FRENCH STARS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1939, Page 4

FRENCH STARS

A HOLLYWOOD FAILURE. Will Hollywood ever learn how to handle French stars? Almost every time a French favourite goes out there, we hear the usual raves. Then unaccountably, things go wrong. But, as we have been told often enough, fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong. Therefore, Hollywood must shoulder the blame. Chevalier said au revoir to Hollywood a long time ago and hasn't been back since. Annabella has had quite a lot of bother. Danielle Darrieux returned to Paris after one American picture and Hollywood is still wondering if she will ever go back. Simone Simon is home again. Even Boyer rushes back to France every now and then to maintain his mental equilibrium. It's a sorry tale. But it helps to make the careers of French stars in Hollywood all the more intriguing to follow. What is going to happen to Fernand Gravat? He is not actually French but he's near enough. He was born in Belgium, with quite a lot of French blood in him, and he has been a stage and screen idol in France for man}years. Strange things have happened to him ■ in Hollywood. He has been out there for . two-and-a-half years, with occasional visits to France. Three pictures are all he has made. Not that he is over-worried. He is reputed to be enormously rich and he can return any time he likes to French picture-making. In any case, he didn't want to go to Hollywood in the first place.