No Midnight Suppers for Modern ‘Stars'

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 412, 21 July 1928, Page 24

No Midnight Suppers for Modern ‘Stars'

KCTORS and actresses are still quite popularly supposed to be peop who hate going to bed. The idea persists that when the play is over they go oft to rowdy parties or to furtive night clubs and there proceed to drink more champagne than is good for them.

On the whole, this is fiction. There are some well-known gadabouts of the stage, and theatrical parties are not uncommon, but the majority of actors and actresses realise it is essential that they take care of themselves, and there are few theatrical parties which a bishop might not attend. Actresses of the standing of Miss Edith Day and Miss Evelyn Lave, who are paid about £250 a week, and whose livelihood depends upon their keeping fresh and lit, are seldom seen at midnight functions. Miss Day has been in some very long runs and is credited with being one of the most well-to-do of musical comedy stars. That she continues to shine brightly is at least partly due to the fact that I she does not burn the candle at both ends.

Leading women of musical comedy have only a certain period of sunshine

in which to make hay. Miss Lily Elsie said, after her recent come-back, that she would never again take a part which called for modern stage dancing. There is always a shortage of such stars, and while the salaries they receive may seem to be extravagant and the money they earn from gramophone records —it runs into many hundreds of pounds a month in certain cases —is very large, the strain on the actress’s physique must be taken into business account. (Continued on Page 25).