Photoplay (Volume 36 – 37 (Jul. - Dec. 1929)) online

chased these in Kansas for shipment
to Barcelona, Spain. Each boy re-
ceived SI. 00 per day and expenses
on the trip. They toured the coun-
tn.', then came back on a steamer, as
steerage passengers, landing at New
York, where they bought an old
Ford, drove through to Olathe, arriv-
ing here with but ten cents each in
their pockets. The Ford was travel-
ing then on four rims.



JUST here I want to say two things
about Buddy, which to me mean
infinitely more than his immense
salary or the unlimited publicity he
receives. First — he has never given
me a minute's anxiety in his whole
life of twenty-four years; second —
he has not changed in the slightest
degree from the day he was five
years old or ten or fifteen or twenty.
I think more of a statement of
his, w-hich you may have read, than
I would think of a gift of a million
dollars. That statement was made
some weeks ago, when an inter-
viewer asked Buddy what his reac-
tion was to all this fame, w'ealth and
the receipt of 23,000 fan letters a
month. As you know, he leads all
men of the movies by a wide margin.
Among [ PLEASE turn to page 88 ]

35




At the left you see Buddy. At the
right is his chum, Robert Thorne.
The military guardian is Buddy's
uncle, A. G. Moll, of the U. S. Army




A

Jungle

J orelei

By

Herbert Howe



When you see King Vidor's "Hallelujah,"
watch for the tawny Nina May. Nina longs
for dresses like Gloria Swanson's and "dia-
monds dribblin' all over my physique — um-
um!" And she wants to go to Paris to be a hit
like Josephine Baker. Nina isn't quite
eighteen. She went on the stage at fifteen, in
a Harlem negro revue

SHE rolled them eyes and she rolled them hips, I' in-iim! . . .
Shake that thing!
"I ain't eighteen yet!" she squealed as she rolled a tanta- -

lizing eye and a hot marimba movement. Who taught her
to say that, who did?

"Oh, you the gentleman from Photoplay Magazine?" Her
eyes bulged and her being jelled. " Um-tim! I just love
write-ups!"

"Um-iim!" smAI. "I just love being a writer-up!"

Nina May McKenney is the little colored spasm of King
Vidor's all-colored "Hallelujah." Irving Thalberg says Nina is
the greatest acting discovery of the age, and I'll say she certainly
acts with every fiber.

It was the "Hallelujah" set with the whole troupe steppin'.
Shake that thing! Do it, do it! Come on an' show your sex
attraction!

On the next stage Fred Niblo's white coUegiates were cutting
capers, and I'm proud to say that our white boys and girls are not far
behind the colored in the back-to-jungle movements.

That evening I was Nina May's guest at the .^pex Cafe in darktown,
Central Avenue, Los Angeles. AH the colored celebrities were there. It
was a most biggety affair.

Nina was togged like Sheba, with a silver turban and a gown that would
have passed for her skin had it not been pink. "Sure does crowd my
physique, this dress," she said, hitching it around after each dance.

Nina isn't black, she's coppery with a [ please turn to page 118 ]

She may be black but she's got a blonde
soul — and Hollywood says Nina May
is a great acting discovery

36



g ^



4. k



'%,





! I



^^f



•J



L




awyer

for the



Defe



nse



Raymond Hackett

pleads himself into a

talkie hit

By Muriel Bab cock



h;



"ERE is a heart for >ou," said the veteran
actor to the very small boy. "Remember,
it wUl break easil)'. Treat it tenderly,
"carefully, reverently."

With a grandiloquent gesture he pinned the tiny red
heart to the child's velveteen jacket.

.And the boy, blue-eyed, tow-headed, serious-
minded, looked up gravely and said, "I will."

These lines were from a play, "The Toj'maker of
Nuremberg."

The boy was Raymond Hackett, the veteran actor
William j. Ferguson, and the play was at the old
Garrick Theater in New York.

In telling of the incident last year at the Lambs
Club, Ferguson said, ".\nd the lad sounded as if he
were making a vow."

Perhaps he was; who knows? For today Raymond
Hackett does not remember that speech. Nor does
he recall anything about the little toy heart that
would break so easUy. Yet, ever since he was in
knee pants, Raymond Hackett's life has been one of
responsibility. He cannot remember his father, a
wholesale grocer, who died suddenly, leaving a young
widow practically penniless. He began contributing
to the care of his mother at the age of four — he and
his brother Albert and his sister Jeannette.

