THE COMING STARS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 July 1940, Page 9

THE COMING STARS

SOME POSSIBLE WINNERS. Greer Garson has recently managed to satisfy the IVI.G.M. heads that she is : worthy to fill a role formerly pencilled ! in for Norma Shearer. I do not think we must assume that this selection marks Miss Garson as a second Miss Shearer; nor as one second to any one else, either in loveliness, poise or acting ability, says a writer in an Ameri- , can him magazine. Some people believe that Greer Gar- : son’s destiny leads her automatically ; towards a large-sized pair of brogues. I if indeed she should ever need to step i into any one’s discarded slippers. They think she follows Garbo! 11 don't believe she follows any one; she | leads by a head, a heart, a voice and | a fine personality. Who could follow Garbo, if, as is likely, Hollywood seriously tried to fill her place, supposing it had been suddenly left empty? Illona Massey? M.G.M.'tried to suggest that with '‘Balalaika,” but I didn’t notice much resemblance. Who then? You try. It is hard enough to fill in new names beside that of Warner Baxter, now- about to make its disappearance from the contract list at Twentieth Century-Fox. I saw Warner strolling around the . studio grounds a few days ago. He : looked better than the last time I had seen him, when he was in desperately ] poor health and appeared to have lost a great deal of weight. “He’s leaving us,” said an official of i the studio. “ ‘Earthbound’ is to be the ■ last picture under his contract—he’s 1 playing a ghost just at present.” Isn’t that just like Hollywood! Nobody! knows whether such things hap- ; pen by accident; whether the town is J completely devoid of any sense of hu- i

mour, or whether the touch of a Satanic disciple arranges such strange coincidences. Warner needn’t make this his last film ever, of course; he could start again at almost any other studio he liked. But if he does I shall be surprised. For at least four years he has been telling me periodically that he considers it idiotic to continue playing romantic screen roles. “And it seems as if they will not develop anything different for me to play,” he has lamented. Of course they wouldn’t. A romantic hero in character roles at £l5OO a week; Mr Zanuck simply couldn’t see that. ' Who, then, can fill the place as a romantic hero, which Warner Baxter himself, after 12 years, volunteers to give up? His namesake, Alan Baxter? Strong personality; dark and handsome, but unfortunately typed as a gangster and villain. Could he live down such a start? I doubt it. Cesar Romero has recently taken Warner’s place as the Cisco Kid. That may type Cesar without for one moment indicating him as Baxter's successor in the broader sense, which would be tragic for Romero, who, though the living image of the fictional Cisco Kid, is too good an actor generally to lose himself in native Mexi-

can roles because of his Latin background.

Dietrich, still going strong, might be amongst our retreatments. Who would you think could fill her shoes? If I had to do it,, and mind you I should hate the job, I would have a try with Ann Sheridan, who could be the better for a preliminary cleaning up to rid her of the stigma of “oomph.” Next to her, I think, Lya Lys would appeal to me. She is young, which at least would give time for experiment and patient “grooming.”

If James Cagney and Spencer Tracy —heaven forbid —both went off into well-earned retirement together, I could think of only one of definite experience who could even as much , as presume to fill the places left vacant. John Garfield might. Of course, we have such youngsters as* Jackie Cooper, Mickey Rooney and Gene Reynolds coming along; all, in a way, tough; all with some right to call themselves emotional actors and all with the future in front of them. But could they really hold up the heavy laurels between them if all foul' were left to Hollywood, to fill the roles vacated by Spencer and Jimmy? It means that one of 'these years—and not too far distant —a small army of your prime heroes and heroines are going to leave you in a sort of great “march-a-thon.” Never to return. They will have to be replaced, whether you like the thought or not. Are you giving as much box-office encouragement as you owe to young fellows who, like Robert Preston, Tom Neal, or even Wayne Morris, may find it their lot to follow a fellow like Gable? It happens that Clark doesn’t want any successor just yet, but then Gable is an exception; he can have a double screen lifetime “and then some,” as the Americans say. That cannot be true of them all.

Nor should it be. For there is in truth a queue longer than California itself, waiting for the big fellows to move off the head of the line.