LATEST DOINGS FROM THE STUDIOS

Chronicle (Levin), 28 December 1946, Page 7

LATEST DOINGS FROM THE STUDIOS

Les. M.

Murphy)

■ •» (SPECIAL — From

Joan Crawford is in love again, and this time it is unknown Greg Bautzer. In Hollywood they say about Jane Russell that she is taking the country by form — since $he release of "The Outlaw." English actress Peggy Cummins, after the disaster over "Forever Amber," quoted in "Filmland" early in the year, has now been given a starring role in an ambitious new picture, "Moss Rose," and is happy again. Gloria Vanderbilt Stokowski is trying to break into pictures, but is being given the cold shoulder. Mary Pickford boldly foreeasts that black-and-white pictures will soon be obsolete, that all Hollywood will soon go all technicolour. ■ The film dog Lassie, the New Zealand children's screen ideal, now earns £6000 a year. Clark Gable recently underwent an operation on his tongue for the removal of a growth. Mickey Rooney is insisting on £5000 a week for personal appear - ances and top billing everywhere, no matter who else is on the programme. Next he'll want his name in bigger letters thah the name of the theatre. "The Razor's Edge," which has long been awaited to reach New Zealand, will have its premiere in Paris next month, with author Somerset Maugham attending and a plane-load of Hollywood people flown there from the United States. If the film correctly resembles the book then "fans" are in for a treat when "The Razor's Edge" is shown in the Dominion. It stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter and Clifton Webb. There is a revolt among the men who write the gag lines and funny stuff for top-ranking comedians, sueh as Abbott and Costello, most of whom never had a bright thought in their life. The other dav they presented an ultimatum demanding more money and said: "Nature gives these headliners a funny face. Experience gives them timirig and sense of pace, but the writers give them the rest. Put them out on a stage without preparation and all they could do is sweep it." Film rights of the hit play "The Glass Menagerie" have been sold for the record figure of half a million dollars, the highest price ever paid for a play for picture purposes. Competition from Britain is making the movie Moguls in Hollywood jittery and.Arthur Rank and Sir Alexander Korda are now bidding for best Sellers on;the boofcstalls and stagas with mo^tejf that^is making Los Afigeles- ^nfsed Eve^y time an American magnate goes to London they say in~New--.York that he .came,,£$is> fionetirred. Stars':. competition, and increases a're slated for Betty Grable, Cornel Wilde, Peter Lawford, as . well as huge profit-sha ring deals for "^b'oX-office lures such as Garson, Gable and Crawford.