The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 32

i I i 1-1 4- Tennessee's Gov. Cooper, Illinois' Abe By DEE LOWRANCE HOLLYWOOD YOU have seen Mary Howard on the screen for almost five years. And anyone who knows her well will lay ten to one that you won't ever recognize her in two films mnning. She is unique, because she never looks the same. She herself has been known not to recognize a still of her face from a previous picture.

That's a startling state of affairs, but at the moment our concern is with the way the little lady took a hand in her own career by her own efforts changing it completely. First, the reasons for the change. Not the usual ones, because she has been eating regularly ever since she hit Hollywood. But every picture she has made so far has either found her well disguised in period costumes petticoats by the dozens or made up to look twice her age like the time she played Walter Huston's wife in "Swamp Water." Mary Howard has played outright character roles, or has created such a distinct character in whatever role she took on, that her real self the attractive young thing that she actually is has never been seen on the screen. Suddenly, it came over her that she might as well try for a glamor-girl star role as to go on watching these plum star parts, and the fat, juicy checks go into other girls' purses.

The U. S. Army played an important part in her decision. She was on a USO Camp Show trip to Arcadia, when a young officer, Lt. Jack Harding, constituted himself her escort for the day.

He proved his merit for the position by hauling out a collection of clippings, so worn they were tattered all pictures of Mary-taken out of newspapers and magazines. Dubbing himself her "Number One Fan," he crystallized the feeling rampant among the other soldiers in the camp into words: "We had no idea you were so young and pretty from your films. Why don't you make them let you play young roles like you look?" The whole camp echoed his thought. But that wasn't all. After Mary Howard returned to Hollywood, she received a letter containing a copy of a petition that the boys at the camp had sent to her boss, Zanuck, asking that Mary be cast so she could look like herself, and dance.

(She had danced at the camp amid thunders of applause.) His note to her apologized for interfering in her career, and added an apology that only 211 names had signed the petition "that's all there are in camp right now," he explained. TT was all the push Mary Howard needed. She decided to put on a campaign for a new type of role for herself finish with characters. So she turned up at the publicity department and demanded to be allowed to make some cheesecake art. Because she is revered as a true actress, versatile and gilted, she had been treated in a dignified manner.

No one had ever before thought of her and leg art pictures in the same breath. been so dramatic on the screen," she noted, "that all you have to do is shove me before a movie camera and I burst into tears emoting like She won her point. Glamor art with the emphasis on feminine appeal (called "sexy" by the publicity boys) and leggy pictures of her cavorting on the beach, dressed in nothing much, were taken. She then picked out a few of the more startling ones and made a tour of Fox Studio, where she is under contract. She didn't overlook a single producer, shoving the pictures under each nose and saying, in effect: "Here I am why can't I et some snappy modern parts I Lincoln, Hollywood's Mary Howard.

i si ft --v -j I even, perhaps, a little dancing?" The producers, to a man, were impressed. She now has their word that her next part after the picture she is now making will be on a par with the sort of thing Alice Faye, Betty Grable and Carole Landis have done so successfully. "So you see," she said, sitting upright in a swirl of skirts and petticoats that is her costume in still another picture, "The Loves of Edgar Allen Poe," "God does help him who helps himself." Mary Howard is back at her old tricks in "The Loves of Edgar Allen Poe," playing the foster mother of a hulking great chap, now known as John Shepperd. He was Shepperd Strudwick on the New York stage. Her hair is whitened, lines are etched on her face, she wears no make-up whatsoever and blue circles frame her eyes.

"But there's something wrong somewhere," she seemed very concerned. "Someone in the still department is being too kind, mistakenly kind. They have been smoothing out the still pictures, retouching out all the wrinkles. It worries me, because I'm still supposed to look old enough to be Poe's mother and the screen and the stills won't match. i skirts so you her more reaowj "The make-up department has a I was just going to offer you a screen ') "The make-up department has a I was just going to offer you a screen jW.llllliWill.MliW 1 I II Ill ,,1,11.11 5 Actress Howard plays in the snow ill i' -i 'a.

