PERSONALITIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 April 1938, Page 2

PERSONALITIES

CHARLES WINNINGER. He would be a banker if he left stage and screen. He thinks it is the most dignified of professions. Favourite playright and composer is George M. Cohan. His favourite stage role is Cap’n Andy in “Show Boat.” Outside of acting he is most interested in music, because he was brought up on it. As a child he got it for breakfast, dinner and supper. His father was an orchestra leader, his grandmother and grandfather great musicians. His pet aversion is a questionaire—he wishes he could have one single economy—he never uses any salt in his and his favourite dish is goulash made from a special recipe which he won't reveal. He sleeps in the open air, and plays golf, handball and squash. Favourite authors are Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo—he never reads the moderns. His pets are all dogs and his automobiles all Lincolns. Is greatly in demand for character roles—present picture is “The Go-Getter.” GIANT TYPEWRITER SETTING FOR NEW DANCING NUMBER. A typewriter thirty feet high with a

Sport fans will find interest in the Hal Roach M.G.M. super feature comedy, “Topper.” Hal Roach, the producer, is president and organiser of the Los Angeles Turf Club which promotes each winter the outstanding racing seasons of Santa Anita Park. In addition he is a four-goal polo player and general all-round participant in sports. Constance Bennett, so-star, has her colours represented on the turf by Rattlebrain, a fast-stepping filly. Nirbert Brodine, the cameraman, has a racing stable headed by Imperial Bill. Director Norman Z. McLeod was national intercollegiate boxing, champion when attending Washington University in Seattle.

twenty-eight foot carriage, writing on paper twenty-two feet eight inches wide, is just a Hollywood dance director’s idea of “something different.” It was constructed as the setting foi - a spectacular song and dance number for Warner Bros.’ new comedy, with music, “Ready, Willing and Able,” which comes to the Regent Theatre next week. The idea was conceived by Bobby Connolly, who staged the dances in the picture. The huge machine, the exact reproduction of a popular streamline portable, magnified in its proportions to 32 times its regular size, is “operated” by Ruby Keeler and Lee Dixon with the assistance of forty-odd girls, one for each letter and symbol on the key board. Miss Keeler and Dixon perform their herculean task by dancing on the keys, spelling out words of a song by Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer —“Too Marvellous for Words" —which is sung by Ross Alexander and Winifred Shaw. The dancing girls, as each key is pressed, react as type bars, imprinting a letter on the huge sheet of paper inserted into the machine.