"ROSE MARIE” CONFESSES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 232, 20 December 1927, Page 11

"ROSE MARIE” CONFESSES

THOUGHT STAGE BENEATH HER YOUTHFUL LEADING LADY A demure little lady in a green hat twisted a diamond-studded watch round her wrist, aboard the Maunganui this morning. She was proud of the watch, and perhaps unconsciously proud of a slim wrist. “Isn’t it a beautiful watch?” queried Harriet Bennet, and everyone agreed that it was. “That is a present from ‘the Firm’ for not missing one single performance in ‘Rose Marie'; I'm terribly proud of it,” she remarked. Miss Bennet is a very youthful leading lady—slim and charming. “I tried to lose my American accent while I was in England,”* she laughed as the newspaper man remarked that he found it difficult to believe that she was American-born. “But I was,” she said. “I was born in Detroit. My father was in the Umber business —lumber, we call it —and at an early age we moved to California, where I grew up. And that is enough about family history.” Miss Bennet always sang, in and out of her bath. When she was old enough she was taught singing by her mother’s sister, Maddme Brehany, who is still one of the leading teachers in California.

She did not go on the stage because she wanted to. “Do you know,” she confessed, “I thought it was beneath me. The Duncan Sisters heard me singing at a concert and asked me to appear with them in ‘Topsy and Eva.’ X went on one afternoon at a matinee, just to see what it was like—and I stayed on. That was my first appearance on the musical comedy stage.” Miss Bennet has been in Australia for two years, first in “Lilae Time” and then in "Rose Marie.” During that time she has had only five days’ holiday. “Oh, how I loved the rest on this trip to New Zealand,” she said. After her success in America Miss Bennet went to London, where she appeared in “The Wishing Well.” That was where she shed her American ac cent. This most youthful leading lady has been on the musical comedy stage for only five years. Part of that time was spent In playing Gilbert and Sullivan leads in America, where the operas are very popular. Miss Bennet is devoted to one hobby. That is taking moving pictures of her friends. She carries a small machine with her and when the films have been developed she entertains her “screen stars” at a private view. During her tour through New Zealand she hopes to film much of the scenery to take back to America with her. “I want to go home for a rest and more study,” she said this morning. “I have refused an offer to play In ‘The Desert Song,’ but I feel that I must go home for a time.” Another member of the company, Stephanie Deste, left the Maanganui hugging a small black kitten. “Yes. it was named ‘Maunganui’ by one of the stewards,” she said, “and I’m told it has brought the ship good luck.” "Rose Marie” will open at His Majesty’s Theatre to-morrow evening.