A SYDNEY IDOL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1940, Page 9

A SYDNEY IDOL

WELCOME TO GLADYS MONCRIEFF. When Gladys Moncriefl’ steps on to the Town Hall stage io sing, says the “Sydney Sun,” above the applause which will welcome her will rise a piercing feminine whistle. That will be Tess, and her whistle will let Gladys know that Moncrief! first-night fans are loyal still. The Moncrief! Fans’. Club is a unique compliment to the popular Australian. It began in Sydney 22 years ago when a group of girls went to hear Gladys’ in ‘tfi.M.S. Pinafore.” Captivated by her voice and charm, they formed a club to attend the premiere of every show in which she figured.

Soon the club had '3O or 40 members —most of them have not missed a Moncrief! first-night from that day. “It has taken a bit of doing to be at them all,” commented one of the club founders, Miss Florrie Rigg. “In the old days we could not book seats, so we used to spend the whole night in the theatre. Ofen we would sit hour after hour in the lane outside Her Majesty’s, waiting for the doors to open. We used to get tea, hot pies and pasties sent out to us. That-was Gladys’s doing—not that she’d ever admit it. Gallery patrons were presented with a piano to help while away the hours before the start of a show. That was Gladys, too. As time went on, we got to know Gladys personally. We would go out to her home at weekends and she’d cook for all of us. Sometimes that meant cooking for 40.” To one admirer, membership of the Moncrief! Fans’ Club brought opportunity to be always near her idol. She is Miss Elsie Wilson and a stage-door introduction through the club led to her appointment as companion to Miss Moncrief!. '•> .

Gladys will sing in floral setting, as all her friends clubbed together and put an order with one of the leading florists to arrange window boxes full of vivid flowers all along the edge of the platform, the lower section of which will be completely hidden behind trails of autumn leaves and smilax.

One of the gowns the singer will wear during her tour is of “white and rose blue” tissue in an all-over design of irises. She bought the material while in Wellington, New Zealand, last year. It had been imported from Paris for the New Zealand Centenary Exhibition.

“OUR GRACIE” HOLLYWOOD FAREWELL. Before her departure for Britain to make a second tour of the Western Front to entertain the soldiers, Gracie /“Fields was guest of honour at a dinner party given by Robert Kane. Although the star has been very ill and was still suffering from a relaxed throat she sang five numbers. Half of the large supper room at Giro’s had been taken for the Fields party. Across the other side of the dance floor it was business as usual. Among those who came in for the unexpected entertainment by England’s No. 1 star were Mr and Mrs George Temple and Mr and Mrs Spencer Tracy. Norma Shearer —of course with George Raft —and Gene Markey and Hedy Lamarr were late arrivals who missed the Gracie songs. Virginia Field and Richard Greene, Arleen Whelan and Ken Murray, Marjorie Weaver and Rudy Vallee, John Carradine, Jane Darwell, Henry Fonda and Brenda Joyce helped to make it a delightful evening.

DR. CRONIN’S BEST “THE STARS LOOK DOWN.” One of the most successful productions of the year in Britain is “The Stars Look Down,” a very powerful adaptation of Dr. Cronin’s biggest selling book of the same title. Advice from England shows that it is playing the Odeon circuit of more than 300 theatres with packed houses. From the results to date is is possible to forecast that film hire will run into six figures. Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood, Emlyn Williams and Nancy Price score individual triumphs in the picture.

AMAZING FACTS ABOUT “GONE WITH THE WIND.” "Gone With The Wind” promises to make motion picture history. Here are -«-.a few facts about it chronologically arranged. Margaret Mitchell, who had never before published a novel, spent ten years writing “Gone With The Wind.” Such was the success achieved by the contents of its 1037 large pages that it became the best sellei’ throughout the English-speaking world. Film producer David Selznick paid Margaret Mitchell £lO,OOO for the film rights of her story. And then over a period of a year he proceeded to shoot 85 miles of technicolour film costing more than a mil- • lion pounds. And that's a money and length-of-celluloid record in the whole history' of motion pictures. But within four months of the film's release in America alone, Selznick has already collected £2,500,0(10. and he expects that the total over there will eventually finish up at £5,000.000.. “Gone With The Wind” will again

break records when it is launched on its London West End season at three theatres simultaneously—the Empire, Palace and the Ritz. Already more than £lO,OOO worth of seats have been sold covering the first night and the following days. When “Gone With The Wind” is released the lowest priced seat at the local cinema—the sixpennies or the ninepennies—will become 3s Gd. It is almost certain, too, that the normal policy of continuous performance will have to be abandoned in favour of shows at fixed times. The film takes three hours 40 minutes to run. Yes, “Gone With The Wind,” starring Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Leslie Howard, is certainly destined to make history.