HUMAN MENAGERIE

Evening Star, Issue 21748, 16 June 1934, Page 8

HUMAN MENAGERIE

HOLLYWOOD'S CURIOUS PERSONS Not all of Hollywood’s 17,000 extras, and on one knows how many small-part players are beautiful girls or handsome young men. Nor do all of them aspire to become “stars.” They know that they can never be important names, and they know that they can never even be “ feature ” players (writes Clynton Masters . Yet they are content. They can laugh at their fellow-players who are in films only because of hopes of becoming “ stars.” These ambitious folk rarely get anywhere, and they are lucky if on an average they are given one day’s work during a week. These more fortunate ones are Hollywood’s brigade of freaks. They are specialists. Their names are known to all the directors, and they are in fairly constant demand.

It sounds strange to hear of anyone making a living by dying, but there are several expert living corpses. There is young Raymond Borzage, for instance. He is aged only sixteen, but he has found hia way into the studios regularly because of his peculiar ability to act dying roles. He has been an ill or dying boy in numerous films. Actually a normal and_ healthy youngster, he succeeds in looking touchingly pitiful on the screen. He can go straight from a heavy meal on to the “ set ” and play a part calling for him to look halfstarved, He is not the only player in Hollywood condemned to a living death. Another is Clarence Burton. Clarence makes an effective corpse. ' Ho claims that, since the advent of the talkies, he has died in fifteen different ways, ranging from being drowned in a shipwreck to death at the hands of a rioting mob. Clarence is engaged chiefly because_ of his ability as an actor, _ but casting directors take into consideration his proficiency at dying. Hollywood’s professional father is Walter Walker. He is the most popular portrayer of parent parts, having been a screen father to Constance Bennett, Jill Esmond, Ina Claire, and many others.

“ PAINTING FANNY ” GOES TOO FAR. “Fainting Fanny ” can throw a fit better than anyone else in Hollywood, and she has been employed as an extra by many studios. But Fanny tried to use her acting ability outside the range of the camera. She fainted on the “ set ” at one studio and collected damages for an injured back. She tried to sue other studios for having caused her emotional stress, and she threw fits in front of directors to prove how she had suffered. She is banned now, but on odd occasions she is given fainting parts in pictures. No one takes any notice of her if she faints off the “ set ” as well. There is another girl whom you must have seen often on the screen. She is known as “ Ugly Mary.” She appears invariably as a terrible old harridan. She is a young woman. A few years ago she was beautiful and ambitious. Then a terrible illness struck her down and disfigured her pretty features. Mary thought that her film career had ended, but it had not. It had only just begun. A friend suggested that she should act the parts of ugly women, and now her looks are made worse than they are for the purposes of film work. Louise Emmens is the daughter of a family widely known in exclusive American social circles. She is acknowledged hy the studios to be one of Hollywood’s most effective old hags. Alice Belcher is another strange Hollywood player who finds steady employment because of her remarkable looks. She is a typical sour old maid, arid as such appears in picture after picture. Henry Armetta. is the spluttering little Italian who appears in numerous talkies. No one else can lose his temper quite as well as he can, and ever since he appeared as an excitable French cook in ‘ Seventh Heaven ’ he has been in constant demand, generally as an Italian.

TRAGEDY OF AN “ APE MAN.” Dick Sutherland is well known by sight to most picturegoers. There is a shudder the moment he appears on the screen. He looks almost like an ape man, with bis long arms, bent body, and leering face. Dick is liked by everybody. Many people remember him as he was several years ago—a nice-looking, normal person. But overproduction of the pituitary glands changed his whole body. 1"> does not worry. He makes a-good living m the Hollywood circus because of his peculiarity. „, ' . “ I can get any type of human being I want,” a leading casting director once tould me. “At once, too. Sometimes you would never think that any such person existed; but you send out the call, and the very type turns up immediately. I’ve had one-armed men by the score; men with hare-bps, with broken ears, without arms, with smashed noses. Thugs find plenty ot work, especially in gangster pictures and sporting films, when a few cauliflower ears are needed; There is not such a great demand for contortionists, though—there are too many of them There is a colony of bearded men just outside Hollywood, and from here you can get as many beards as you like at a moment’s notice. It is even recorded that when’ one studio needed 500 bearded men they were found within half an hour. Real beards are necessary, and even the stars lm ve to grow whiskers when the part demands them. Artificial beards are too dangerous, and there have been tragedies in the studios through their catching fire. These bearded men are divided into several groups, according to the size and shape of their whiskers, from military beards to the I -ds nests affected by old Western types. Downey Robinson is* one of the most conspicuous of the beard brigade. Only his eyes and nose are clear of his whiskery which spread 6in on either side ot his tace. He is one of the most famous personalities in Hollywood. People always turn round to stare after him when they see him in the street.