Stunt pilot Richard V Grace and his bride Christene Malstrom
NEWS AROUND HOLLYWOOD
Stunt flier Dick Grace marries his secretary, Christene Malstrom (a former stage actress) after a long courtship. Grace made a career cracking up planes. Of the 47 crashes, 35 were on purpose, resulting in a total of 81 broken bones. He led a group of nine stunt pilots called the Squadron of Death. One source details that he did a crash for Wings in 1927, in which he broke his neck, and after a six weeks stint he was back on the film. He was also a prolific writer on the topic of flying, and was working on a script for Columbia at this time.
Hollywood’s Turf Club in Inglewood sets off on its season – stockholders and horse owners run the gamut of Hollywood. Owners – Harry M Warner (who had a ranch in Calabasas, where he dynamited a mountain in back to make room for a half-mile circular track for his horses), Raoul Walsh, Chico Marx, Barbara Stanwyck, Bing Crosby, Joe E Brown, Pauline Frederick, William LeBaron, Nat Deverich, Myron Selznick, John Considine jr, William Goetz, David Butler, Harry Cohn, Samuel Briskin, Leon Gordon, Robert Riskin, Howard Hawks, Al Jolson, John Cromwell, Oliver Hardy, Walter Connolly, Gregory Ratoff, Don Ameche, Claude Binyan, Mervyn LeRoy, Carl Laemmle.
Universal is busy with three projects. ‘Missing Guest’ with Paul Kelly and Constance Moore begins shooting this day, while another production leaves town. Director Sylvan Simon takes his crew north to Kernville for several days of pre-production shooting – backgrounds and long shots for ‘Road to Reno.’
After only 10 weeks in the business, actor John Garfield’s career is exploding. Talk puts him in a bio about composer George Gershwin – Warners hopes to cash in on the success of Fox’s ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ And before that a remake of ‘The Patent Leather Kid.’ [Garfield would have six films for 1939, and neither of these projects are among them. Just more wishful thinking on the part of the WB team].
Republic Pictures starts production today on the serial – ‘Dick Tracy Returns,’ with Ralph Burns and Lynn Roberts. [The actress Lynn Roberts would have her stage name changed to Mary Hart for the rest of 1938, and into 1939, when she was teamed up with Roy Rogers as his romantic interest (before Dale Evans came into the picture)].
ON THE MOVE
According to Variety, Shirley Temple and her parents will venture forth on a vacation to Chicago. Twentieth Century Fox PR men will go in advance to make hotel arrangements and to visit newspapers along their route to persuade them to keep the news quiet until later. If successful the family will continue farther east to Phil’a, Boston, NY and Washington DC. It marks her first time out of CA.
Hitchcock, in NYC, leaves for the Coast on Friday 6/10 (with plans to remain three weeks in LA). A possible directing job with Selznick Int’l, discussed a year prior, has now disappeared. He will talk with Twentieth Century Fox about one of their upcoming London productions, to be done for the quota system. Hitch’s contract with Gaumont-British now over, he has signed for a job with Mayflower (Charles Laughton’s company) to start in August, with his wife, screenwriter Alma Reville. [This would be for Jamaica Inn].
