TYPING—AND DOROTHY LAMOUR

Evening Star, Issue 23681, 14 September 1940, Page 5

TYPING—AND DOROTHY LAMOUR

There’s only one thing the ambitions movie actor fears more than a contract expiry, and that’s being forced to play the same kind of role in picture after picture. “ Typed ” is the word most commonly used.

True, now and then there is an actor who makes a comfortable living for himself because he happens to look like ' the public’s idea of an English butler or a Sioux Indian, but there is not a player in Hollywood with ol stardom who does not fear the classinca f tion iu the casting offices that definitely limits him in the type of role he can play. There are a few character actors who revel in these classifications because once they establish themselves, for instance, as perfect screen landlords, or traffic cops, they are set for life. We always seem to have that sort of person with ns in real life, so the script writers, who. try to portray things as they are, usually can’t avoid inserting a few scenes in almost every picture showing cither or both of these gentlemen. However, it is the up-and-coming player—the one with real ambition—who dreads the call for a repeat performance of a role simply because he has done the “type” well. Naturally, he feels that once he gets established in a certain type of role he is likely to find himself making that type his whole career. He realises that if the filmmaking suddenly happens to veer away from the one kind of story in which his type is found—then it is just too bad.

Take the case of the actor who used to “ scare everybody to death ” with his spine-chilling portrayals of ghouls, ghosts, and garroters. As long as thy public enjoyed being shocked out of' the seats the going was great, but when the movie fans did not seem to want so many horror films the “ Great Menace ” suddenly found himself spending most of his time watering the petunias and helping his wife around the kitchen.

The casting office, however, is- not to blame. If a call comes through for a

-player of a certain type, why shouldn’t the casting , director pick a person who, through past performances, he knows can play the part to perfection ? Certainly the casting office does not want to be caught in an avalanche of letters from movie fans complaining that so-and-so does not look or act at all the way lie is supposed to, so straight to the casting files they go when the call conies to find the name of someone who is “ typed.” But the case of Dorothy Lamour is different. Miss Lamour is a girl who clicked with a song and a sarong, and the usual thing happened. The producer said, “ If that’s the way the public wants to see—and hear—Dorothy, then we’ll oblige.” As a result Dorothy Lamour’s motion picture career never really got out of—shall we say—short dresses. But does Dorothy mind so much ? She says that wearing a certain kind of costume does not “ type ” a player any more than you could say that Charlie Chaplin has been typed because ho happens to wear the samo clothes in every picture. Only once in a while docs Dorothy murmur that she would like a change, because, like all women, she likes to bo different. That is why Paramount, who likes to please its stars as well as its public, gave Dorothy a dramatic role in ‘ Disputed Passage.’ In this picture Dorothy _ played her role straight—no singing or wearing of sarongs. However, Dorothy Lamour’s latest appearance is with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in ‘ Road to Singapore,’ in which she, sings and wears a sarong. After * Road to Singapore ’ she will be seen in the technicolour picture ‘ South of Samoa,’ also from Paramount.