The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 24

flellaiin) By DEE LOWRANCE HOLLYWOOD FATE freakish fate at that plays a large part in getting "unknowns" their breaks on the screen. Pretty faces, and alluring shapes are a dime a dozen in filmville. Casting offices overflow with them; the surplus stocks the drive-ins and department stores with working hands. There, but for the grace of Fate, go movie stars. Regularly a story of a new star on the rise comes out.

About one in every three launched on that rocky road to the Big Money can thank luck and happenstance for the push that sends them upwards. Most recent is the Jane Randolph case. Right now the lads and lassies who spot 'em at RKO-Radio studio are. placing their bets on Jane. "She's got what it takes," they proclaim, buttonholing anyone who will listen.

"She's lovely to look at has a swell form" they rave on, adding as a clincher: "and the girl can act. You've got to see the job she's doing in 'Highways by Night'." Jane Randolph the co-starring part with Richard Carlson in "Highways by Night" by a pure fluke, right out of fairy tales. She had been around as a young hopeful for six months. That was at Warners where they put her on the contract list and then forgot her until it came time to round up a few' cuties for bathing-suit pictures. But to act on the screen, no, not Jane So her agent arranged for her to make a test at RKO-Radio one sunny summer day.

She studied her lines, had her face made up, her hair done, slipped into a smooth dress and made her way to the test stage exactly on time. There pandemonium raged. Richard Carlson was wandering around looking lost. The test director was tearing his hair. Fate was brewing a surprise for our heroine.

Carlson had been scheduled to make a test for "Highways by Night," the screen version of a novel by Clarence Buddington Kelland called "Silver Spoon," but his leading lady had not arrived. Jane was just supposed to have a usual sort of screen test but the boy who was to play with her was among the missing. The test director watched golden minutes ticking past, money a-wasting. He looked at Jane who had only just learned the set-up. Jane looked back at him.

She opened her mouth and Fate wrote the words: "I'm a quick study," Jane said, "I'll test with Carlson." So that was that. Jane went home afterwards feeling that pleasant glow that comes after a good deed. But Fate wasn't finished with' her. The next day Dorothy Comingore, who had good deed pays dividends. Movieland picks this Randolph-Carlson team as a winner.

been slated for the role opposite Carlson, declined the part. Jane got it her first real break in Hollywood. be hearing more about Jane She is one of those individuals who believe that if you make up to do anything, you do. But the is willing to give credit to luck, particularly now. lly lllji i If lU I If i fi II I Ui tik A Mil lb ft- fh'M' I III III 7 Af a I fit-' twlfjp tin I It 1 V.

liWJI mil It li Jane Randolph was hiding under enough for stardom. Jane filled She also gives hostages to hopes for the future. Her name proves that. Next to wanting to be a big star comes her desire to be a flyer. As a child she used to fly a great deal with her lather, had even learned to handle thn machine herself when her mother put her foot down and forbade any more flying.

It was a blow to Jane who wanted to try for a license, and if she a stock contract when Fate decided in for a tardy leading lady in a screen test, landed a role. A teacher, a manicurist and a clerk are tops in 'Hollywood's list today because Fortune smiled on them. Even a broken finger may make a career had then would probably have been one of the youngest feminine' flyers. She still intends to become a flyer, but right now ajl the non-military planes on the west coast are grounded so she will have to wait until the war iz won. In the meantime, however, she renamed herself as a gesture toward her flying ambitions.

Her real name, Jane Roemcr, didn't seem right for films, so she picked Randolph, in honor of Randolph Field. Two coincidences link Jane and Dorothy Comingore. First there is the matter of Jane's stepping into Dorothy's role and second is the fact that Dorothy's own career took a violent turn for the better because of the name she decided to use. Dorothy had been plugging uneventfully along on various stock lists under the label of Linda Winters, tagged to her by a studio. On a hunch she decided to change it in favor of her real name, Dorothy Comingore.

At that moment Orson Welles had just hit Hollywood and was looking for a she had waited Ic leading lady for "Citizen Kane." Someone mentioned Linda Winters to him, but he opined that any girl with as phony-sounding a title as 'that couldn't be interesting. Then she was called to his attention as Dorothy Comingore, "Bring her in," said Orson Welles. The rest is history. Ellen Drew's discovery behind an ice-cream parlor counter; Lana Turner's on a drugstore stool; Arlcne Whelan being found as a manicurist; and Jane Russell's happening on an advertisement looking for her as the girl who used to model at Nancy's department store in a two-weck-old newspaper, are all old stories. Movictown has plenty of new ones to add in the same tradition.

