AMERICA LEADS THE WAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1940, Page 9

AMERICA LEADS THE WAY

IN CINEMA THEATRES. Probably with the idea of taking his mind off the war, a Government official in Washington has been spending his time lately counting the world’s cinemas. The most significant factor about his report is the vast increase in the number of cinemas in the dictator-control-led countries. During 1939 Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin opened up 2893 extra cinemas. Of course, the idea behind it is that the dictators regard cinemas as one of the most powerful mediums of propaganda. Germany’s jump puts her next to America. This is how the countries stand at the moment:—United States, 17,003; Germany, 7,797; England, 5,300; France, 3,850; Italy, 3,800; Russia, 3,000.

FOREIGN STARS FIND NEW WAR STRIKES CLOSE. Stars of foreign birth, now in Hollywood, are finding today that the war in Europe strikes much closer to home than it does to the average American. Many of them have families and friends in the various belligerent countries. Many of these players have possessions and investments in the old world which they stand to lose through invasion, bombardment or as “spoils of war.” Beautiful Madeleine Carroll, star of Paramount’s “Safari,” is one of many who find themselves unwittingly involved. Her father, Irish, and her mother, French, both refused to leave England. She has property in both England and France, and stands to lose much of it.

Isa Miranda, Italian actress, soon to be seen in “Adventure in Diamonds, has relatives in Italy. She has been assured that Italy will keep, neutral, but is none the less worried about possibilities. Muriel Angelus, young English actress who makes her American screen debut in “The Light that Failed,” and Ida Lupino, in the same film, have relatives in England.

Ray Milland, who recently received his citizenship papers, has relatives in England, and Claudette Colbert has several in France.

WORLD-FAMOUS CLOWN SERVING IN THE BRITISH ARMY. TURNS DOWN CIRCUS JOB. Coco the Clown, whose name has blazed from circus bills all over the world, is now Private Nicolai Poliakoff, of the British Army. Coco was born in Latvia 40 years ago. and has been a British citizen for ten years. He fought for Imperial Russia in the last war and for the Latvian Army against the new Russia from 1919 to 1922. Times have been hard for him in this war. The man who clowned his way round the world from the age of ten has. in the last few months, worked as hotel night porter and road labourer. He has had a struggle a keep out of debt and feed a wife and young family of five. Then came an offer from Bertram Mills’s Circus—a £.12-a-week job with their summer show, setting out on tour in a few weeks. But Coco, grateful to Britain for the ten years of prosperity she gave him, turned the job down for a 14s a week job in the Army. He ended his last war as a corporal. He begins this one as a private.