20 only scene with which she should have been thoroughly familiar because it was the one in which she had tested for the role. However, the studio did send out the announcement that another scene had been re-filmed at a cost of $5000 because Miss Joyce looked "too alluring," so that her shorts had to be lengthened six inches and her dialog made "less flirtatious." And before her first picture was finished, she was co-starred with Richard Greene in "Here I Am a Stranger." UST as rapid advancement is that of Patricia Morison, Paramount's current candidate for glamor. Four months in a New York play was her background and after two minor film roles she has been popped into leads. There is plenty of steady publicity about her but Paramount at least has refrained from the premature star talk which it gave Olympe Bradna. When that little French dancer was brought out from New York, where she had been wowing night club audiences, the studio began the routine buildup while she studied English.

She was credited having an auto horn that played the first bars of the "Marseillaise." A dahlia was named for her. When California's rains turned into flood. Miss Bradna was said to have bought a motor boat on a trailer carriage and kept it in her garage, ready for instant flight. Her first screen kiss was publicized in a rosy mist of innocence and blushes, with everybody invited to come and watch. She gave shy inter- Hews on her dream-man, comparing the husbandly qualifications of American and French males.

Her graduation from high school was acclaimed. Her application tor American citizenship was applauded. She made a Every Week in U. 3. AJi Pretty Linda Darnell, top, was act i ally skyrocketed into starring roles when the critics nodded their approval of her part in "Hotel for Women." The studio even scrapped all the scenes of another picture in which she played a secondary role to advance her.

Glamorous Olympe Bradna, right, plunged into "stardom" in the reverse manner. The studio hailed her first and has been trying to make her a star ever since. wide personal appearance tour. She was starred in "Stolen Heaven," which was a flop. Climaxing the fanfare was the marquee sign when "Stolen Heaven" was previewed: "Holly, wood's First Star of Bradna." It's 1939 now.

Maybe they ought to let hei dance..