AUNT OPHELIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1939, Page 5

AUNT OPHELIA

CHARLIE MCCARTHY'S RIVAL. Little does the world dream that there is still another- dummy in Edgai' Bergen’s life, surpassing in wit even that upstartish young McCarthy and the bucktoothed Mortimer- Snerd. Bergen’s third dummy is a very special one reserved only for his closest friends in Hollywood.- Her name (yes, it’s a female) is none other than Aunt Ophelia, and she is even closer to Bergen than Charley or MortimerYou see, she’s Bergen’s right thumbs At parties, when Edgar- feels at horned his thumb takes on all the prim and proper attitudes of this remarkable maiden lady. . “Now, my man,” she’ll begin when Bergen, his face a study in perplexity, will interrupt, “But I thought you were an old maid?” “Oh, well,” Aunt Ophelia will' flounce, “I’m not a,fussy old maid.”

SEARCH FOR TALENT YOUTHFUL PROTEGES. Quite a lot of “new faces” seem to have been found for the screen in the last year or two. Not enough, however, for hungry Hollywood. Talent scouts get more and more worried. Every year new methods of discovering and training talent are explored. They used to look fox- experienced players on the New York stage. Haying drained Broadway dry, they went to the little repertory theatres for beginners. Now they are trying to catch talent even younger. One company, at least, has come to the conclusion that stage experience is more valuable than studio school trainl ing of the kind most studios go in for in varying degrees. The studio’s scouts are now looking for likely students, scarcely out of school. Having found a promising youngster, the company keeps axx eye on his or her training. When the protege is ready to be launched, the company helps to find him or hex- a job in the theatre. Only when the talent has been developed oxx the stage will a Hollywood contract be forthcoming.

AN ENTHUSIASTIC FLYER WALLACE BEERY PASSES STRICT TESTS. Wallace Beery has just completed his five-thousandth hour in the air. The big star has owned eight planes in the past 12 years, and is easily the movie colony’s most enthusiastic flyer. Wallace has just passed the strict tests of the Naval Reserve, and has been appointed a lieutenant-commander.