Max Reinhardt and former student (and 2 time Oscar winner) Luise Rainer
NEWS AROUND HOLLYWOOD
Producer Max Reinhardt opens a workshop (all phases of theater, cinema, and radio) for actors, writers, and directors. Actors like Edward G Robinson, Paul Muni, Walter Huston, Basil Rathbone, Bette Davis would be holding the sessions. [Reinhardt, the powerhouse of the German theater scene, long had wanted to open a workshop in Los Angeles, similar to the one he had on the continent. The opportunity arrived when Reinhardt won an existing talent school from Ben Bard in a poker game. Bard had created it to help silent film actors meet the challenge of sound films].
Ernst Lubitsch is in discussions with RKO for a deal to direct the next Astaire-Rogers musical. [A protege of Reinhardt’s German theater workshop, Lubitsch most recently headed up production at Paramount and had three films there. He did not move over to RKO, but rather landed at MGM where he made ‘Ninotchka’ with Greta Garbo for 1939, and the magnificent ‘The Shop Around the Corner’ for 1940].
WB announces the addition of Wayne Morris and Gale Page to the cast of the next Edward G Robinson film – ‘Brother Orchid.’ [Neither Morris nor Page made it into ‘Brother Orchid.’ The studio had them busy in other films. And Robinson must have been tied up also for the balance of 1938 and all of 1939, for he did not make ‘Brother Orchid’ until 1940].
Virginia Grey, a student from Hollywood High, lands a part in an MGM film – ‘It’s Now or Never’ with Robert Young and Ruth Hussey. [The film would be released in August of 1938 as ‘Rich Man, Poor Girl.’ Virginia was not new to films. Her father was an actor and director in silent films – one of the Keystone Cops, and her mother a film cutter. She’d been before the cameras since 1927. She would rack up 6 films in 1939, including ‘The Hardys Ride High’ and ‘Another Thin Man’].
Columbia has signed H B Warner for a role in their production of ‘You Can’t Take It with You.’ [Director Frank Capra had hired Warner twice before – ‘Mr Deeds Goes to Town’ and ‘Lost Horizon.’ And would be back with him in 1939 or ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington’].
Bing Crosby is on the hook for $400,000 in back taxes.
Ed Sullivan opines in his column that the news about Norma Shearer taking the lead in ‘Gone with the Wind’ was timed to promote the release of her latest – ‘Marie Antoinette.’ Ed doubts that Norma will get the Scarlett role. [See 6/23]
OUTSIDE HOLLYWOOD
100 members of the Boys’ Town troupe begin work at the Nebraska community where Father Flanagan has his school. The location work under director Norman Taurog is scheduled for three weeks.
Screenwriter Gene Fowler is due back at Selznick to work on ‘The Earl of Chicago’ with Edward G Robinson. He is on leave in Wyoming writing a western novel. [Fowler started out as a newspaper man in Denver, and later Chicago and New York. And like Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur who worked for him in New York City, he landed in Hollywood as a writer. He indeed had a writer’s credit for ‘The Earl of Chicago,’ but it did not make it out until 1940. Selznick signed him in March 1938 to adapt the novel by Brock WIlliams. It was an MGM release and not a Selznick production. Also it starred Edward Arnold instead of Edward G Robinson.].
