LInda Darnell In the 30's & 40's
8/23/1932 HCN Elizabeth Yeaman
Eric von Stroheim electrified Fox studios the other day when he filmed fourteen scenes in the brief period of four hours. The picture was Walking Down Broadway, which he is directing from a story which he wrote himself. Von Stroheim has been noted as one of the most recklessly extravagant directors in Hollywood. His directorial career has been overshadowed by his reputation for running far beyond production schedules and budgets. But now he is proving to the world and the Fox company in particular that he can direct a picture faster than any other director on the lot. Fourteen scenes never were photographed in four hours at Fox or at any other major studio, so far as I know. James Dunn and "Boots" Mallory have the romantic leads in Walking Down Broadway, and Minna Gombell and ZaSu Pitts have important featured roles.
And now Fox is planning to produce another von Stroheim story, Her Highness, with the author-actor-director again in charge of the direction. This is a Viennese story with music, and I am told that von Stroheim has employed some clever devices for introducing the music. I.B. Kornbloom, a local attorney, has composed music for the story and L. Wolfe Gilbert is writing the lyrics. No cast has been set for the picture as yet, but it promises to be one of the many musicals that are being planned for production at Fox. And Eric von Stroheim may yet turn out to be one of the most economical directors in Hollywood if he maintains the pace started in Walking Down Broadway.
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Paramount finally despaired of writing Hot Saturday so that it would please Richard Arlen. So Dick has been relieved of the leading assignment and Cary Grant has been cast in his place. Carole Lombard also has been taken out of the cast and loaned to Columbia for a role in Virtue. And Nancy Carroll has been given the feminine lead instead. Nancy, in turn, has been taken from the lead in Night After Night and replaced by Constance Cummings of Columbia. These switches in casts are so complicated sometimes it is difficult to figure them out. However, in case you are still confused, Hot Saturday will be made with Cary Grant and Nancy Carroll. William Seiter will direct the picture, and other players signed for the supporting cast include Lillian Bond, Jesse Arnold and Jane Darwell.
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John Preston, former Texas football player and one of the original members of the Provincetown Players in New York, will make his screen debut in False Faces, which Lowell Sherman is directing at Tiffany. Preston, who is a great grandson of Andrew Jackson, has played in stock for several years. He scored especially in a road production of "The Broken Wing," in which he played the role of the Mexican general portrayed by Leo Carrillo here. Incidentally, he is one of the handsomest young men who have been seen around these parts.
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The good old-time Indians of the past who ambushed the American white pioneers, are to be revived on the screen at Columbia. Irving Briskin, who is in charge of the Tim McCoy pictures at Columbia, has completed arrangements to film Red Man. Colonel Tim, of course, will have the title role. And did you know that he is one of the few authorities on Indian sign language and has written a book on the subject? McCoy also is an honorary chief in the Arapahoe and Black Foot tribes. Red Man will deal with the colorful adventures of the Indians and white men back in 1870.
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The film public does not seem to grow tired of wild animal films. Bring "Em Back Alive and Congorilla have been received with as much enthusiasm as Trader Horn which was one of the first of the jungle epics. Or was Ingagi the first? However, Carl Laemmle Jrl. Has just completed arrangements to make one of the most interesting wild animal pictures yet planned. He has bought the screen rights to an unpublished book by Edward Anthony, who collaborated with Frank Buck on Bring "Em Back Alive. The story deals with the life of Clyde Beatty, acknowledged as one of the foremost wild animal trainers in the world. Beatty and many of his wild animals will be brought to Universal to make the picture. Beatty who has been one of the headliners of Ringling Brothers-Barnum-Bailey circus, trains lions, tigers, leopards and other ferocious beasts with iron nerve and uncanny understanding. The picture will reveal how he goes about training the animals. Although the novel on which the picture will be based has not yet been titled, Universal will call the picture, Man and Beast.
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David Binney Putnam, tall blond youth who looks enough like his stepmother, Amelia Earhart, to be her brother, has won his private license as an airplane pilot. During the last few weeks he has been taking flying training under Paul Mantz at the United Airport, and yesterday he took off his own plane with his father as a passenger. His father, you know, is George Palmer Putnam, noted Eastern publisher and new editor of Paramount’s story board. Young Putnam also has quite a reputation as an author of boys’ fiction.
Linda Darnell In the 30's & 40's
ABBREVIATIONS
DN - - Los Angeles Daily News
EHE -- Los Angeles Evening Herald Express
FD -- Film Daily
HCN -- Hollywood Citizen News
LAM – Los Angeles Mirror
LAX -- Los Angeles Examiner
MPH -- Motion Picture Herald
SFC – San Francisco Chronicle
4/19/1939 HCN
Linda Darnell, a newcomer, will appear in Hotel For Women.
4/27/1939 DN Add Cinderella Story
Sent home from Hollywood almost two years ago because she was too young, Linda Darnell returned from Dallas, Texas, to become the film city’s Cinderella girl of the year.
Unknown and unheard of, Linda was chosen by Darryl F. Zanuck for the leading feminine role in Elsa Maxwell’s Hotel For Women.
The daughter of a Dallas post office clerk, Linda was brought to Hollywood almost two years ago by a talent scout along with two other girls, Mary Healy and Judith Dickens, both of whom have since been boosted on their way to stardom. Unlike the latter two, Linda was told that she was far too immature for pictures and was advised to go home and get some experience.
Despite the studio’s vague promise that she might hear from them again, Linda determinedly muttered, "I’ll be back." On her return to Dallas, she immediately enrolled with a little theater group where she did some outstanding work in several plays.
Unknown to Linda, studio talent scouts were watching her progress and she was asked to send some new photographs of herself to the studio. After viewing the photos, train fare was sent her and a contract was signed as soon as she reached the studio.
5/2/1939 EHE Jimmy Starr
Linda Darnell got so excited over her role in Hotel For Women, she chewed off all her finger nails. Production was held up while makeup dept. supplied false nails.
5/9/1939 EHE Jimmy Starr
May a Hollywood celeb has an odd clause in his or her studio contract, but one of the most unusual is in the new long term ticket given to Linda Darnell by 20th Century-Fox.
Linda is a pretty Texas girl who won the lead in Elsa Maxwell’s Hotel For Women, now in production under the Cosmopolitan banner.
Linda’s novel clause is that she is given sufficient time, between films to attend graduation exercises at Sunset High School in Dallas, Texas, and to receive her much-desired academical degree. Because of her age, Linda is compelled to daily attend classes between scenes. Her scholastic credits earned here will be accepted by the Texas school
6/27/1939 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Have you as an outsider wondered how stars are born? If you haven’t you are unusual, for about 75 percent of our mail comes from boys and girls who ask questions on how the Hollywood favorites first were able to crash the magic movie gates. Well, Darryl Zanuck is going to answer these questions in a movie called Public Relations. He will take three youngsters and show how they were found, show the build-up of publicity, the training and all the incidentals that go into the making of a movie actress.
Chosen for concrete examples are Mary Healy, Brenda Joyce and Linda Darnell, who were unknown and had no previous experience until they joined 20th Century-Fox. These girls, Mr. Zanuck feels, are perfect illustrations. In fact, the story of Public Relations parallels their own lives.
7/7/1939 DN Raves and Raps
In selecting types for Drums Along the Mohawk the Indian problem proved a stumbling block for the casting department of 20th Century-Fox studio. The men of the Five Nations which comprised the Iroquois confederation were tall and stalwart. But a gander around Hollywood proved that any other nationality excepting an Indian is a cinch to find.
Only two Iroquois Indians were located in the cinema village and one of them was too short to be used in the film. Of the 300 Indians who will ultimately be used, only one, Chief Big Tree, will be a genuine Iroquois. The rest will be chosen from the southwestern tribes. As it happens the short and squat seem to predominate amongst the Southwesterners and director John Ford will just have to make the best of it. He hopes future audiences won’t mind.