The part in "The Toymaker of Nuremberg" was
his first that brought in money to help the family
budget. Undoubtedly, therefore, it wielded a psj'cho-
logical influence upon his entire life.

Perhaps that is why the role of the young attorney
fighting passionately in
the courtroom for the

life and honor of a sister A serious-eyed small boy,

in "The Trial of Mary he played with his step-

Dugan" seems to have father, the beloved Ar-

[ PLEASE TURN TO thuf Johnson, in the old

p.'VGE 121 ] Lubin thrillers




"Ihe Butterfly Man




The sad love story of

two gay and gallant

stars



The ma7i who loved life



THE man who loved life.
And the girl who loved laughter.
Surely, surely, a romance between those two should
have spelled happiness.
Yet Mabel Normand lies seriously ill at her home in Holly-
wood, and out on the desert, Lew Cody is fighting a desperate
battle for strength to go to her.

They called him the butterfly man on the twenty-four sheets
that acclaimed his witty, worldly pictures.

And we who knew her called her the beautiful clown.
They met and laughed together. Laughter ripened into
friendship, and friendship ripened into love and love suggested
marriage — at three o'clock upon a September morning almost
three years ago.

Their wedding march was a dance tune and in gay, golden
bubbles they drank their marriage toast.

We read about it in the morning paper. We were a little
surprised. 4fter all, we hadn't realized that Lew and Mabel
were in love. They had seemed almost loo good friends to be

38



in love. Then, when the surprise had passed,
we were delighted. It seemed such a natural,
right thing. Lew would take care of Mabel
and Mabel would take care of Lew. Their home
would be full of life and laughter — a splendid
place to drop in for wit and gaiety and good
fellowship.

But sometimes two and two don't make four.

That is why some folks call life a game.

The love story of Mabel Normand and Lew
Cody has not, so far, had the happy ending
which we had written for it.

No one — least of all Lew and jNIabel — knows
what lies beyond. Somehow they seem now to
stand hand in hand against a slowly darkening
sky.

There is confetti \-et in Mabel's dark curls —
bright, silly stutY.

Her tiny feet are bound fast with yards and
>'ards of the colored paper ribbons that clutter
ilance floors after a party.

HER eyes are twin graves of laughter. And
nothing is so sad as dead laughter.
L'nder the elegant motley he has always
worn. Lew's shoulders seem to sag with despair.
For life doesn't come to you. You have to go
out and meet it and Lew can no longer do that.
He has always gone forth gallantl)' to meet life —
the good and the bad, the successes and the
failures, the lean days and the fat ones.

Looking at Lew in the game of life you could
never tell whether he was winning or losing.
Only being denied a seat at the table has
brought him to despair. But the candle he
burned so brightly — "my candle burns at both
ends, it wiU not last the night, but oh, my
friends, and ah, my foes, it gives a lovely
light" — is very, very low.

Only a miracle, the doctors say, can bring
Mabel back to health.

But, where Mabel is concerned, I want to
believe in miracles. I want to believe in some kind hand that
will reach down and lift up that tragic, helpless little figure —
the most tragic of all Hollywood's broken idols — and put it
back at the start of things again. Surely somewhere — if
not here, somewhere else — a kindly God can turn back the
hands of the clock just a few brief years and let JMabel start all
over again. It doesn't seem much to ask for the girl who
never did harm to anyone in all her life.

IT seems that whatever power planned things in the beginning
owes Mabel something forgiving her that divine gift of laughter
and then sending her through life without any protection from
the ruthless parasites, the selfish sycophants, the birds of prey
that hover over the gay, the talented, the generous.

Mabel Normand was the greatest comedienne the screen
ever knew. I would not dare to make that statement upon
my own opinion alone. I heard it said first by Charlie Chaplin.
No one, I think, would dispute his authority. I have heard
it said often since bv those who should know.



and the Little GlOWN



By

Adela Rogers
St. Johns



Yet today when she lies so desperately ill we
remember that it is years since we saw her on
the screen, since "IMickey" delighted us past
measure. She has been out of pictures for
years, when her great talent should have been
keeping pace with the development of the
motion picture art. Today she should occupy
the place among the women of the screen that
Chaplin holds among the men.

But Mabel is proof positive that women are
not able to meet the world as men meet it.
Physically and professionally she broke under
the things piled up against her. We are the
losers, for we, too, have lost Mabel's gift of
laughter.

Perhaps there will be a miracle.