I f. k. IB A 1 I A I i 1 lr, 4 3 "1 f. i t- i 11 IB' new greeting for me," she added. "They say 'Hello, Mary, what picture are you going to die in I wonder if they'd survive the shock if they ever had to put a glamor make-up on me." Mary Howard has a face that seems Jit from within.

Her smile is radiant, her teeth gleaming white. But her eyes are her most remarkable feature of the bluest blue, set under a wide, intelligent forehead. You wouldn't call her beautiful in the conventional sense John Powers might pass her by because her features are irregular. But she has a loveliness all her own that is beyond mere prettiness. "It's a strange face," she was candid.

"Changeable. And I never look the same twice. It fools everyone. I went to a radio broadcast the other night and someone introduced me to Cecile B. DeMille.

I saw that he had put his glasses on and was staring at me. Soon he came over and said: 'Have you been in Hollywood The friend with me spoke up just then and told him I was in the movies. You could see how surprised he was. He asked me what pictures and I listed them. I had to describe each part before he remembered me.

'Of he said, 'I liked your performances in all of them. But you looked so diderent I never would have known it was the same girl. You know, (Every Week Magazin ti 'l I- with neighborhood children We can top that story with one of the favorite yarns about Mary on the Fox lot. She had been working in "Swamp Water" for three weeks when she turned up one morning, dressed for private life, and ran into the producer of the film, Irving Pichel, outside the projection room. "May I see the rushes-," she asked.

"No one," he said severely, "except the cast can see rushes." Mary Howard was almost plaintive: "But I'm in the picture, don't you know me?" He stared at her a moment "My Lord," he struck his forehead, "it's Mary Howard!" TT is right in character for Mary Howard to be an exponent of the "God helps him who helps himself" school of thought. She credits a music teacher she had at the age of 5 as having started her off. "You can get anything you want, Mary," the music teacher told her, "if you want it badly enough, work to get it and keep it inside yourself. The minute it is outside, talked about too much, it loses strength!" "Anything I have ever wanted badly," Mary remarked, "I have gone out and gotten for myself. I wanted to be an actress, but my parents had me trained as a dancer.

At 14 I was i Printed in V. S. ii i iw. I iL: 71 i ri and plays Edgar Allen Poe's mother in her newest picture. dancing in New York shows.

My older sisters were both Zicgfcld beauties. I was doing well as a dancer but keeping the thought of acting deep inside. Actually it was stage acting I had thought of. But when I got an offer from Hollywood, I snapped it up. "At MGM I found myself in a strange position.

Mr. Mayer wouldn't let me play in pictures and the big stars on the lot got all the A picture roles that I might have filled. I decided another studio might be better so I met Herbert Wilcox and got a part in 'Nurse Edith Cavcll." MGM loaned me out for it. Then I heard about the Ann Rutledge part in 'Abe Lincoln in I found the producer was Max Gordon and went to his office. His secretary was out but his office door was open.

I peered in and he looked up. I thought to myself, 'Here it and stood in the door. 'I'm Ann I said. Mr. Gordon looked startled and then he said: 'Why, so you and I got the job." The beau situation with Mary Howard confuses the gossip columnists in Hollywood quite a little.

She is outside the usual wolf run but never unescorted by eligible young men of all sorts usually non-Hollywood in connections. Her name was bandied about the southern states not so long ago when it was suggested that the bachelor gov V. fc. I rv) h. ernor of Tennessee, Governor Cooper, was smitten by her.

Seriously concerned about how the coupling of a Hollywood name might affect his political life, Mary Howard herself said nothing one way or another about the furore. Even so, the third. time he ran for governor of the state, his opponent made some criticizing remarks from the election platform. To this day all she will admit is that the governor of Tennessee is a particularly pleasant person. For the rest, she seems to be heart whole and fancy free.

In addition to her present yen to change her life, and the step she has taken to see that her wishes find realization, Mary Howard's main concern seems to be of a family nature. She watches the work of her older sister, Meredith Howard, a writer in Washington, D. with a good deal of attention and pride. But it is with laughter in those so-blue eyes of hers that she mentions her brother, Bill Howard. "He is in the truck-selling business in Boston, she said.

"And it seems as if I am some use to him, even all these miles away. The last letter I got from him was a request for some more autographed pictures. It seems he promises an autographed picture of me with every truck he sells!".