HOW HOLLYWOOD FACES ARE MADE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 65, 3 April 1937, Page 13

HOW HOLLYWOOD FACES ARE MADE

vTbe four Westmore brofhers are face dispensers to Hollywood. They analyse the features of would-be movie actresses, and, if necessary, assign them better camera faces than Nature endowed them with. Among their methods : bring out a receding feature by highlighting it (use a ligjhter powder than the rest of the face); shade a too prominent part of the face to make it iecede ; change the shape of the i'ace with a new hairdressing. "If a girl doesn't screen well,'» cxplained one of the Westmores, "we do a 'complete' — start her from the heginning. For example, we inay part her hair in the middle, draw it straight back, pencil her eyes out, shadow her jaw, give her a heart-shaped face, a small curved mouth, and then photograph her. Then we stayt all over again ; give her hair a light rinse and curl up the ends to form a fluffy halo, accent a turned-up nose, square off her jaw, give her a ±ull Joan Crawford type of "mouth. The third time we do her with a different coiffure, lighten or darken her hair, vary. the feauures again. After we have done her a fourth time ' with another set of features, we run off all four tests, and pick the best coinbinations — baircomb from oue, perhaps, nose from the second, mouth from the third, and shape- of face from the fourth. Then she is photographed. again with this assortment of featureslf the combination is sueeessful, she is permanently assigned that face, and a chart is made of it"Formerly, one company would borrow antoher's star and cast her, only to find she did not pliotograph as they had expected — usualuly because she had changed her make-up. Now, whatever slio goes, the chart of her face goes with her, and the director knows she will ahvays look tho same."