WENDY HILLER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1940, Page 9

WENDY HILLER

WILL READ ANYTHING. . Wendj’ Hiller, who plays the title role in Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara,” is one of those people who will read anything—even the day before yesterday’s newspaper—rather than nojf' have anything to read at all. She ■?fas been reading Jules Verne’s thriller, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” lately, and says that it is firstclass escapist fiction.

Emlyn Williams, author and actormanager, is another important person in the cast. He is playing the part of “Snobby” Price. Emlyn ’Williams lives with his wife and small boys at Didcot, Oxfordshire, and “commutes” between Didcot and Denham daily. He refuses to use his car as a patriotic gesture towards the petrol ration. Denham village, England, where the picture is being filmed, should be used to seeing odd people in odd clothes, but waiters at a local hotel went on outs” strolled in and asked them to reouts” strollc din and asked them to reserve a table for 16 people. They had an idea that they might be about io stage a sit-down hunger-strike. The down-and-outs were refused, very firmly. They were also turned down when they asked to see Marie Lohr, the Australian actress, who was staying ar the hotel. In fact, they were just about to be turned but when Miss Lohr strolled in. She explained that they were thoroughly respectablemembers, in fact, of the Gabriel Pascal company —and although, professionally, they were being rescued by the Salvation'Army, privately they could afford to pay for their dinner. Wendy Hiller with Robert Morley, heads a magnificent cast in “Major Barbara.” It includes Sybil Thorndike. Marie Lohr, Robert Newton, Andrew Osborn, and Penelope Dudley Ward. Sybil Thorndike is playing the part c£ Shaw’s Salvation Army general. She has been given permission to model her make-up on General Evangeline Booth’s portraits.