IRELAND AND "PARNELL."

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 22, 27 January 1938, Page 21

IRELAND AND "PARNELL."

"Looking for a needle in a haystack is similar to finding perfect Irish screen types in Hollywood." At least that's: the way that Leonard Murphy, one of'the assistants to Billy Grady at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, 'felt about it after interviewing every available Irishman in the cinema city. Casting of people like Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Edna May Oliver, Cillie Burke, and Alan Marshall did not come under , Murphy's duties. ' But he was. responsible for getting most of the hundreds of Irishmen who work with them in "Parnell." "Upon ■ receiving the script, i nLturaHy " broke jny list of needed actors into types. . Not only was -I called upon to find'hundreds of perfect Irish types," explained the'casting official, '"but they had to mateh1 many of the faces found in copies of magazines during : the Parnell period of 1880. After getting as many Irish actors as possible by calling Central Casting and by going through our own flies, we found that we were still short, especially of the types with long* beards. Wo were about to put a special general call for all Irish types, but we discovered that word about the picture had been passed around, and the following day found two hundred Irishmen outside of the casting entrance of the studio Out of this group we picked an additional 100, but still our lists were not completed. Another general call wasof no avail. 'Fifty more Irish actor.; was the" demand of "Director, John M Stahl. but we had 'milked Hollywood dry.' Finally, we dispatched, a halfdozen assistant production managers and directors to toiir Southern California and find fifty > Irishmen. And being accustomed^to following orders, be it for Irishmen-or pyramids," Murphy concluded, "they returned with the fifty Irishmen."