The troupe from Hollywood numbering 200 has already departed for the Utah location. Among those on the trek are Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, Edna May Oliver, Linda Darnell, John Carradine, Arthur Shields and Francis Ford. Actors and technicians will dwell in a cabin and tent city which has been erected 10,000 feet up in the mountainous region.
Through the three weeks of location, it is estimated by the gentlemen at 20th-Fox who know about such matters that movieland will spend about $300,000 in favor of the state of Utah by the time salaries, food and building costs are totaled.
Means of communication between shooting headquarters in the mountains and the studio also had to be figured out. The center of activities being 40 miles from Cedar City, it was found that telephones were practically an impossibility.
Besides the general installation and maintenance charges, it would cost at least $150 a mile to put up the wires which would have to stretch from Cedar City to be the craggy location site.
Darryl Zanuck didn’t mind the cost or the difficulties surrounding the telephones being put in, but John Ford did. He wanted the landscape and skyline clear of any modern paraphernalia that would ruin the atmosphere of America of the Revolutionary War period. Teletype connections have therefore been established direct from location to 20th Fox via Cedar City.
7/28/1939 EHE Jimmy Starr
Proudest woman in all Hollywood today is Mrs. Darnell, mother of 15-year-old Linda, who, last night at the preview of Hotel for Women, made her movie debut and, to put it mildly, created one of the greatest single sensations this always-excitable town has seen and felt in many a year.
Proud, too, is talent scout Ivan Kahn, who "discovered" Linda in Dallas, Texas. And 0th Century-Fox's headman, Darryl Zanuck, is positively beaming with pride. He gave Linda one of the finest build-ups to stardom—and she more than made good, every cinematic frame of the way.
Cosmopolitan Productions, likewise, can well swell its chest. Elsa Maxwell's Hotel of Women contains, besides the startling Linda, all the elements that go to make it a sure-fire hit and winner at the boxoffice.
STORY: Elsa Maxwell, America's Number One Party Giver, and Scenarist Kathryn Scola concocted a streamlined yarn of love, the business of being a photographic model and just how the speedy set of any metropolitan era lives and behaves. It's a story of life in an exclusive hotel for women in New York, where romance is fresh, flip and sometimes foolish. It's interesting, often highly amusing and has a good heart tug.
CAST: I don't remember when so young an actress has made such an indelible first impression as does Linda Darnell, who has both the pose, ability and charm of a veteran twice her age. She's a wonder—if there ever was one.
An especially good cast surrounds Linda and Miss Maxwell, whose screen moments are brief but socko in a philosophic, modern fashion. Lynn Bari is excellent as the frantic, jealous girl, while Ann Sothern packs a wallop with her portrayal as the wise girl who knows her way around. Alan Dinehart, James Ellison, John Halliday (especially good!), Joyce Compton, Barnett Parker (swell in a bit). Ivan Lebedeff and others completed the cast.
DIRECTION: Plaudits for Gregory Ratoff for a zippy, highly entertaining production, throughout. I advise you to run, do not walk, to your nearest theater when Elsa Maxwell's Hotel For Women opens. It's a swell production and Linda Darnell is a sensation.
8/2/1939 LAX Louella O. Parsons
If a star can be said to be born overnight that’s what happened to Linda Darnell after the preview to Linda Darnell after the preview of Hotel For Women. Darryl Zanuck never expected there’d be so much talk about the little Southern girl and so he had given her a secondary role in Drums Along the Mohawk. Rather than have Linda make her next appearance in a supporting role he has taken her out of the picture starring Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda, although three weeks’ shooting had already been done on location. This is almost unprecedented in the history of movies, but there are so few girls who go over as Linda has that Darryl isn’t taking any chance.
8/24/1939 EHE Hotel For Women
A Cosmopolitan picture opened August 16,1939 at Loew’s State and Grauman’s Chinese. Directed by Gregory Ratoff. Screen play by Kathryn Scola and Darrell Ware based on a story by Elsa Maxwell and Kathryn Scola. Peverell Marley, photographer. CAST: Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell, James Ellison, Jean Rogers, Lynn Bari, June Gale, Elsa Maxwell, Joyce Compton, Katherine Aldridge, John Halliday.
Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation: A 20th Century-Fox picture, featuring Peter Lorre, opened on same program.
By Harrison Carroll
Portly Elsa Maxwell is the only thing that isn’t streamlined about Darryl Zanuck’s slick new comedy, Hotel For Women.
Story of New York’s professional models and of a nice young girl from Syracuse who suddenly discovers that she is a photogenic beauty, this picture brings smart, glamorous entertainment to the screens of the Loew’s State and Grauman’s Chinese theaters.
It also gives movie audiences their first glimpse of Linda Darnell, youthful newcomer from Dallas, Texas, who, with a little luck and with a lot of hard work, should wind up as one of Hollywood’s stars of tomorrow.
She already has the prime requisite, a camera personality.
Her inexperience, is even an asset in Hotel For Women because she plays a naive young girl who comes to New York to get married, meets a cool reception from her fiancé and, out of pique, accepts a blind date that leads her to a career and to bewildering success.
CLEVER IDEA
The story of Hotel For Women was written by Elsa Maxwell and Kathryn Scola and they hit upon a very clever idea in telling it against the background of a hotel for women.
No men penetrate farther than the lobby and this gives the authors a chance for an intriguing study of the jealousies, the friendships, the uninhibited talk of the girls who can let their hair down because there are no men around to listen.
Elsa Maxwell’s chore as actress consists of playing herself. She stages a cocktail party at which everybody is supplied with an individual shaker to mix his own drink, but mainly she gives out with advice and philosophy. She isn’t essential to the plot, but supplies the picture with an interesting novelty. She can take a little bow, too, on her naturalness before the camera. Especially, as the assignment scared her to death.
Hotel For Women owes a lot of its smartness and pace to the performance of Ann Sothern, as a wise-cracking model who befriends the heroine, and of John Halliday, as a rich man, with an eye for fresh young beauty and with a super-smooth technique. As the model who forgets the rules of the game and resorts to gun-lay, Lynn Bari shows real fire for almost the first time on the screen.
CAST SCORES
Jean Rogers does a nice job as the sensible model, so does Joyce Compton as the wall-flower. Another interesting newcomer is Katharine Aldridge, who plays the rich girl. James Ellison makes you forgive the young man whose fat-headedness almost cost him his sweetheart.
The entire cast of Hotel For Women, and it is a large one, acquits itself well.
A lion’s share of the credit, of course, goes to Gregory Ratoff, for his spirited direction of this Twentieth Century-Fox picture, which is also a Cosmopolitan production.
Better get down to see Hotel For Women. It is spicy, it is funny and it introduces an exciting new personality in Linda Darnell.
The companion picture at Loew’s State and Grauman’s Chinese this week stars Peter Lorre in another of the Mr. Moto thrillers. This one is called Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation.
8/29/1939 EHE Harrison Carroll
On the return trip from Dallas, Linda Darnell brought a pet white leghorn rooster in her compartment on the train. Its name is "Weedy" and the starlet has raised it from a chick. In fact it was dyed pink when a Dallas newspaperman gave it to her on Easter, 1938.
More and more the Darnell family are arriving in Hollywood. Linda now lives with her mother, her 21-year-old sister, Undine, and her brothers, Monte and Calvin, aged 10 and 9.
8/28/1939 HCN
Twentieth is expecting Tyrone Power and Annabella Sept. 3, returning in a hurry from war-scared Europe. Power will make Daytime Wife on his return, with Linda Darnell featured.
