CROONER’S EARNINGS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 April 1938, Page 2

CROONER’S EARNINGS

PAID UP TO £l2OO A WEEK. A Guards band, in full blast, held up the bankruptcy proceedings of Marion Harris, Broadway’s £1,200 a week Glamour Girl, at Windsor recently. As Marion, blonde wife of Mr Leonard Urry, the theatrical agent, of Bishops avenue, London, answered questions, her voice was drowned by the band marching past the Town Hall. For a few moments the proceedings were suspended. Then, after she had explained that her liabilities of £2129 would have been paid but for a breakdown following a fractured jaw, the public examination was adjourned for conclusion at Carey street, W.C. Later Marion, the girl who started the world crooning, told a reporter of her earnings as a Broadway star, of her friendship with Garbo, and of the birth of crooning. “I ran away from a Kentucky convent when I was sixteen and worked in a cinema, singing 50 songs a day,” she said. “Somehow my low, throaty voice became the rage, and even Bing'Crosby asked if he could copy my style. “As a 16-year-old kid my salary leapt from a few dollars to £l2OO a week.” She started in films and made friends with Greta Garbo. She told the reporter: “Garbo loaned me her maid when mine fell ill on the film set. “It caused me great embarrassment —for exactly at 5.30, perhaps in the middle of a big love scene, Alma, Garbo’s maid, would walk on the set and refuse to let me go on working. She had been so well trained.” Marion Harris holds the record sale for records, topping even the sales of Caruso for one recording. Soon after she married Leonard Urry she slipped and fractured her jaw. She was unablbe to work. Now she plans a come-back.