GRACE MOORE ON SCREEN OPERA

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

GRACE MOORE ON SCREEN OPERA

Like all transitional personalities, Grac© Moore has had her difficultiea, been fought over and torn by divided allegiances — grand opera wanting het to be reasonably dignified, lusciously voiced and peusonally Temote, and the movies demanding that she milk cowa, dispense autographs, answer fan mail and look too beautiful. Nor will it be news to add that, owing to immenac vitality and unfailing good humour, Miss Moore is to-day the world 's most popular battlefield — tsome saying she can 't sing but is easy to look at, others that* she doesn't have to be good looking, considering the way she can sing. Historically, too, Miss Moore may prove to be at least equal in importance to Waterloo and Balaclava. Ifi that awkward age when the movies, reinforced by sound, began their slow but fatal prqcess of absorbing all the other theatrical arts, Miss Moore wa? one df the most glittering bits of raw material that fell into the vast Hollywood hopper. And though the mills of the gods in those days ground with exceeding coarseness, it is a matter of record that she emerged splendidly, at last, as perhaps the most outstandingly sucoessful iigure of the singing screen. Her success was not, of course, exclusively vocal, and to-day the only thing she seems to resent about movie cele,bi'ity is the way it impdses on its hapless victims the neceesity for being glamorous tweny-four hours a day. Glamorous, therefore, albeit Tesentfully, she looked, in a dull silvery coektail gown with pagoda-tilted shoulders, on the afternoon we repaired to her suite at the Sherry-Netheriand Hotel to talk Over her latest picture, " When You're in Love, } ' writes a coiumnist in The New York Times.' First she talked about the many dtegraceful things they're making opera stars dq in the films these days (she admitted that it wouldn't be surprising if they put her on the flying trapeze next) and sighed. This time sh© didn't have any animals to contend with, but they had.made her Sing "Minnie the Moocher. ' ' . Even so, she felt they had managcd to be, comical without having soJbebody throw things at the conductor. "You aren't by 'any chance refbrring to a person named Oakie?" we inquired, remembering a sequence in Miss Lily Pons's last film, "That Girl From Paris." "l didn't meiition any name," MiSs Moore said, primly. "You didn't mention any name," we infcisted, like a merciless . prosecqting attorney, "but the initial wero Jack Oakie, weren 't they V' Mis# Moore didn't deny if. Bhe was more communicative when we broached the subject of 44 Minnie the Moocher," telling her how anxious we wero to know: just what her interpretation of that old classic would be like. "What is your conception of 'Minnie?' " we inquired. Miss M6ore thought a minute, "Well," she said, carefully, "I think I can de the trucking part as well as any amateur. I sang it with four distinet mo.vements patterncd on the more conservative hot singers." • "Laxyngeal movements!" we inquired. "No," replied Miss Moore, blushingly. Miss Moore is gratef ully aware that her success in pictures has helped to popularise certain operas. Fortune Gallo once told her that after "One Night ^ of Love," the demand for ' ' Madame Butterfly" and " Garmen,' ' the name roles of which she dramatised in that film, rose enormously. Incidentally, she will probably do Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera House next season, also "Louise," which she did in Paris several seasons ago. She is tsailing for Europe shortly— has a front-row seat practically at the door of the Abbey for the Goronation — and will do a few concerts in the meantime. But her principal xeason for going to Eurppe Is a curious one: seems her films are made for Columbia on a percentage basis, and there are ceTtain countries — like Germany and Italy —-from which she is not allowed to export the money belonging to her. The only thing she can do, therefore, is to go over and spend it, which is not at all inconvenient for Miss Mooto, whe would probably be going ever, spending some money or other, anyway.

Ulcombe, in Nent, England, is a vil« lage of twins. Mrs. Brcdit, wife of Kev. E. R. Bredin, tlif Tector,'holds a sewing class of about ten women. Five of them have had twins, and one of them is herself a twin. Buring three years Mr. and Mrs. Bredin have had two maids who were each the daughters of twins; they married twins. Beeking the reason why Victoria Sea, in the far north of Bussia, doesn't freeze even in bitterest winter, ihe Soviet Government intends to set up the northern-most winter camp in the world. The station will be established on Rudolph Island, in Franz Josef Land, cnly a few hundred miles from the North Pole. Seventeen persons arpi jreparing for the expedition in Lenin'