MARY PICKFORD MAY MAKE FILMS IN ENGLAND

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 71, 10 April 1937, Page 17

MARY PICKFORD MAY MAKE FILMS IN ENGLAND

Mary Pickford, very sweet, with ringletod fair hnir and deep blu© eyes> a rieh woman at 43, now occupying the £100-a-week penthouse auite at Claridge's, remarked that never forgot the days when Bhe was poor (says a wxiter in the London News-Chronicle). "The first day I Worked in a film," she said, "I earned £1. It rained so hard that my clothes, worth altogether £4, were ruined. But, of caurse, they couldn't be thrown away. We were too poor for that. waa 15, but I'd been working f®' 10 years before then. I played all the child parts, I think — Bootle's Baby, Littl© Willie in 'East Lynne,' I4ttle JEva in 'TJncIe Tom's Cabin', and the others. I had £2 for my first week's work." hiiss Pickford had hgd a long chat on the telephone with her intended husband, Buddy Kogers, busy at Elstree with "Badio Parade of 1937*" It is quite likely that when she forms her new production company she will make films in this country. Her notion is to shar© the leading parts equally between Eiiulish and American players.

J6itertainment, sh© says, will be tho ■: fitst consideration in her pictures. But cinema audiences nowadays, in her view, have a higher level of understanding than some people allhv ^hem. "For a producer consciously .to play down to people is," she is confident. "a mistake." I asked what she contemplated as a reasonable cost for a good picture. 4'Well, I have found we could not get below £100,000 as things are," said Miss Pickford. "But costs have grown far more than they should hav© done, A produoer's worries generally are more complieated than they used to be. ; Why, even the smaller players, gettiug ten. to fifteen thousand dollars for a picture, expect to he consulted dbout tbe script and on all sorts of points as muchi as the stars." ■ With regard to colour, Miss Pickford ubserved that men who looked at lovely -i giris on the screen would obviously preier to seo them in their natural celour- : mg. But personaily she is not convin- ; ced that in its present- stage colour js worth the extra cost exoept in 'certain 1 cases. She is more concerned with stereoscopy, and one of her activities m London will be to examine a prooess whieh is said to bo as near stereoscopy as can b© expefeted without requhing an audienc© to wear special spectacles, "Will Buddy Rogers pppear in auy of your pictures?" "No," said Mary, smilingly. . "Fortunately "h© doesn't want to." "And are you going to act again yourself ?" "VV'ell," said Mary, "an actress never retires, and I can say I haven't. • But t have no definite plans for return- | J i«g to the screen." ! Oue of the stories she hopes to film I ij. "Doi'othy Vernon, of Haddon Hall," j u:t she proposes to begin with a nons ostume, modern story, pcssibly in the i. h'!t* sqiirica], nonsensical mnnmr iinfc has become the fashion. There h, ohe says, a shortage of stories.