MAKE=UP ARTIST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 December 1938, Page 8

MAKE=UP ARTIST

SPEAKS FOURTEEN LANGUAGES.

Supervising the make-up of dozens of racial types who compose the principals and supporting players in Walter Wanger’s “Algiers,” which will be shown ' at the State Theatre next Friday provided an added thrill for’- Robert Stephanoff, veteran chief of his craft at United Artists studios. For Stephanoff, one of Hollywood’s champion linguists, got a chance to speak all of the 14 foreign languages in which he is fluent —Italian, French, Bulgarian, Turkish, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Roumanian, Spanish, Serbian, Polish, Armenian, Finnish and Hindoostani. The locale of the story is the Casbah, or native quarter, of the Algerian seaport, a melting pot of almost every race. In casting the romantic drama, which stars Charles Bover as a dashing international jewel thief, with §igrid Gurie and the glamorous Viennese, Hedy Lamarr, rivals for his love, Hollywood was combed for the polyglot types demanded for atmosphere. With few exceptions, Stephanoff could talk with all of them in their native tongues. Besides Boyer, Sigrid Gurie and Hedy Lamarr, others prominent in the cast are Joseph Calleia, Alan Hale, Gene Lockhart and Mme. Nina Koshetz.