FAMILIES OF THE STARS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1939, Page 4

FAMILIES OF THE STARS

OBSCURE AND UNKNOWN. To the world at large they remain obscure and unknown, but there are relatives of the stars by the score who have established themselves with just as great a degree of success in their chosen professions as the Hollywood “names” enjoy in the sphere of the cinema.

Motion picture fans do not attach any significance to the name of Arthur Cooper, but in the coal-mining region of Montana, where he has long been a leading dealer and trucker, he is a lot more important than his brother, Gary, star of Paramount's “Beau Geste.”

On the plains of the screen's old West the name .of George O'Brien is one to conjure with, but in the solemn precincts .of the law courts in San Francisco, the name of his barristerbrother, Daniel, looms just as imposingly. Dr. Francis Griffen was one of New York’s leading professional men long before he met his wife. Irene Dunne, star of “Invitation to Happiness,” and Dr. Joel Pressman also was enviably established in the medical field before

Claudette Colbert, most recently in “Midnight,” assumed his name in private life.

Another case of brothers succeeding independently of each other on the screen is that of Charlie and Wesley Ruggles. For the first time together professionally, after each had carved nis name on stock, on Broadway and then in Hollywood, Charlie appeared under the production-direction of his brother in their latest film, “Invitation to Happiness.” Frances Farmer, now on Broadway, has a brother, Wesley, who is the editor of a Burbank newspaper,' and a sister on the editorial

staff of the San Francisco Chronicle. The brother of Lloyd Nolan runs a prosperous shoe store in Santa Rosa, and Gloria Stuart’s brother,. Frank Finch, is one of the sports editors of the Los Angeles Times.