9/19/1939 HCN Sidney Skolsky
WATCHING THEM MAKE PICTURES
There are only two directors who are box office names and get billing on a theater marquee: Frank Capra and Cecil B. DeMille. On the movie sets, however, it is the director's picture, and he is the big show. At Warners' they even put a shingle outside the sound stage which reads, for example, "Curtiz Company," which means that Mike Curtiz is shooting there. This is done for all directors at that studio.
Often I go around watching them make pictures and select the sets I visit by the directors instead of the actors or actresses. The making of a picture is the director's show. It is really too bad that you can't see these directors at work. It would make a wonderful picture. But each week I will try to do the next best thing, and that is to tell you about the directors as well as the stars when I report on my visit to the sets.
Two of my favorite directors, as characters, are making pictures this week. Gregory Ratoff and Michael Curtiz. You probably have a good idea of Ratoff, having seen him in many pictures. Let me tell you that when you saw him he wasn't acting. He acts and talks the same when he is directing a picture, except for the fact that he looks more worried which makes him more comical.
When I walked on the set of Daytime Wife, Ratoff was getting ready to direct a scene between Linda Darnell and Binnie Barnes. Ratoff was shouting to the grips and prop men: "Boys, keep quiet. I'm now facing my Waterloo."
Like most directors who were once actors or would like to be actors, director Ratoff likes to explain a scene to a performer by acting it out. It isn't bad work. Director Ratoff, for example, has held Binnie Barnes tightly in his arms demonstrating to Tyrone Power how he should make love. Tyrone may be the great lover to you, but Ratoff believes he knows more about the art of love making.
The particular scene this afternoon is between Linda Darnell, Zanuck's new female white hope, and Binnie Barnes. Miss Darnell and Miss Barnes are sitting on a couch having an argument over a husband, Tyrone Power. Miss Darnell says: "If a woman can't hold her man, it's her fault. I'm going to hold mine."
When the scene is finished, Binnie Barnes pats Linda below the waist and says, "Very good, kid." And Linda Darnell, who has just finished playing an experienced wife, hurries to the class room on the set for a history lesson. Linda Darnell is only 15 years old.
Director Ratoff next has to film a scene with a dog and Tyrone Power. Since the wave of economy at all studios, Zanuck has issued orders to all directors not to make too many takes of a scene. "They don't have to be perfect," says Zanuck. "Get them fast."
Ratoff spends the next hour trying to get the scene between the dog and Power. He makes over 25 takes. The assistant director who has to watch the cost of the picture, squawks: "Zanuck will beef when he finds out how long you're taking with the dog!" Ratoff excitedly replies: "I can't help it. You tell Zanuck that the part of the dog was written in before the war was declared."
My other favorite director, Mike Curtiz, is filming Four Wives, which is the sequel to Four Daughters. In it the four daughters, Priscilla, Lola and Rosemary Lane and Gale Page, have babies. Therefore you can expect a sequel to this sequel.
Lola is married to Frank McHugh, Gale Page is married to Dick Foran, and Rosemary gets married to Eddie Albert. Priscilla, who was married to John Garfield, who died in Four Daughters, was the problem wife This was solved, however by having her marry her former sweetheart, Jeffrey Lynn. But it is Garfield's baby that she will give birth to. The scene they were shooting the day that I visited the set was the wedding of Priscilla Lane to Jeffrey Lynn.
The minister had started the customary speech when Priscilla interrupts the ceremony and says to Jeffrey: Don't you hear a baby crying? Sure. That's my baby. I've got to go to it." And Miss Lane stops being married to take care of her baby.
10/3/1939 HCN Sidney Skolsky
WATCHING THEM MAKE PICTURES
There are about 50 pictures shooting in Hollywood this week, and a fellow can’t get around to watch them all. So, from the shooting schedule you select a few to watch, and then you visit those sets. You select the set to visit either because you’re interested in the picture itself, or because you want to see the actors in the picture, or because you like to watch that particular director work. Let me tell you, you can go around all week, visiting about 10 sets, until you get a couple of good set stories. For things just don’t happen on a set when you walk on, to provide a story. Often the director is arranging a set-up, which may take half an hour, or the director is in conference with the author about changing the scene to be shot, or the actor you want to see work has been excused for the day. I want to tell you that going around to sets isn’t so easy and glamorous as it sounds, and often when I take a visitor to town on a set cruise, he’ll say to me, after waiting a long time to see a scene filmed, "Gee! How do they ever get a picture finished?"
First, to the set of Daytime Wife, where Gregory Ratoff is directing Linda Darnell. Here, because Ratoff should be good for a paragraph and Darnell is good to look at. Miss Darnell is sitting in a chair, supposedly talking to Tyrone Power, who isn’t working this day. Director Ratoff, sitting out of view of the camera, is shouting Power’s lines to Darnell. The scene is filmed and director Ratoff says "How was it?" to the soundman and the cameraman. The soundman says: "Not good. There was an echo to your voice that overlapped her dialogue."
"How do you like that?" says Ratoff. "That’s the first time anyone ever told me my voice had an echo." When I leave the set Ratoff is shouting "Quiet!" to his own echo. I told you he’d be good for a paragraph, and Linda Darnell is good to look at.
10/5/1939 LAX BEHIND THE MAKEUP
By Erskine Johnson
SOME MOVIES ARE MADE: Gregory Ratoff, the burly, talkative Russian director, plants your Hollywood correspondent down in a chair beside him while cameraman Pev Marley adjusts the lights on Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. Hollywood has called Mr.. Ratoff’s last picture, Intermezzo, a brilliant job of directing, and the Russian is in a jubilant mood. "What a picture; such a sensational hit," Mr.. Ratoff tells us, modestly. "And did I take four months to film it? No! I shoot it in 35 days. I am sensational. I am a ‘shoestring’ director. I do not waste money. Producers love me. Everybody is trying to hire me now. It is colossal."
Mr.. Marley, the cameraman, interrupts Mr.. Ratoff’s flow of words to inform him that everything is ready to film the scene between the waiting Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. The picture is Daytime Wife. A few scenes earlier Miss Darnell discovered that her husband, Power, has been going places with his secretary, Wendy Barrie. She is about to accuse him now of being unfaithful, after detecting the odor of a strange perfume on his coat collar.
"Darling, baby," Ratoff addresses Miss Darnell. "This is the big, smash scene in the picture. I want you should react sensationally. Give it to the peoples in the balcony from the heart. Power comes in and kisses you. You hear the perfume, baby. That is your cue. Then give it big!" There is never a dull moment on the set when Gregory Ratoff is directing a picture.
10/13/1939 SFC With Jimmie Fidler In Hollywood
I saw a little incident on the Daytime Wife set the other day that may give you a clue to the reasons for Tyrone Power’s popularity. He was playing a scene with Linda Darnell, who, being a newcomer, still has the newcomer’s nervousness before the cameras. She had muffed her lines several times and was growing confused. A third take–and Ty, realizing that she had erred again, quickly stopped the scene.
"Sorry," he said to the director, "I blew up on that one." Linda was the only person on the set who failed to understand his gesture. Consoled by the thought that someone else could make dialogue mistakes, she settled down and played the next take perfectly.
10/18/1939 HCN Sidney Skolsky Presents
Watching Them Make Pictures
The first thing a visitor from the East wants to do is to go on the acts and meet the movie stars. Philip Hevema arrived in town and looked me up. He had note to me from a mutual good friend, and anything I could do would be greatly appreciated. I don’t know how, but there I was with Philip on my hands, and I made a date to take him around the studios with me.
"Don’t worry about me," said Philip." "All I want to do is watch. I won’t get in your way. I won’t say a word."