I KNOW. Who better? I am proud to say
that I have been her friend since first she came
to the land of motion pictures from some
factory in Brooklyn, a mingling of youth and
beauty and laughter that fairly took our
breath away.

I know what is chalked up against her.

A lot of hot-headed, wild, young foolishness
such as most of the tlaming youth of today has
to grow out of.

But bad luck rode beside her on the highway.

She got herself into messes that made great
headlines. Her friends got her into things.
Mabel has always been the fall guy. She never
got away with anything in her life. There are
plenty of girls in the world who have done in
fact the things Mabel was only suspected of,
and they have righted themselves and gone on.
But JNIabel had no balance, no perspective, no
cold streak through her warm emotionalism to
teach her how to handle life.

Rfore brains and less sense than any woman
I ever knew — that is what I would sav of
Mabel.

You don't hear about that brilliant, fasci-
nating, cultured brain of Mabel's. Mention any of the great
books of the past ten years, either in French or English. She
has read them and she has thoughts about them almost as
interesting as the books themselves.

You don't know that, even in these last years when Mabel
has been far from herself, there are a dozen of the cleverest
men and women in Hollywood who delighted to spend a quiet
evening before her fireside, talking books and music, men and
world affairs.

YOU don't know that all Hollywood, from the topmost rung
of the ladder to the depths of the lowest gutter, is spangled
with Mabel's enormous charity. Real charity — for it came
from a purse that was often empty, from a heart that was
near breaking, from a mind that always managed to find some
good in everyone, even those who found no good in her.

You don't hear how, in the old days, Mabel brought her
divine gift of laughter into our dark days — and how she could,
in some way, make laughter synonymous with courage.





^rMfi mat W^R^^^^^^^^^^H








\^ ^


â– 


-


m





The girl who loved laughter



The world doesn't know those things and even in FfoUywood,
they have been too easily forgotten.

But the world knows, and Hollywood, which has become
very self-protective and a little smug with success, remembers
a lot of other things and that remembrance has weighed upon
Mabel and broken her.

William Desmond Taylor and his murder!

How that thing did cling to Mabel's skirts for years because
she was the last person known to have seen him alive.

If she told me herself that she knew who shot Bill Taylor, I
wouldn't believe her. And let me tell you that there were two
nights, one on the long distance telephone to Chicago, one in a
house in Altadena soon after the tragedy, when I believe that
if Mabel had known who shot him, she would have told me.

When you come right down to it, what was there about
Mabel's connection with the Taylor murder that should have
been held against her? She had dropped in to see her friend,
Bill Taylor. Mabel had many men friends. Later, that same
night, someone killed him. [ please turn to page 123 ]

39




he Prayed for the

Part



Winifred West-
over, whose three-
year belief that
she would be the
final choice for
the title role in
"Lummox" is as
amazing a story
as we have ever
printed. She has
been absent from
the screen for
about eight years,
has played op-
posite well-
known stars but
has never before
been starred
herself




IT really was astounding. This was Hollywood which, even
in this age of modernism, prides itself on being ultra-
sophisticated. And yet here was a woman who had just
been selected for the year's most coveted role in motion
pictures, calmly asserting that her selection was a direct answer
to prayer.

The woman was Winifred Westover. She had been chosen
from among all the applicants for the title role in "Lummox,"
Fannie Hurst's story which Herbert Brenon will picturize for
United Artists. Why? Her answer was simple.

"Because I prayed for it."

She has not appeared on the screen for about eight years.
She was, some years ago, a leading woman who played opposite
some prominent stars and who worked for some competent
directors. But she never had been a star. Why was she
selected?

"Because I prayed for it."

"Do you mean that you believe your selection was a direct
answer to your prayers?"

"I know it was," she answered. "For nearly three years I
have known that I would eventually be selected for the role.
There never was any doubt in my mind. Many others wanted
the role. Many others were said to have been chosen. I knew
better. I knew that, when the final choice was made, I would
be chosen."

Understand, this woman was not posing. She has a faith so
childlike that it is almost sublime. Her very simplicity carries
conviction. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: —

"Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find."

"I have been off the screen since 1921," she said. (That was



And having prayed,
knew beyond doubt
that she would get it

By
Frank Pope



the year she married William S. Hart.) "My
retirement was the result of the agreement made
when we separated. Enough of that was
published at the time; there is no need of raking
it up now. After the separation, I had my
boy, of course; but something inside of me
had died. I felt Uke a dead person. Life
seemed over. It was terrible.

