No Discord!

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 June 1927, Page 23

No Discord!

Hollywood True Love Marie Prevost Tells Why HER OWN LOVE STORY

Herein Marie Prevost, popular cinema star, in her own words, tells the story of her love match with Kenneth Harlan. Marie discounts stories of matrimonial discord at Hollywood.

Even since I was a Mack Sennett bathing girl (yes, I graduated from slap-stick comedy, like Gloria Swanson and some others) I decided that I would marry a six-foot he-man. No ultra-sophisticated men of the world or charming lounge lizards for me! But the sort of man who was my ideal didn’t seem in a hurry to come my way. I got tired of the Mack Sennett set, and ..aspired to more serious comedy and drama work. Lots of girls have had similar feelings. I, however, was lucky. Ernst Lubitsch saw me and thought there might be something more in me than just a flirtatious range of expressions and the ability to wear fetching frocks. Lubitsch worked me hard, and 1 worked hard for him. And when he starred me in “The Marriage Circle,” I was “made.” I worked myself to a standstill on that film, and hadn’t the opportunity to worry further about that ideal lover. Stage Was Set Meantime (as they say in novels), there was a man named Kenneth Harlan busy about the studios; and he made his name in “Flame of the Yukon.” The stage, you see, was set for our romance. We met. The point was, was this six-foot of masculinity who had sailed into my

ken the only man in the world for me, or not? It wasn’t an easy question to answer—as most young women who have been on the point of falling in love, but haven’t been quite sure, will understand. I suppose we were pretty deeply in love before we began to make the film “Bobbed Hair” together. I say “I suppose”—but on referring this point to Ken, comfortably smoking a pipe and nursing a dog while I toil over this romance of ours, I am met with the retort: “In love? Me? Nothing of the sort. *You vamped me.” The man never will admit the sentiment.

Anyway, we started our first reellove scenes in that “Bobbed Hair” film. Ken, a bit shy, was directed how to make proper love to me by an aggressive gentleman with a megaphone. He couldn’t help himself. And then something snapped. We slipped from reel into real love. Ken sighed like a grampus every time he kissed me. He said: “Oh. what are you going to do about it?” I couldn’t think, so, I said: “It looks like a bad case. I guess I’ll have to marry you.” So that was how it happened. We had our bread and butter to earn; besides, we wanted a fairy home in the hills, lots and lots of dogs, and a couple of cars. And consequently we couldn’t do what any ordinary couple would have done in the circumstances—take a month off. Obtained the Licence. We paused in the middle of the picture just long enough to get a marriage licence, and promised ourselves a honeymoon later on. But that picture was no sooner finished than Ken got caught up in another picture; a-nd so did I. It was a year later before we could get away together for a honeymoon. Ah. well! It was worth waiting for! When we came back I fell ill, and Ken divided his time between looking after me and supervising the building of our fair home, with its old English gardens and fountains—and dogs—in the hills. v* And when anybody asks us who are the happiest married couple in Hollywood, we just stare coldly at him and say; “Is there any question about it? Why, we, of course.”

Boulders and stones made to order are the latest achievement of the technical department of the Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer Studios. The exterior of a large cave was photographed by the Altars of Desire Company while they were at Big Bear Lake, about 100 miles from Los Angeles. When Mae Murray, the star, and Conway Tearle, who plays the featured male lead, returned to the studio, several scenes had to be photographed on the inside of the cave, constructed on one of the stages. Maude George. Robert Edeson and Andre Bergenger are in the cast.

Flora Finch, comedienne, who has been making us laugh for many years, discovered the other day that movie rain is as wet as rain anywhere else. It: was an effect planned for “Quality Street," in which Miss Finch plays a comedy role. She was sitting by a window; outside it should have started to rain There was something wrong with the studio rain arrangements that day. It rained suddenly and hard, but most of the rain fell inside the window instead of outside. Miss Finch continued to .talk, until her eye fell suddenly on her gown. *Tm ruined!!” she cried. She was not ruined, quite, but she was all wet. The gossip at the window sill delayed until her bedraggled costume was ironed out Antonio Moreno parted with a number of pound notes when he arrived at Southampton, to play opposite Dorothy Gish in “Madame Pompadour” recently. They fell to the lot of the customs’ inspector as duty on the new kind of cinematograph camera and a large supply of cigars Moreno took with him. Twenty years ago the movie star was a baker’s boy in a small Spanish town. Two wealthy Americans took a fancy to him and had him educated. Now he owns a Hollywood mansion, motor cars and horses. His wife and two guests accompanied him to England.