The first set we went on was His Girl Friday. Rosalind Russell, Cary Grant and Ralph Bellamy had just finished playing a scene at a restaurant table. Director Howard Hawks walked over to me. I introduced him to Philip Hevema. As Miss Russell, Grant and Bellamy walked back, I said hello to them and gave Philip a knockdown to them. Director Hawks went on talking. "I think," he said, "you’re going to be surprised by Russell. She’ll be up there on top after this one. A better comedienne than Dunne or Colbert. She isn’t afraid to move around. She isn’t afraid of camera angles. Do anything for a laugh." I glanced around Philip Hevema was in a corner talking to Rosalind Russell.
"Pardon me," I said to director Hawks. "I got to pick up a piece of baggage." I walked over and there was Philip asking Rosalind if she believed the character she played in The Women. "The whole thing," said Philip, "was too much of a caricature. I never met a lady yet--," but I didn’t let him finish. Miss Russell took my entrance as a cue for her exit. I look at Philip disdainfully and said: "I thought you weren’t going to talk." "Who do you think I am," he said, "Charlie McCarthy?"
From then on I knew I had a wise guy on my hands.
As we drove to the 20th Century-Fox studio, Philip made an effort to apologize for his actions. I’ll say that for him. "I just wanted to help you with your column," he said. "I cold have got you some information about Cary Grant, but you hurried me off the set."
"Well, I heard that he and Phyllis Brooks bought a house at Malibu, and I was going to ask him if it’s true." "Where did you get that?" I asked. "Oh," said Philip, "I met a fellow in the club car on the train coming out, and he told me. This fellow reads every issue of every fan magazine and knows more about Hollywood than anyone I ever met. He was a hardware salesman, coming out to see the place for the first time, but he really should be writing a column."
"Look," Philip," I said, "will you be a good boy and keep your promise to me?" Don’t talk. Just look. And if you have any questions, ask me. Don’t ask Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford and Hedy Lamarr, eh?" It was with this understanding that I took him on the set of First Kiss, where Gregory Ratoff was directing Linda Darnell, Tyrone Power and Wendy Barrie.
Tyrone Power was sitting on a couch with Wendy Barrie. Linda Darnell was to walk through the room as Miss Barrie kissed Tyrone. Director Ratoff said: "Wendy, when you kiss him,, sweep him off his feet." The camera was turned on and the performance went into action. Miss Barrie grabbed Tyrone and kissed him with vim, vigor and vitality.
"Boy," said Philip, "and they cal that work! And Tyrone Power gets paid for that!!!"
"Quiet!!!!" shouted director Ratoff. "Okay. We do it again. And maybe this time the audience can be dumb." He looked right at Philip.
I whispered to Philip to keep still. The minute the take was over I hurried him off the set. "That Linda Darnell, she’s a piece of all right," said Philip. "Why didn’t you introduce me to her? Where did they find her?" "She’s only 15," I answered. "A talent scout found her."
"That’s what I want to be," said Philip with a wink. "A talent scout."
10/21/1939 EHE Harrison Carroll
LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
Out at Twentieth Century-Fox, director Gregory Ratoff is doing the last scenes for the picture, Daytime Wife.
It is supposed to be the wedding anniversary of Linda Darnell and Tyrone Power. He has told her he would have to work late at the office, so she has brought a surprise party down to greet him.
Linda, Binnie Barnes and a half dozen other friends tip-toe up to the door of the office and suddenly begin singing "Happy Anniversary To You." Linda pushes open the door and walks in—to find only the scrubwoman cleaning up the office.
Nobody knows what to say. Linda tries to hide the disappointment and the suspicions of a wife, whose husband apparently is stepping out on her.
"Cut!" says director Ratoff.
Then Linda Darnell, a married woman in the story, has to stop acting for a while and go to her dressing room to work with a school teacher.
Her course of study includes physiology, advanced Spanish, junior English, general science and advanced art. She likes art the best and is pretty good at it. Her masterpiece, so far, is a portrait of Tyrone Power in his makeup for The Rains came.
11/15/1939 EHE Harrison Carroll
When Gene Autry was introduced to Linda Darnell at 20th Century-Fox, she had to remind him that they had met before. It happened last April. Linda was flying up from Dallas to begin her contract. She met Art Satherle, head of a record company and the man who first got Autry into pictures. Satherle told Linda that Autry would be at the airport and asked her if she wanted to meet him.
They were introduced and the cowboy star gave her an autographed picture. She still has it. The autograph reads:
"To Monetta Darnell from your sweetheart, Gene Autry."
11/16/1939 LAX Daytime Wife
A 20th Century-Fox picture produced by Raymond Griffith and directed by Gregory Ratoff. Screenplay by Art Arthur and Robert Harari from a story by Rex Taylor.
CAST: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Warren William, Binnie Barnes, Wendy Barrie, Joan Davis. By Erskine Johnson
Gorgeous, youthful Linda Darnell discovers what secretaries have that wives haven’t, Tyrone Power gets a fling at modern romantic comedy for the first time in two years and you will be royally entertained at Loew’s State and Grauman’s Chinese Theaters this week.
The picture is Daytime Wife, a merry mixup of wives vs. secretaries. But don’t let the title, or the musty plot, keep you away. With some adroit writing, snappy dialogue by Art Arthur and Robert Harari, good directing by Gregory Ratoff and first rate performances by Miss Darnell and Power, 20th Century-Fox gives you an excellent comedy.
Tyrone Power should be cast in more roles like this, permanently avoiding the Jesse Jameses and Ferdinand de Lesseps. And we could be entertained just looking at still pictures of the lovely Miss Darnell, who has become an even better actress since her debut in Hotel For Women.
Supporting these two popular stars are Warren William, who makes a welcome return to A pictures, the always comical comediennes Binnie Barnes and Joan Davis, Wendy Barrie and Joan Valerie. Miss Davis is a standout in her bit role. Her stamp licking routine will set you howling.
There’s no need telling much about the story. Miss Darnell suspects her husband (Power) of going places with his secretary (Miss Barrie). To find out what secretaries have that married women haven’t, she secretly secures a job as secretary to Warren William, who happens to be one of Power’s business clients.
Eventually they all meet at a night club on a double date—Power with his secretary and William with Miss Darnell. Miss Darnell prevails upon Power to help her keep her identity a secret from William in order not to spoil Power’s chances of landing a fat business contract with him. Power burns while William makes love to his wife and the resulting complications gain momentum when William’s wife (Joan Valerie) makes an unexpected appearance.
It’s an old formula with a streamlined treatment guaranteed to be the kind of entertainment you’re looking for.
Sample comedy: Power, suspecting himself of smelling of his secretary’s favorite perfume, laying down a protective barrage of cigar smoke at the dinner table with Miss Darnell.
Sidney Toler solves another mystery as the amazing screen detective, Charlie Chan in City In Darkness, with Lynn Bari, Richard Clarke, Harold Huber and Pedro de Cordoba. Pete Smith’s latest short, and one of his funniest to date, Let’s Talk Turkey, completes the bill at both theaters.
11/17/1939 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Linda Darnell’s sister, Undine, is coming out from Texas to marry Harry Hunter. The wedding will be held in Linda’s new home in about two or three weeks.
12/7/1939 SFC Jimmie Fidler
Linda Darnell has posted affidavits with the Federal government in an effort to gain her foreign-born school pal, Jaime Jorba (of Mexico City) a longer Hollywood stay than immigration authorities stipulated.
12/9/1939 LAX Louella O. Parsons
"Glamouritis" hasn’t struck Linda Darnell yet. She was doing her own marketing today, taking a bottle of milk out of the ice box, when the door slammed on her finger and crushed it badly.
12/28/1939 SFC Jimmie Fidler
Mrs. Margaret Darnell has written and sold daughter Linda’s life story to a national magazine.