"Nearly three years ago 'Lummox' appeared
as a serial in a magazine and I read it. I
bought the book when it was published and
I read it again and again. From the moment
I first read it, I wanted it to be made into
a picture and I wanted to play the title role.
That was the time I began to pray for it.

"I knew I could play the character. I understood that woman.
I knew everything she thought and felt. 'Lummox' became
an obsession with me. And I knew even then that my prayers
would be answered, that a picture would be made and that I
would play the role.

"Then one of the smaller producers bought the picture
rights. It made no difference to me what company made the
picture; I would be in it. I was involved in legal difficulties
at the time, but not even those took my mind from the main
object, nor weakened my faith. The agreement which kept
me from the screen was set aside, and that strengthened me.
It was a good sign.

THEN it was announced that Herbert Brenon had bought
the story. Although I knew that he would make 'Sorrell
and Son' and another picture before 'Lummox,' that he could
not set even an approximate date for starting work on it, I
still prayed, I still held my faith that I would be chosen.

"Last January the plans for the production were started. I
tried to see ISIr. Brenon, but he had gone to New York. I had
realized that, if I were to play the role, I must be heavy, as
Lummox was. Up to that time, in common with most
women, my desire had been to stay slender. Now I wished to
be heavy. I ate and ate and ate — heavy foods, fattening
foods, i gained twenty-five pounds.

"I went to Mvron Selznick, whom I knew well, and asked
him to give me a letter to Mr. Brenon. He advised me to see
Frank Jovce, and I did. I convinced him that I should have
the role and he sent a wire to [ please turn to P.A.GE 92 ]



Winifred Westover flings a challenge to scoffers



ho




First Prire

$1,000

Mrs. Mary M. Hoar
Barre, Vt.



Second Prize

$500

Robert W. Goetz
Riverside, Calif.



Third Prire

$350

Mrs. B. C. Norment
Thomasville, N. C.



Fourth Prize

$150

Clare Rusk
Baltimore, Md.



L/ucky Amateur Uetectives

$3,000, in nineteen prizes, go to PHOTOPLAY readers
who solve Studio Murder Mystery



THE jury of judges in The Studio Murder Mystery Con-
test has announced its verdict and checks have been
mailed to the lucky amateur detectives who best solved
how and why Franz Seibert, the director of Superior
Films, killed one of his chief actors, Dwight Hardell.

It was no easy matter to examine and analyze every one of
the many thousands of solutions submitted from every state in
the Union and nearly every countr>' on the globe. Indeed, the
judges were weeks in arriving at their final decisions.

Here it is interesting to comment upon the thousands of solu-
tions submitted. The great majority of Photoplay's non-
professional detectives picked Seibert as the real culprit. Un-
fortunately, nearly all of these contestants missed out in the
German director's motives, as well as in the state of mind
prompting these motives.

The most common error was to say that Seibert killed Hardell
in a rage, artistic or personal, whereas the director was abso-
lutely cool, the crime being premeditated and carefully planned.
Secondly, most of the amateur detectives forgot the motor-
driven camera and were forced to conclude that Seibert was
aided in his crime by Serge, the Russian cameraman.

A third error was to have Seibert kill Hardell in physical
combat. This missed the real fact that Hardell was lying
within the chalk lines on the floor of the set when the director
thrust the rapier through his heart.

Every character in the mystery story was suspected by at
least a hundred or so contestants. Oddly enough, the unnamed
nurse who attended Beth MacDougal was strongly under sus-
picion, although there was nothing tangible in the stor\' to point
to this conclusion. However, Rosenthal, Billy West, Yvonne
Beaumont, Lannigan, MacDougal, his daughter, Beth; Serge,
the prop boy, the office boy, and even the studio guards were
named as the murderer or murderers.

SOME of the contestants believed that Hardell was electro-
cuted on the wire-charged studio fence while attempting to
get back in the studio.

Some of the ingenious contestants, apparently affected by the
kind of publicity that emerges frequently from Hollywood, sus-
pected that the whole thing was a publicity stunt — and that
Hardell would reappear in the last chapter.

Some of the contestants have written to Photoplay, stating



that the final chapter left a number of loose ends. To these
inquiries, Photoplay can only point out the foremost mystery
story successes of the day. All of these crime novels leave
numerous loose ends. This is part of the game of hiding the
real culprit, for it sends readers galloping up blind alleys.