Take the facts behind Janet Blair's sudden jump to within the past few months. Janet was a singer with Hal Kemp's orchestra. When Kemp was killed in an automobile accident, Janet was jobless. She went hunting for another sing ing job and bumped into a stray agent. (EveiyWcck Magazine I'rinled in U.

S. Patriotism brought Anne producer liked her work "Why do you want to be a band girl?" he asked. "You'd go in pictures." Janet shook her pretty head. "I'll stick to the work I know," she said, "and that's band singing." But the agent wouldn't take that sort of an answer. The next thing Janet knew she was signing on the dotted line.

And you will see her next in "My Sister Eileen" with Rosalind Russell quite a jump for an unknown player. Alma Carroll, another newcomer in this current crop of bright future gals, had an even more freakish beginning. She was a school teacher. She had no other thought in her head but cramming knowledge into the heads of her pupils. Then a group of patriotic citizens in her home town picked Alma as "Miss American Defense" and sent her on a tour of Army camps.

After the tour, Alma went home and again attacked the school-teaching profession. But a movie executive had seen her at a big dinner in Washington, D. C. The next thing our school teacher knew, she received a call from a talent scout and was plopped into the movies! Misfortune, in the shape of a broken finger, turned into a stroke of extremely good luck for young Marie McDonald, who is next to be seen in a featured part in "Pardon My Sarong." To many people a broken finger is uncomfortable' but anything but a great tragedy. To Marie who was modeling her hands at the time, it meant the loss of a livelihood.

She had gone to a museum in New York to have her lovely pictured holding the Star of India, the wbrld's largest sapphire. There is a legend, according to Marie, that whoever disturbs this gem has evil befall them. In her case it came true. Going out of the museum, she fell downstairs and broke her finger. It mended just crooked enough so that her handa were no, longer perfect.

She had to find another way of earning bread and butter. She modeled her legs next, then her whole body. Then someone heard her sing at a party, and she next found herself in "George White's Scandals." Films were the natural follow-up but the broken finger was the real root of her upped status. yERONICA LAKE came before the cameras, which are now eating her up so vividly, quite by accident. She had gone with a friend to RKO where the friend had an appointment for an interview about a part in a college picture.

Veronica's face so struck the talent head there, that he immediately asked her to play an extra's part. To do this on such short notice, she had to have a card from the Screen Actors' Guild. The talent gent sent for the card and through a stroke of unpredictable fate, the wrong sort of a card was returned it was for a featured player. To use it, Veronica had to have a speaking part and could not be an extra. So they found a few words for her to say and Veronica, through the sheerest of luck, landed in pictures as a featured player something that it takes many stars years to achieve.

A chance 'happening on a sound stage changed Susanna Foster's entire life. She had answered a call for some dancing girls and while they were all standing around waiting for their interviews, someone started to play the piano on the sound stage. Susanna picked up the tune and started to sing. The pianist played higher and higher notes Susie followed, going up and up the scale. The minute she closed her mouth a talent Cwynne to the top.

A in a Red Cross short. scout, who just happened to pass by, ran up to her. "You're not a dancer," he announced, "you're a singer." And Susia was tied up on a comfortable contract. Getting on a contract list at a studio is not nearly as hard as getting off it and into starring roles. Anna Gwynne had been sitting around at Universal doing nothing much until she was asked to donate her services free for a Red Cross short.

She did. An executive saw it, was impressed immediately and Anne has been starring ever since now she's top lady in "Deep in the Heart of Texas." Then there was Joel McCrea. He had been walking in and out of screen doorways for months at RKO, making not much money on their stock contract list when Fate clapped him on the back. This time Fate wore the shape of a producer on the lot, who ran into Joel and stopped him to ask where Joel had bought the excessively handsome trench coat he was wearing. While Joel gave him the address of the shop, the producer noted what a particularly attractive voice the young actor had.

In his very next picture, Joel got a top jpot a place he has hold ever sincel.