Eric von Stroheim electrified Fox studios the other day when he filmed fourteen scenes in the brief period of four hours. The picture was Walking Down Broadway, which he is directing from a story which he wrote himself. Von Stroheim has been noted as one of the most recklessly extravagant directors in Hollywood. His directorial career has been overshadowed by his reputation for running far beyond production schedules and budgets. But now he is proving to the world and the Fox company in particular that he can direct a picture faster than any other director on the lot. Fourteen scenes never were photographed in four hours at Fox or at any other major studio, so far as I know. James Dunn and "Boots" Mallory have the romantic leads in Walking Down Broadway, and Minna Gombell and ZaSu Pitts have important featured roles.
And now Fox is planning to produce another von Stroheim story, Her Highness, with the author-actor-director again in charge of the direction. This is a Viennese story with music, and I am told that von Stroheim has employed some clever devices for introducing the music. I.B. Kornbloom, a local attorney, has composed music for the story and L. Wolfe Gilbert is writing the lyrics. No cast has been set for the picture as yet, but it promises to be one of the many musicals that are being planned for production at Fox. And Eric von Stroheim may yet turn out to be one of the most economical directors in Hollywood if he maintains the pace started in Walking Down Broadway.
....
Paramount finally despaired of writing Hot Saturday so that it would please Richard Arlen. So Dick has been relieved of the leading assignment and Cary Grant has been cast in his place. Carole Lombard also has been taken out of the cast and loaned to Columbia for a role in Virtue. And Nancy Carroll has been given the feminine lead instead. Nancy, in turn, has been taken from the lead in Night After Night and replaced by Constance Cummings of Columbia. These switches in casts are so complicated sometimes it is difficult to figure them out. However, in case you are still confused, Hot Saturday will be made with Cary Grant and Nancy Carroll. William Seiter will direct the picture, and other players signed for the supporting cast include Lillian Bond, Jesse Arnold and Jane Darwell.
....
John Preston, former Texas football player and one of the original members of the Provincetown Players in New York, will make his screen debut in False Faces, which Lowell Sherman is directing at Tiffany. Preston, who is a great grandson of Andrew Jackson, has played in stock for several years. He scored especially in a road production of "The Broken Wing," in which he played the role of the Mexican general portrayed by Leo Carrillo here. Incidentally, he is one of the handsomest young men who have been seen around these parts.
....
The good old-time Indians of the past who ambushed the American white pioneers, are to be revived on the screen at Columbia. Irving Briskin, who is in charge of the Tim McCoy pictures at Columbia, has completed arrangements to film Red Man. Colonel Tim, of course, will have the title role. And did you know that he is one of the few authorities on Indian sign language and has written a book on the subject? McCoy also is an honorary chief in the Arapahoe and Black Foot tribes. Red Man will deal with the colorful adventures of the Indians and white men back in 1870.
....
The film public does not seem to grow tired of wild animal films. Bring "Em Back Alive and Congorilla have been received with as much enthusiasm as Trader Horn which was one of the first of the jungle epics. Or was Ingagi the first? However, Carl Laemmle Jrl. Has just completed arrangements to make one of the most interesting wild animal pictures yet planned. He has bought the screen rights to an unpublished book by Edward Anthony, who collaborated with Frank Buck on Bring "Em Back Alive. The story deals with the life of Clyde Beatty, acknowledged as one of the foremost wild animal trainers in the world. Beatty and many of his wild animals will be brought to Universal to make the picture. Beatty who has been one of the headliners of Ringling Brothers-Barnum-Bailey circus, trains lions, tigers, leopards and other ferocious beasts with iron nerve and uncanny understanding. The picture will reveal how he goes about training the animals. Although the novel on which the picture will be based has not yet been titled, Universal will call the picture, Man and Beast.
....
David Binney Putnam, tall blond youth who looks enough like his stepmother, Amelia Earhart, to be her brother, has won his private license as an airplane pilot. During the last few weeks he has been taking flying training under Paul Mantz at the United Airport, and yesterday he took off his own plane with his father as a passenger. His father, you know, is George Palmer Putnam, noted Eastern publisher and new editor of Paramount’s story board. Young Putnam also has quite a reputation as an author of boys’ fiction.
Linda Darnell In the 30's & 40's
ABBREVIATIONS
DN - - Los Angeles Daily News
EHE -- Los Angeles Evening Herald Express
FD -- Film Daily
HCN -- Hollywood Citizen News
LAM – Los Angeles Mirror
LAX -- Los Angeles Examiner
MPH -- Motion Picture Herald
SFC – San Francisco Chronicle
4/19/1939 HCN
Linda Darnell, a newcomer, will appear in Hotel For Women.
4/27/1939 DN Add Cinderella Story
Sent home from Hollywood almost two years ago because she was too young, Linda Darnell returned from Dallas, Texas, to become the film city’s Cinderella girl of the year.
Unknown and unheard of, Linda was chosen by Darryl F. Zanuck for the leading feminine role in Elsa Maxwell’s Hotel For Women.
The daughter of a Dallas post office clerk, Linda was brought to Hollywood almost two years ago by a talent scout along with two other girls, Mary Healy and Judith Dickens, both of whom have since been boosted on their way to stardom. Unlike the latter two, Linda was told that she was far too immature for pictures and was advised to go home and get some experience.
Despite the studio’s vague promise that she might hear from them again, Linda determinedly muttered, "I’ll be back." On her return to Dallas, she immediately enrolled with a little theater group where she did some outstanding work in several plays.
Unknown to Linda, studio talent scouts were watching her progress and she was asked to send some new photographs of herself to the studio. After viewing the photos, train fare was sent her and a contract was signed as soon as she reached the studio.
5/2/1939 EHE Jimmy Starr
Linda Darnell got so excited over her role in Hotel For Women, she chewed off all her finger nails. Production was held up while makeup dept. supplied false nails.
5/9/1939 EHE Jimmy Starr
May a Hollywood celeb has an odd clause in his or her studio contract, but one of the most unusual is in the new long term ticket given to Linda Darnell by 20th Century-Fox.
Linda is a pretty Texas girl who won the lead in Elsa Maxwell’s Hotel For Women, now in production under the Cosmopolitan banner.
Linda’s novel clause is that she is given sufficient time, between films to attend graduation exercises at Sunset High School in Dallas, Texas, and to receive her much-desired academical degree. Because of her age, Linda is compelled to daily attend classes between scenes. Her scholastic credits earned here will be accepted by the Texas school
6/27/1939 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Have you as an outsider wondered how stars are born? If you haven’t you are unusual, for about 75 percent of our mail comes from boys and girls who ask questions on how the Hollywood favorites first were able to crash the magic movie gates. Well, Darryl Zanuck is going to answer these questions in a movie called Public Relations. He will take three youngsters and show how they were found, show the build-up of publicity, the training and all the incidentals that go into the making of a movie actress.
Chosen for concrete examples are Mary Healy, Brenda Joyce and Linda Darnell, who were unknown and had no previous experience until they joined 20th Century-Fox. These girls, Mr. Zanuck feels, are perfect illustrations. In fact, the story of Public Relations parallels their own lives.
7/7/1939 DN Raves and Raps
In selecting types for Drums Along the Mohawk the Indian problem proved a stumbling block for the casting department of 20th Century-Fox studio. The men of the Five Nations which comprised the Iroquois confederation were tall and stalwart. But a gander around Hollywood proved that any other nationality excepting an Indian is a cinch to find.
Only two Iroquois Indians were located in the cinema village and one of them was too short to be used in the film. Of the 300 Indians who will ultimately be used, only one, Chief Big Tree, will be a genuine Iroquois. The rest will be chosen from the southwestern tribes. As it happens the short and squat seem to predominate amongst the Southwesterners and director John Ford will just have to make the best of it. He hopes future audiences won’t mind.
