NEWS AROUND HOLLYWOOD
- A law suit was brought against Mrs J A Collier by theatrical agent Mrs H Pearson Baldey to recover $7500 – $2500 of which had been a loan to buy shoes, clothes, food and other necessities, and the remaining $5000 due on commission for a $50,000 contract with RKO that Baldey had obtained for her daughter Lucille Collier – stage name – Ann Miller (current films – on loan out to Columbia for ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ and for her contracted studio – ‘Room Service’). (Her father [divorced] John Alfred Collier was a criminal lawyer in TX who repped the Barrow gang, Machine Gun Kelly and Baby Face Nelson).
- Larraine Johnson was picked today to star with George O’Brien in RKO’s upcoming super western ‘The Painted Desert.’ All of this coming out of her work in their recent film ‘Border G-Men,’ which had the same director, Dave Howard. [1939 would have Larraine at MGM, but with a new stage name – Lorraine Day – and backing up Dr Kildare and Tarzan].
- Sol Lesser, independent producer, is now confident that the recession is ending and plans to spend 2 million dollars on 5 ‘A’ pictures for the 1938-39 year. Two will be Peck’s Bad Boy type features. (Tom Kelly in ‘Peck’s Bad Boy with the Circus’ was one; and though not listed as one – ‘Fisherman’s Wharf’ with Bobby Breen may have been the other. This native of Spokane, WA was better known for westerns and Tarzan pictures, releasing through RKO).
- Walter Browne Rogers, who played the coward in ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is back in Hollywood for the first time since then 1931 for a role in RKO’s ‘Smashing the Rackets’. [He had retired from film after a leg injury in ‘All Quiet’].
- Evelyn Keyes is tapped to portray Marie Antoinnette in a beauty sequence in ‘Artists and Models Abroad’ at Paramount. She is under personal contract to Cecil B DeMille. (Ahead for Keyes for 1939, is the role of Scarlet O’Hara’s kid sister in ‘Gone with the Wind’).
- Michael Curtiz is selected to direct ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’ for WB – set to roll in a couple weeks.
PER ED SULLIVAN
- The latest Marx Brothers film – ‘Room Service’ – is to have no harp for Harpo and no piano for Chico. And though rumored Harpo would speak, that is denied.
- Disney announces his intent to use the voice of Alec Templeton for the cricket in Pinocchio. Templeton was a blind pianist, known for syncopated songs. The Welsh man came to the US in 1936 with the Jack Hylton’s Jazz band and became famous for his recordings, often comic, and for radio apparances. (This did not come to pass. Cliff Edwards supplied the voice of the puppet’s conscience). Link to Templeton’s recording ‘Man with a New Radio’ from 1939:
- Cary Grant denied entry into the Turf Club at Inglewood. The guard did not know he was the guest of Jack Warner, (one of the track’s owners).
- Olivia de Haviland is proud that she can imitate a barking dog.
- Fanny Brice’s daughter Frances, and Ray Stark are having fun. (The two married in 1940. Stark, the Rutgers U grad, became an agent after World War 2, and later a producer. And now it makes sense that his most famous productions were ‘Funny Girl’ [stage and screen] and Funny Lady – all based on the life of his mother-in-law).
PER SIDNEY SKOLSKY
- Robert Taylor plans to give Barbara Stanwyck a tennis court for her birthday next month. (They would marry in May 1939).
- Warners is considering William Tell as a followup to Robin Hood for Errol Flynn. (WB was busy thinking up a lot of roles for Flynn to act in).
ON THE MOVE
Shirley Temple and Jane Withers made up their differences, before Shirley left on her trip east.