FROM THE STAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1075, 12 September 1930, Page 14

FROM THE STAGE

I BACKGROUNDS OF STARS We seem to be accustomed simply to i referring to new screen celebrities as coming from the stage” that manv | interesting glimpses into their back- : grounds have been overlooked. ~ "Would it be surprising to know that ! Lx race Moore, Metro-Goldwyn - Mayer's ! newest star, started out as a Baptist • missionary? Or that Gavin Gordon I vas a railway clerk before getting a 1 stage try-out? Charles Bickford, you probably didn’t guess, was a motorman in Boston. Cliff ! (Ukulele Ike) Edwards worked in a cheap lunchroom. Lawrence Tibbett was a sailor. Robert Montgomery sailed on oil tankers. Leila Hvams was ! an advertising model. Charles King : worked for a sheet music company as I a gallery “song plugger” with shows. i With the exception of Miss Hvams. | whose parents are vaudeville head- | liners, Elliott Nugent seems to stand 1 alone as a player whose stage calling honestly, his father, J. C. Nugent, being dean of the famous theatrical family bearing his name. Other than such isolated cases, it appears that the stage personages arc no different than the stars* of the old silent screen. They simply become } actors and actresses, of more conven- } tional temperaments.