Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Monday 6 March 1939, page 9


By Air Mail from

LON JONES

.a r ARGARET MITCHELL, author of "Gone With M the Wind," has approved the casting of British

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara.

Se certainly is pretty," said Miss Mitche 1. ..Naturally I am the only person in the world Io really knows what Scarlett looks like, but ,1 «riri looks charming. She has the mast Irish look", have seen with the word 'devil' in her 1 She looks as if she has plenty of spin and me, not at all like the languid Hollywood

"iris "

" which seems a real crack at Hollywood's glamour

lidies doesn't it?

' Miss Leish ii standing up well under the storm "f criticism, and is now working hard to over-come her too English accent and to master the ieeling of the role. Leslie Howard, who will play Ashley admitted the other day that he had never ,ead tíie book, but he had a copy and expected to'read it before the film started.

*

TTOLLYWOOD lost one of its dearest old li characters the other day when old Tom ricketts 80, veteran Ulm producer, director, and actor, died following a severe cold. You have ven old Tom in dozens of movies. He always Saved the role of a butler. He looked at least . n century old, and was a lovable old character. i He was last seen in "The Young in Heart." As

a director Ricketts guided the careers of Marie I Dressier Eddie Poy, Jack Kerrigan, and Jack Coni way. The whole town mourns Tom's passing.

I *

I rpYRONE POWER and Jeanette MacDonald have , 1 been proclaimed king and queen of the movies

'< fnr 1939 in a poll conducted by 10 daily news\ Liners in the United States. Jeanette', choice I ivis a surprise to this town. Her last picture. 1 ..sweelhcarts," which showed her real beauty in J natural colours, helped her a great deal. Clark

. Gable and Sonja Henie flmshed in second place, 5. and Spencer Tracy and Myrna Loy finished third. i Gable and Myrna Loy won last year's poll. It i seems strange that Jeanette won this public poll, i yet was unplaced in the first ten in the exhibitors'

box-offlce poll.

HOLLYWOOD tastes In movie stars differ a

great deal from the rest of America. In the king and queen poll the Hollywood ians voted for Gable, Tracy, Colman, Nelson Eddy, Gary Cooper, Tyrone Power, Paul Muni, in thal order, ior the king section. You will notice that Power i could do no better than sixth in Hollywood.

I lu the queen section the order was Bette Davis,

Out of the pages of Margaret Mitchell's best-seller novel "Gone With the Wind ' step three characters, Scarlett OHara, Ashley Wilkes, and Melanie Wilkes, coming to life in the pictme to be produced m íec/inieoíour by David O Selznick Here are (left to right) VIVIEN LEIGH (Scarlett), LESLIE HOWARD (Ashley), and OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND

(Melanie) looking over the script

Jeanette MacDonald, Margaret Sullavan, Myrna Loy, Gieta Garbo, Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbcit Noinia Sheaiei, and Shiiley Temple These polls aie always inteiesting but they aie a nightmaie to the studios, who would piefei to dispense with .ill populanty polls It's all light if they have a vunnei, but all wiong if they don't

I J WAS ovei watching Johnny Weissmuller and

I Maureen O Sullivan do some scenes for "Tarzan in Exile" the other morning Everything was ready to shoot, and Miss O Sullivan was waiting for hei ape man to appeal The sinister jungle is eveiywheie around hei little thatched huton the sound stage In the offing are a tiger, a lion, and a baby elephant Life at it-, wildest on a Hollywood sound stage Ape Man Johnny, however, is not to be seen Directoi Richard Thoipe beats his chest vigoiously and in the ac-cepted Tarzan manner yells ' Taiwan1 Fiom a small portable diessing-ioom comes Wcissmuller's voice, pitched purposely to a high falsetto 'Just a minute, Mr Thoipe Tai zan is powdenng his

nose"

The elephants in this pictuie are of the Indian vriety, and have small eais The scupt calls foi African elephants which hive laige ears So experts were busy giving them the necessiry large ears These false eais consisted of white ciepe tubber, held on by invisible headbands Af*ei the costumers had fixed them on a prop-min airived with a spiay-gun and gave the eais a nice elephant-grey polish The owner ot the elephants was busy giving them a Ina turn with an electric blow-torch and tumnung then nails with an axe Such is life in Hollywood s jungle!

*

JUST as Warneis weie fiist on the market

with a talkie, R K O hopes to beat the gun with films for television ' Gunga Din " the studio s most lavish pioduction has been ie-edited foi tele-vision purposes The 12 000-foot film has been cut to 1,000 feet with a running time of 10 minutes and mostlv close-up shots left in The television illm will be given a tuai îun in New Yoik

.

^/IGM gave Robert Taylor a Christmas piesent

1 in the shape of a salaiy boost of 1,500 dollars I a week which brings his weekly pay cheque

to 5 000 dolíais, one of the highest-paid contract stars in Hollywood The studio continues to build him as a he-man His in test pictuie "Stand Up and Tight" will help the he-man build-up, but it dois not enhance Bob's íeputation as an actor He, I believe, was disappointed in the pictuie but pieview fans seemed to like it, and its the

fans that count in the end

.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN is deteimined to go ahead

with his plans to builesque a dictator on the screen, but because Jewish people feai that If he burlesques Hitlei openly it will bring reprisals against Geiman Jews, Charlie will ape a mj thfcal dictator So far he plans to remain silent when playing the role of the dictatoi

.

CONSTANCE WORTH, the ex-Mrs Geoige Bient,

is'cunently appealing in n quickie picture titled "The Wages of Sin " As the title suggests it is a story of white slavery, and is very soidid Constance does n fail job of acting in the picture but I doubt if such a pirtuie will help her cireu She would have been wise to stay out of «such a picture

.

DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS Sen, is tviking eon

tiact with his own son. Doug, jun Ile wants him to play the role of Joaquín Munetta in 'The Californian,' which he will pioduce this yeir Murietta was the Robin Hood of early Spaiish d^ys in California Wamei Baxtet plivi'd a similar íole in 'The Robin Hood cf Eldoiado" several yeais ago

.

DOLORES COSTELLO who has the leminine

lead in 'King of the Tuif," has been work-ing In scenes in which her father, Mtuiice Costello has been playing as an e\tia In hei scieen debut some yeais ago the ioks were reversed Her father was the star, she the extia