TWO SCREEN STARS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1939, Page 5

TWO SCREEN STARS

IS THERE ROOM IN ONE FAMILY? Is there room for two screen stars in one family? Facts to date prove the answer is “Nd,” and Hollywood is wondering what will happen when the Clark Gable-Carole Lombard honeymoon is over. Will they both continue at the head of the stellar procession, or will one, or both, recede to a lower place? Not since 1920, when Douglas Fairbanks Senr., married Mary Pickford, J have two such equally popular stars as Clark and Carole joined forces in matrimony. And it is significant to note that, one year after Mary became Mrs Fairbanks, she appeared in her first mediocre picture, “Little Lord Fauntleroy" —and, until the day of hei’ film retirement, never caught up with her pre-Mi's Fairbanks picture rating.

At the moment, Gable stands unequalled among adult male stars. Miss Lombard ranks higher today than ever before in her ten years before the cameras. It seems impossible that the mere fact of a joint home harness should make any difference to either, but let’s examine the record and see what happens when filmite marries filmite. It is hard to believe now, but Lili Damita was quite a big screen shot at the time she became Mrs Errol Flynn. There certainly was no room for two stars in that family, and now Lili’s sole claim to fame is as the wife of Mr Flynn. When Florence Eldridge married I Fredric March, she was the star, he the featured player. Now it is the other way around —March is the star, Miss Eldridge gets only featured bjlling in

her infrequent movie appearances. And even when she returns to her home ground—the stage—-Mr March takes precedence over Mrs March. Joan Crawford was poison—through no fault of her own —to the movie careers of both men she married. Just as long as Douglas Fairbanks Junr., was Joan's husband, he couldn’t get an important role on the screen, and Franchot Tone, who was rated a nearstar at the time of his marriage to Joan, swiftly receded from that position, until he finally gave up his marriage, and deserted the movies for the stage. There was room for only one star in the Lew Ayres-Ginger Rogers merger. And the fates chose Ginger, even though Mr Ayres was the star at the time .of his marriage and Ginger the lesser-known featured player.