LATEST DOINGS FROM THE STUDIOS

Chronicle (Levin), 20 December 1947, Page 7

LATEST DOINGS FROM THE STUDIOS

Les. M.

Murphy)

(SPECIAL — From

Janis Paige has announced her engagement to Luigi Martinelli, a weaitny restaurant owner ot San Francisco. Janis says that she wnl continue ner filrn career for a period after her marriage. Buster Keaton, at 53 has begun a new career as a circus performer •n Paris. Keaton was the pasty faced film comedian of the siient j C). -e. tne circus Keaton uses the same dead-pan routine which orought hina movie fame in America. French star Florence Marly has arrived in Hollywod with 11 trunks l'ull of Paris clothes. Her frocks; have all long skirts, which she deciares are "more provocative than knes-length dresses — they leave more to che imagination." She will co-star_with Ray Milland in "The Sealed Verdict" for Paramount. iviargaret Sullivan has separated! from husband Leland Hayward. { iviargaret only recently returned to; Hollywood from London, where shej has been starring in "The Voice of j the Turtle." Tne gossip started! when Hayward did not meet her at the airport, and Maggie .announced the separation the next day. Through the broken ankle Genej Keny reueivea when recenuy practising ctance routines at his home,1 he will not be able to work for at ieast four months. Metro were fortunate in getting Fred Astaire to replace Gene in "Easter Parade," a rnusical, which will now scar Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. Gracie Fields and her husband stayed away from both her brother Tommy's wedding and the reception after. Tommy Fields, a comedian of some calibre, married Cynthia Rawson, a member of a county Leicestershire family, . at j Caxton Hall. Gracie is not usually shy of publicity. Perhaps, however, she is still chary of waving her pro-Mussolini husband in the face of her popularity. Columbia Pictures has entered into a contract with the Beckworth Corporation, for the release and distributiun of two Rita Hayworth proauctions each year for the next seven years. All Miss Hayworth's productions, on her return from Europe where she is now making a publicity tour, will be produced by the Beckworth Corporation. Boris Karloff and Ward Bond have been signed by Walter Wanger -for top roles in the technicolou* film "Tap Roots," which co-stars Van Heflin and Susan Hayward ' for Univ'ersal-Interna-tional release. Karloff will portray the role of Tishomingo, the Indian, in James Street's celebrated n'ovel. He has recently coinpleted a similar part in Cecil ,t)e Mille's "Unconquered." ' •• i Moira Lister, 23-year-bld bloride beanty from Johannesburg, Soiith Africa, a reigning favourite of the London stage, has been signed for an important role in "So. Evil My Love," the Bri.tish Paramotmt picture now in production at Denham Studios in London. In the picture, which stars Ray Milland, with

Ann Todd and Geraldine Fitzgerald in support, Moira plays the role of Kitty Feathers, an alluring artist's model, who is in love with Milland. Claude Marsan, a Parisian expert in New York, says that Hollywood's screen lovers are amateurish, clumsy, and far too impulsive. A wealthy perfume manufacturer, Marsan is the self-styled- kissing champion of the United States and France. "The caveman taetics of Clark Gable, Van Johnson, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper and others are more apt to break a girl's ribs than her resistance," he said. His complaint is that these stars are teaching husbands to be just as uncouth. Claudette Colbert has been signed by Universal-International to star in MacKinlay Kantor's new novel, "Midnight Lace," which Claude Binyon, who is now writing the screen play, will also direct. It is understood production is expected to get underway by next March. "Midnight Lace," a period story of the late nineties, will be Miss Colbert's first picture for UniversalInternational since "The Egg and I." It will also be a • reunion for Miss Colbert and Claude Binyon, who wrote many of her early screen plays at Paramount. Latest casting assignments from Hollywood are: Diana Lewis and husband Bill Powell in Universal's "Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid"; Jthonda Fleming opposite Bing Crosby in Paramount's "Yankee"; Cary Grant, Robeft Ryan and Robert Mitchum in R.-K.-O.'s "Unknown Soldier," and eleven-year-old Richard Lyon (who played Irene Dunne's son in "Anna and the King of Siam") as Connie Bennett's son in "Allied Artists "Smart Woman."