Frances Farmer and her husband Leif Erickson begin a long trip by car from New York to the coast. The play (Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy) in which she had been appearing had just closed. Most of the news circulating about her at the time involved a breach of contract suit brought against her by Shepard Traube. In it, Traube claimed that 10% of her earnings was due him, dating back to 1936. Farmer claims that he did nothing for her, as she had made her own way. As a clincher she pointed out that he was not officially an agent. He admitted to that fact, but says it was as her theatrical manager that the money was due. [There are no films for her for 1939; and only one for her husband Leif ‘One Third of a Nation’ for Paramount. Future film director Sidney Lumet appears in a pivotal role for this film, as a young boy who is injured in a tenement fire].
Oliver Hinsdell (see June 1), talent scout and acting coach for Paramount studio arrives in St Louis MO. In particular he is looking for leading men that are around 24 years of age and six foot tall. He will call on local theater groups and radio performers. Hinsdell was the former director of the Little Dallas Theater in the 20s and won the Belasco Award three times while there. He originally moved to Hollywood to talent scout for MGM.
NEWS AROUND HOLLYWOOD
Iva Stewart, a beauty on the 20th Century Fox lot, was traumatised when the metal cloth gown she was wearing, caught fire when it trailed across a switch box. She enters a Glendale rest home to recover her equilibrium. [Miss Maine of 1933, and semi-finalist in the Miss America pageant, winning the title of “The Most Beautiful Girl in Evening Dress.” She was back in harness for eight films in 1939, including Wife, Husband and Friend, Mr Moto Takes a Vacation, and 20,000 Men a Year].
MGM hired forty Hawaiian drummers for their Eleanor Powell film ‘Honolulu,’ and discovered that only three could speak Hawaiian. An instructor was hired to teach the other 37 enough words so that they could sing a Hawaiian song for the film.
Born on this date in 1895 – William Boyd, who since 1935 played Hopalong Cassidy in a series of westerns at Paramount, produced by Harry Sherman. After his parents died when he was young, he led a knockabout existence clerking in grocery stores, surveying and working in the oil fields. He landed in Hollywood in 1919 at age 24 and already had a full head of silver-gray hair. His first appearance was in a C B DeMille film – ‘Why Change Your Wife?’ Stardom came in 1926 and he soon was earning upwards of $100,000/year. Hard times arrived with sound, but a decade later exhibitor polls put him at the top of the list of action heroes. After 8 Cassidy pictures in 1938, Paramount gave him a bit of a rest, halving that amount for 1939.
