REFUSED TO VAMP!

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 80, 25 June 1927, Page 23

REFUSED TO VAMP!

SCREEN STARS STRIKE HOLLYWOOD SENSATION DE PUTTI AND GRETA GARBO

JJ OLLYWOOD’S habit of classifying its actors and actresses as “typjss” rather than human beings has resulted in a remarkable situation over the screen future of the two famous Continental stars. Lya de Putti and Greta Garbo , who have repeated in America, on a larger scale, the success that they won hi European countries.

"\TISS DE PUTTI is well known here, writes a Hollywood correspondent, chiefly owing to her performance in the film, “Vaudeville,” and Miss Garbo, who was seen in “Gosta Berling,” is a worthy rival to her. When they reached America they were so different from anything that Hollywood had ever seen before that the film-producers were at a loss to classify them in the conventional pigeon-holes of photoplay construction. Finally they said to Miss de Putti, in effect, “You are the type of woman who (on the screen) deliberately leads men astray,” and to Miss Garbo, speaking figuratively, they said: “You are the type of woman who (on the screen) leads men astray in spite of herself.”

Miss de Putti and Miss Garbo, however, though gratified by their success, were not content to go on “vamping” for ever.

They asked to be allowed to vary the “vamp” theme with roles more ingenuous. Permission was refused. Miss de Putti at once threw up the job, an act which brought immediate compliance from her producers, but Miss Garbo was not so fortunate.

Her contract had a long period to run, and her employers were powerful

enough to prevent he.- fro.m germing parts elsewhere. They told her that if she recused to “vamp” they would have her deported by asking the immigration authorities to cancel her permit lo work in America “Vamp or vamoose" was what they said, in effect to Miss Garbo, and ther# the matter rests.