The troupe from Hollywood numbering 200 has already departed for the Utah location. Among those on the trek are Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, Edna May Oliver, Linda Darnell, John Carradine, Arthur Shields and Francis Ford. Actors and technicians will dwell in a cabin and tent city which has been erected 10,000 feet up in the mountainous region.
Through the three weeks of location, it is estimated by the gentlemen at 20th-Fox who know about such matters that movieland will spend about $300,000 in favor of the state of Utah by the time salaries, food and building costs are totaled.
Means of communication between shooting headquarters in the mountains and the studio also had to be figured out. The center of activities being 40 miles from Cedar City, it was found that telephones were practically an impossibility.
Besides the general installation and maintenance charges, it would cost at least $150 a mile to put up the wires which would have to stretch from Cedar City to be the craggy location site.
Darryl Zanuck didn’t mind the cost or the difficulties surrounding the telephones being put in, but John Ford did. He wanted the landscape and skyline clear of any modern paraphernalia that would ruin the atmosphere of America of the Revolutionary War period. Teletype connections have therefore been established direct from location to 20th Fox via Cedar City.
7/28/1939 EHE Jimmy Starr
Proudest woman in all Hollywood today is Mrs. Darnell, mother of 15-year-old Linda, who, last night at the preview of Hotel for Women, made her movie debut and, to put it mildly, created one of the greatest single sensations this always-excitable town has seen and felt in many a year.
Proud, too, is talent scout Ivan Kahn, who "discovered" Linda in Dallas, Texas. And 0th Century-Fox's headman, Darryl Zanuck, is positively beaming with pride. He gave Linda one of the finest build-ups to stardom—and she more than made good, every cinematic frame of the way.
Cosmopolitan Productions, likewise, can well swell its chest. Elsa Maxwell's Hotel of Women contains, besides the startling Linda, all the elements that go to make it a sure-fire hit and winner at the boxoffice.
STORY: Elsa Maxwell, America's Number One Party Giver, and Scenarist Kathryn Scola concocted a streamlined yarn of love, the business of being a photographic model and just how the speedy set of any metropolitan era lives and behaves. It's a story of life in an exclusive hotel for women in New York, where romance is fresh, flip and sometimes foolish. It's interesting, often highly amusing and has a good heart tug.
CAST: I don't remember when so young an actress has made such an indelible first impression as does Linda Darnell, who has both the pose, ability and charm of a veteran twice her age. She's a wonder—if there ever was one.
An especially good cast surrounds Linda and Miss Maxwell, whose screen moments are brief but socko in a philosophic, modern fashion. Lynn Bari is excellent as the frantic, jealous girl, while Ann Sothern packs a wallop with her portrayal as the wise girl who knows her way around. Alan Dinehart, James Ellison, John Halliday (especially good!), Joyce Compton, Barnett Parker (swell in a bit). Ivan Lebedeff and others completed the cast.
DIRECTION: Plaudits for Gregory Ratoff for a zippy, highly entertaining production, throughout. I advise you to run, do not walk, to your nearest theater when Elsa Maxwell's Hotel For Women opens. It's a swell production and Linda Darnell is a sensation.
8/2/1939 LAX Louella O. Parsons
If a star can be said to be born overnight that’s what happened to Linda Darnell after the preview to Linda Darnell after the preview of Hotel For Women. Darryl Zanuck never expected there’d be so much talk about the little Southern girl and so he had given her a secondary role in Drums Along the Mohawk. Rather than have Linda make her next appearance in a supporting role he has taken her out of the picture starring Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda, although three weeks’ shooting had already been done on location. This is almost unprecedented in the history of movies, but there are so few girls who go over as Linda has that Darryl isn’t taking any chance.
8/24/1939 EHE Hotel For Women
A Cosmopolitan picture opened August 16,1939 at Loew’s State and Grauman’s Chinese. Directed by Gregory Ratoff. Screen play by Kathryn Scola and Darrell Ware based on a story by Elsa Maxwell and Kathryn Scola. Peverell Marley, photographer. CAST: Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell, James Ellison, Jean Rogers, Lynn Bari, June Gale, Elsa Maxwell, Joyce Compton, Katherine Aldridge, John Halliday.
Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation: A 20th Century-Fox picture, featuring Peter Lorre, opened on same program.
By Harrison Carroll
Portly Elsa Maxwell is the only thing that isn’t streamlined about Darryl Zanuck’s slick new comedy, Hotel For Women.
Story of New York’s professional models and of a nice young girl from Syracuse who suddenly discovers that she is a photogenic beauty, this picture brings smart, glamorous entertainment to the screens of the Loew’s State and Grauman’s Chinese theaters.
It also gives movie audiences their first glimpse of Linda Darnell, youthful newcomer from Dallas, Texas, who, with a little luck and with a lot of hard work, should wind up as one of Hollywood’s stars of tomorrow.
She already has the prime requisite, a camera personality.
Her inexperience, is even an asset in Hotel For Women because she plays a naive young girl who comes to New York to get married, meets a cool reception from her fiancé and, out of pique, accepts a blind date that leads her to a career and to bewildering success.
CLEVER IDEA
The story of Hotel For Women was written by Elsa Maxwell and Kathryn Scola and they hit upon a very clever idea in telling it against the background of a hotel for women.
No men penetrate farther than the lobby and this gives the authors a chance for an intriguing study of the jealousies, the friendships, the uninhibited talk of the girls who can let their hair down because there are no men around to listen.
Elsa Maxwell’s chore as actress consists of playing herself. She stages a cocktail party at which everybody is supplied with an individual shaker to mix his own drink, but mainly she gives out with advice and philosophy. She isn’t essential to the plot, but supplies the picture with an interesting novelty. She can take a little bow, too, on her naturalness before the camera. Especially, as the assignment scared her to death.
Hotel For Women owes a lot of its smartness and pace to the performance of Ann Sothern, as a wise-cracking model who befriends the heroine, and of John Halliday, as a rich man, with an eye for fresh young beauty and with a super-smooth technique. As the model who forgets the rules of the game and resorts to gun-lay, Lynn Bari shows real fire for almost the first time on the screen.
CAST SCORES
Jean Rogers does a nice job as the sensible model, so does Joyce Compton as the wall-flower. Another interesting newcomer is Katharine Aldridge, who plays the rich girl. James Ellison makes you forgive the young man whose fat-headedness almost cost him his sweetheart.
The entire cast of Hotel For Women, and it is a large one, acquits itself well.
A lion’s share of the credit, of course, goes to Gregory Ratoff, for his spirited direction of this Twentieth Century-Fox picture, which is also a Cosmopolitan production.
Better get down to see Hotel For Women. It is spicy, it is funny and it introduces an exciting new personality in Linda Darnell.
The companion picture at Loew’s State and Grauman’s Chinese this week stars Peter Lorre in another of the Mr. Moto thrillers. This one is called Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation.
8/29/1939 EHE Harrison Carroll
On the return trip from Dallas, Linda Darnell brought a pet white leghorn rooster in her compartment on the train. Its name is "Weedy" and the starlet has raised it from a chick. In fact it was dyed pink when a Dallas newspaperman gave it to her on Easter, 1938.
More and more the Darnell family are arriving in Hollywood. Linda now lives with her mother, her 21-year-old sister, Undine, and her brothers, Monte and Calvin, aged 10 and 9.
8/28/1939 HCN
Twentieth is expecting Tyrone Power and Annabella Sept. 3, returning in a hurry from war-scared Europe. Power will make Daytime Wife on his return, with Linda Darnell featured.