A few contestants think that Seibert's occult interest — and
his subsequent desire for a visible record of a man's death —
should have been pointed out in an early chapter. It is obvious
that this would have placed the foreign director definitely as
the murderer. Moreover, a consistent study of Seibert's char-
acter and background makes this occult angle a logical and
understandable part of his mad mental processes. The fact
that it was guessed by some of the lucky contestants proves this
point.

THE first prize, of §1,000, was awarded to Mrs. Mary M.
Hoar, of 31 East Street, Barre, Vl. ]\Irs. Hoar, a hfelong
resident of Barre, is the widow of Richard .Alexander Hoar, one
of the prominent attorneys of central Vermont and a distin-
guishecl criminal lawyer of his day. Mrs. Hoar lives with her
91-vear-old mother, Mrs. Lewis Keith, four miles from Barre,
her home looking out upon the Green Mountains.

Mrs. Hoar has five children. One daughter. Miss E. M. M.
Hoar, 13 a lawyer.

Second prize, of S500, goes to Cadet Robert W. Goetz, of
the March Field .\ir Corps, of Riverside, Calif. Cadet Goetz is
twenty-one years old and was born at Minneapolis, Minn. His
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edgar A. Goetz, reside in St. Paul, Minn.

Cadet Goetz was graduated from the Mechanics Arts High
School of St. Paul and for two years attended the University
of Wisconsin. He passed his entrance examinations in the air
corps and is now in training in California as a flying cadet.

The third prize, of S350, was awarded to Mrs. B. C. Norment,
of Thomasville, North Carolina. Mrs. Norment is a public
school teacher. After graduating from college, Mrs. Norment
taught the piano for a number of years. She married and took
up the career of a housewife. The sudden death of her husband
left her with two children to support and Mrs. Norment turned
to teaching again, this time in the Thomasville public school.

The fourth prize, of vSlSO, was captured by Miss Clare Rusk,
of 1801 Linden Avenue, Baltimore, Md. Miss Rusk, who was
born and raised in Baltimore, is [ please turn to page 119 ]

41



Some Hints from the Stars on arrang-




Estelle Taylor started it. But Raquel Torres illustrates for you here how fly-away hair that is too long
to hang down and too short to coil up can be deftly held together in a charming chignon. The method
is amusingly simple. Stretch a sturdy rubber band across the back of the hair, catching it securely
behind each ear with a hairpin. Give the pin a little twist as you insert it, and it will hold fast. Then
coil the ends of the hair over the elastic, fastening with plenty of tiny hairpins. This arrangement gives

the effect of long hair



A VISITOR passing through Holly
wood one afternoon stopped to look
at a sorrowing group of men
marching along the boulevard.
At first glance they might have been
foreign actors with accents, fleeing
before the shadow of the microphone.
They might have been producers
who hadn't merged. They were
neither. Only a group of barbers
who were folding their scissors
and silently stealing away.

Hollywood seems to be grow-
ing out. Dozens of the film gals
are letting their hair go feminine
again. But not all by any
means.

The feminine members of the
film colony may be divided into
four opinions. There are those
who have had long hair all dur-
ing those hectic shearing days
(Mary Philbin, Mary Brian, Nor-
ma Shearer, June Colly er).

There are some who have al-
ways had bobbed hair and continue
to have it (Dorothy Sebastian, Clara
Bow, Florence Vidor, Alice White,
Bebe Daniels, Norma Talmadge).

Then there is the "yes and no"
group — those who have bobbed,
grown out and bobbed again (Joan
Crawford, Laura La Plante, Jean
Arthur, Esther Ralston, Olive Bor-
den, Evelyn Brent).

And, most important of all, you'll
find the group that is just growing
out.

They are passing through that
awkward stage.

Every woman who has let her hair
grow knows what this means. A con-
tinual worry for many months. Doz-
ens of boxes of invisible hairpins. Stray, unruly hair.




The Garbo cut needs no introduction.
It has spread like wildfire through
every city and town. This photo-
graph of the pensive Greta shows a
particularly pleasing variation of her
versatile bob



One of the most practical methods is that em-
ployed by a number of the players, including
Estelle Taylor and Raquel Torres. It is
done with a simple twist of the wrist and
a plain rubber band.

The elastic is pulled taut across

the back of the head and is held in

place with two hairpins, one behind

each ear. This keeps the hair

smooth at the back. Then the

long hair that is so unpleasant on

the nape of the neck is curled up

tight to conceal the band.



ANOTHER ingenious meth-
od is employed by Leila