SINGER LIKES FILM-STAR NEIGHBOURS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 148, 10 July 1937, Page 8

SINGER LIKES FILM-STAR NEIGHBOURS

"I love the movies,"' said Tito Schipa, the famons tenor, now in Australia and coming to New Zealand shortly. "I go every day, and sometimes two or three times a day. There I can rest and be entertained in comf ort. I like Ameriean movies best, for the photography, production and acting. Anfl then I know all the stars so well that it's just like seeing old friends on the screen. Wallace Beery is my nert door neighbour. He's a great fellow. Often when I'm in Beverly Hills he sings out to me, 'Hi, pal! What about cooking some spaghetti and inviting me to lunch?' "Jean Harlow was a very good friend of mine. I can't believe she'a dead^ She was a lovely giri — generous, friendly and bright. I liked hei a great deaL "Greta Garbo is my favourite star, though. I never miss her pictures. I Naw her in ' Camille ' before I left Italy. She was wonderful — and how! Greta often went to Edmund Lowe 's home in Hollywood, Edmund 's one of my best friends and I go. to his place a lot. " Greta curls up on a sofa and I sing to her. Sometimes she '11 say: 'Tito, please sing "O Sole Mio" for me.' " Here Schipa stopped. "No, ehe didn't say is like that." He dropped his tenor voice right down into the depths, and said it again, imitating Greta 's accent. - "That's just how she says it. Greta 's a charming person. She's very shy with strangers, but vory natural and unaffected when she knows you."