9/19/1939 HCN Sidney Skolsky
WATCHING THEM MAKE PICTURES
There are only two directors who are box office names and get billing on a theater marquee: Frank Capra and Cecil B. DeMille. On the movie sets, however, it is the director's picture, and he is the big show. At Warners' they even put a shingle outside the sound stage which reads, for example, "Curtiz Company," which means that Mike Curtiz is shooting there. This is done for all directors at that studio.
Often I go around watching them make pictures and select the sets I visit by the directors instead of the actors or actresses. The making of a picture is the director's show. It is really too bad that you can't see these directors at work. It would make a wonderful picture. But each week I will try to do the next best thing, and that is to tell you about the directors as well as the stars when I report on my visit to the sets.
Two of my favorite directors, as characters, are making pictures this week. Gregory Ratoff and Michael Curtiz. You probably have a good idea of Ratoff, having seen him in many pictures. Let me tell you that when you saw him he wasn't acting. He acts and talks the same when he is directing a picture, except for the fact that he looks more worried which makes him more comical.
When I walked on the set of Daytime Wife, Ratoff was getting ready to direct a scene between Linda Darnell and Binnie Barnes. Ratoff was shouting to the grips and prop men: "Boys, keep quiet. I'm now facing my Waterloo."
Like most directors who were once actors or would like to be actors, director Ratoff likes to explain a scene to a performer by acting it out. It isn't bad work. Director Ratoff, for example, has held Binnie Barnes tightly in his arms demonstrating to Tyrone Power how he should make love. Tyrone may be the great lover to you, but Ratoff believes he knows more about the art of love making.
The particular scene this afternoon is between Linda Darnell, Zanuck's new female white hope, and Binnie Barnes. Miss Darnell and Miss Barnes are sitting on a couch having an argument over a husband, Tyrone Power. Miss Darnell says: "If a woman can't hold her man, it's her fault. I'm going to hold mine."
When the scene is finished, Binnie Barnes pats Linda below the waist and says, "Very good, kid." And Linda Darnell, who has just finished playing an experienced wife, hurries to the class room on the set for a history lesson. Linda Darnell is only 15 years old.
Director Ratoff next has to film a scene with a dog and Tyrone Power. Since the wave of economy at all studios, Zanuck has issued orders to all directors not to make too many takes of a scene. "They don't have to be perfect," says Zanuck. "Get them fast."
Ratoff spends the next hour trying to get the scene between the dog and Power. He makes over 25 takes. The assistant director who has to watch the cost of the picture, squawks: "Zanuck will beef when he finds out how long you're taking with the dog!" Ratoff excitedly replies: "I can't help it. You tell Zanuck that the part of the dog was written in before the war was declared."
My other favorite director, Mike Curtiz, is filming Four Wives, which is the sequel to Four Daughters. In it the four daughters, Priscilla, Lola and Rosemary Lane and Gale Page, have babies. Therefore you can expect a sequel to this sequel.
Lola is married to Frank McHugh, Gale Page is married to Dick Foran, and Rosemary gets married to Eddie Albert. Priscilla, who was married to John Garfield, who died in Four Daughters, was the problem wife This was solved, however by having her marry her former sweetheart, Jeffrey Lynn. But it is Garfield's baby that she will give birth to. The scene they were shooting the day that I visited the set was the wedding of Priscilla Lane to Jeffrey Lynn.
The minister had started the customary speech when Priscilla interrupts the ceremony and says to Jeffrey: Don't you hear a baby crying? Sure. That's my baby. I've got to go to it." And Miss Lane stops being married to take care of her baby.
10/3/1939 HCN Sidney Skolsky
WATCHING THEM MAKE PICTURES
There are about 50 pictures shooting in Hollywood this week, and a fellow can’t get around to watch them all. So, from the shooting schedule you select a few to watch, and then you visit those sets. You select the set to visit either because you’re interested in the picture itself, or because you want to see the actors in the picture, or because you like to watch that particular director work. Let me tell you, you can go around all week, visiting about 10 sets, until you get a couple of good set stories. For things just don’t happen on a set when you walk on, to provide a story. Often the director is arranging a set-up, which may take half an hour, or the director is in conference with the author about changing the scene to be shot, or the actor you want to see work has been excused for the day. I want to tell you that going around to sets isn’t so easy and glamorous as it sounds, and often when I take a visitor to town on a set cruise, he’ll say to me, after waiting a long time to see a scene filmed, "Gee! How do they ever get a picture finished?"
First, to the set of Daytime Wife, where Gregory Ratoff is directing Linda Darnell. Here, because Ratoff should be good for a paragraph and Darnell is good to look at. Miss Darnell is sitting in a chair, supposedly talking to Tyrone Power, who isn’t working this day. Director Ratoff, sitting out of view of the camera, is shouting Power’s lines to Darnell. The scene is filmed and director Ratoff says "How was it?" to the soundman and the cameraman. The soundman says: "Not good. There was an echo to your voice that overlapped her dialogue."
"How do you like that?" says Ratoff. "That’s the first time anyone ever told me my voice had an echo." When I leave the set Ratoff is shouting "Quiet!" to his own echo. I told you he’d be good for a paragraph, and Linda Darnell is good to look at.
10/5/1939 LAX BEHIND THE MAKEUP
By Erskine Johnson
SOME MOVIES ARE MADE: Gregory Ratoff, the burly, talkative Russian director, plants your Hollywood correspondent down in a chair beside him while cameraman Pev Marley adjusts the lights on Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. Hollywood has called Mr.. Ratoff’s last picture, Intermezzo, a brilliant job of directing, and the Russian is in a jubilant mood. "What a picture; such a sensational hit," Mr.. Ratoff tells us, modestly. "And did I take four months to film it? No! I shoot it in 35 days. I am sensational. I am a ‘shoestring’ director. I do not waste money. Producers love me. Everybody is trying to hire me now. It is colossal."
Mr.. Marley, the cameraman, interrupts Mr.. Ratoff’s flow of words to inform him that everything is ready to film the scene between the waiting Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. The picture is Daytime Wife. A few scenes earlier Miss Darnell discovered that her husband, Power, has been going places with his secretary, Wendy Barrie. She is about to accuse him now of being unfaithful, after detecting the odor of a strange perfume on his coat collar.
"Darling, baby," Ratoff addresses Miss Darnell. "This is the big, smash scene in the picture. I want you should react sensationally. Give it to the peoples in the balcony from the heart. Power comes in and kisses you. You hear the perfume, baby. That is your cue. Then give it big!" There is never a dull moment on the set when Gregory Ratoff is directing a picture.
10/13/1939 SFC With Jimmie Fidler In Hollywood
I saw a little incident on the Daytime Wife set the other day that may give you a clue to the reasons for Tyrone Power’s popularity. He was playing a scene with Linda Darnell, who, being a newcomer, still has the newcomer’s nervousness before the cameras. She had muffed her lines several times and was growing confused. A third take–and Ty, realizing that she had erred again, quickly stopped the scene.
"Sorry," he said to the director, "I blew up on that one." Linda was the only person on the set who failed to understand his gesture. Consoled by the thought that someone else could make dialogue mistakes, she settled down and played the next take perfectly.
10/18/1939 HCN Sidney Skolsky Presents
Watching Them Make Pictures
The first thing a visitor from the East wants to do is to go on the acts and meet the movie stars. Philip Hevema arrived in town and looked me up. He had note to me from a mutual good friend, and anything I could do would be greatly appreciated. I don’t know how, but there I was with Philip on my hands, and I made a date to take him around the studios with me.
"Don’t worry about me," said Philip." "All I want to do is watch. I won’t get in your way. I won’t say a word."
The first set we went on was His Girl Friday. Rosalind Russell, Cary Grant and Ralph Bellamy had just finished playing a scene at a restaurant table. Director Howard Hawks walked over to me. I introduced him to Philip Hevema. As Miss Russell, Grant and Bellamy walked back, I said hello to them and gave Philip a knockdown to them. Director Hawks went on talking. "I think," he said, "you’re going to be surprised by Russell. She’ll be up there on top after this one. A better comedienne than Dunne or Colbert. She isn’t afraid to move around. She isn’t afraid of camera angles. Do anything for a laugh." I glanced around Philip Hevema was in a corner talking to Rosalind Russell.
"Pardon me," I said to director Hawks. "I got to pick up a piece of baggage." I walked over and there was Philip asking Rosalind if she believed the character she played in The Women. "The whole thing," said Philip, "was too much of a caricature. I never met a lady yet--," but I didn’t let him finish. Miss Russell took my entrance as a cue for her exit. I look at Philip disdainfully and said: "I thought you weren’t going to talk." "Who do you think I am," he said, "Charlie McCarthy?"
From then on I knew I had a wise guy on my hands.
As we drove to the 20th Century-Fox studio, Philip made an effort to apologize for his actions. I’ll say that for him. "I just wanted to help you with your column," he said. "I cold have got you some information about Cary Grant, but you hurried me off the set."
"Well, I heard that he and Phyllis Brooks bought a house at Malibu, and I was going to ask him if it’s true." "Where did you get that?" I asked. "Oh," said Philip, "I met a fellow in the club car on the train coming out, and he told me. This fellow reads every issue of every fan magazine and knows more about Hollywood than anyone I ever met. He was a hardware salesman, coming out to see the place for the first time, but he really should be writing a column."
"Look," Philip," I said, "will you be a good boy and keep your promise to me?" Don’t talk. Just look. And if you have any questions, ask me. Don’t ask Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford and Hedy Lamarr, eh?" It was with this understanding that I took him on the set of First Kiss, where Gregory Ratoff was directing Linda Darnell, Tyrone Power and Wendy Barrie.
Tyrone Power was sitting on a couch with Wendy Barrie. Linda Darnell was to walk through the room as Miss Barrie kissed Tyrone. Director Ratoff said: "Wendy, when you kiss him,, sweep him off his feet." The camera was turned on and the performance went into action. Miss Barrie grabbed Tyrone and kissed him with vim, vigor and vitality.
"Boy," said Philip, "and they cal that work! And Tyrone Power gets paid for that!!!"
"Quiet!!!!" shouted director Ratoff. "Okay. We do it again. And maybe this time the audience can be dumb." He looked right at Philip.
I whispered to Philip to keep still. The minute the take was over I hurried him off the set. "That Linda Darnell, she’s a piece of all right," said Philip. "Why didn’t you introduce me to her? Where did they find her?" "She’s only 15," I answered. "A talent scout found her."
"That’s what I want to be," said Philip with a wink. "A talent scout."
10/21/1939 EHE Harrison Carroll
LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
Out at Twentieth Century-Fox, director Gregory Ratoff is doing the last scenes for the picture, Daytime Wife.
It is supposed to be the wedding anniversary of Linda Darnell and Tyrone Power. He has told her he would have to work late at the office, so she has brought a surprise party down to greet him.
Linda, Binnie Barnes and a half dozen other friends tip-toe up to the door of the office and suddenly begin singing "Happy Anniversary To You." Linda pushes open the door and walks in—to find only the scrubwoman cleaning up the office.
Nobody knows what to say. Linda tries to hide the disappointment and the suspicions of a wife, whose husband apparently is stepping out on her.
"Cut!" says director Ratoff.
Then Linda Darnell, a married woman in the story, has to stop acting for a while and go to her dressing room to work with a school teacher.
Her course of study includes physiology, advanced Spanish, junior English, general science and advanced art. She likes art the best and is pretty good at it. Her masterpiece, so far, is a portrait of Tyrone Power in his makeup for The Rains came.
11/15/1939 EHE Harrison Carroll
When Gene Autry was introduced to Linda Darnell at 20th Century-Fox, she had to remind him that they had met before. It happened last April. Linda was flying up from Dallas to begin her contract. She met Art Satherle, head of a record company and the man who first got Autry into pictures. Satherle told Linda that Autry would be at the airport and asked her if she wanted to meet him.
They were introduced and the cowboy star gave her an autographed picture. She still has it. The autograph reads:
"To Monetta Darnell from your sweetheart, Gene Autry."
11/16/1939 LAX Daytime Wife
A 20th Century-Fox picture produced by Raymond Griffith and directed by Gregory Ratoff. Screenplay by Art Arthur and Robert Harari from a story by Rex Taylor.
CAST: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Warren William, Binnie Barnes, Wendy Barrie, Joan Davis. By Erskine Johnson
Gorgeous, youthful Linda Darnell discovers what secretaries have that wives haven’t, Tyrone Power gets a fling at modern romantic comedy for the first time in two years and you will be royally entertained at Loew’s State and Grauman’s Chinese Theaters this week.
The picture is Daytime Wife, a merry mixup of wives vs. secretaries. But don’t let the title, or the musty plot, keep you away. With some adroit writing, snappy dialogue by Art Arthur and Robert Harari, good directing by Gregory Ratoff and first rate performances by Miss Darnell and Power, 20th Century-Fox gives you an excellent comedy.
Tyrone Power should be cast in more roles like this, permanently avoiding the Jesse Jameses and Ferdinand de Lesseps. And we could be entertained just looking at still pictures of the lovely Miss Darnell, who has become an even better actress since her debut in Hotel For Women.
Supporting these two popular stars are Warren William, who makes a welcome return to A pictures, the always comical comediennes Binnie Barnes and Joan Davis, Wendy Barrie and Joan Valerie. Miss Davis is a standout in her bit role. Her stamp licking routine will set you howling.
There’s no need telling much about the story. Miss Darnell suspects her husband (Power) of going places with his secretary (Miss Barrie). To find out what secretaries have that married women haven’t, she secretly secures a job as secretary to Warren William, who happens to be one of Power’s business clients.
Eventually they all meet at a night club on a double date—Power with his secretary and William with Miss Darnell. Miss Darnell prevails upon Power to help her keep her identity a secret from William in order not to spoil Power’s chances of landing a fat business contract with him. Power burns while William makes love to his wife and the resulting complications gain momentum when William’s wife (Joan Valerie) makes an unexpected appearance.
It’s an old formula with a streamlined treatment guaranteed to be the kind of entertainment you’re looking for.
Sample comedy: Power, suspecting himself of smelling of his secretary’s favorite perfume, laying down a protective barrage of cigar smoke at the dinner table with Miss Darnell.
Sidney Toler solves another mystery as the amazing screen detective, Charlie Chan in City In Darkness, with Lynn Bari, Richard Clarke, Harold Huber and Pedro de Cordoba. Pete Smith’s latest short, and one of his funniest to date, Let’s Talk Turkey, completes the bill at both theaters.
11/17/1939 LAX Louella O. Parsons
Linda Darnell’s sister, Undine, is coming out from Texas to marry Harry Hunter. The wedding will be held in Linda’s new home in about two or three weeks.
12/7/1939 SFC Jimmie Fidler
Linda Darnell has posted affidavits with the Federal government in an effort to gain her foreign-born school pal, Jaime Jorba (of Mexico City) a longer Hollywood stay than immigration authorities stipulated.
12/9/1939 LAX Louella O. Parsons
"Glamouritis" hasn’t struck Linda Darnell yet. She was doing her own marketing today, taking a bottle of milk out of the ice box, when the door slammed on her finger and crushed it badly.
12/28/1939 SFC Jimmie Fidler
Mrs. Margaret Darnell has written and sold daughter Linda’s life story to a national magazine.
Labels: Carole Lombard, Eric von Stroheim, Tim McCoy, ZaSu Pitts
posted by GDH at 11:28 PM
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