FROM SHOP COUNTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 November 1940, Page 9

FROM SHOP COUNTER

TO HOLLYWOOD STARDOM. If you want to be in motion pictures don't hide the fact that you once worked in a store. Many Hollywood stars have done it. Not that selling ribbons or chucking cash slips into a money tube is regarded as a certain sesame to screen fame —but judging from a few who have done it, it’s no barrier to success. Dorothy Lamour never has made a secret of the fact that, when she was young and taking 'thespic lessons, she earned her way as an elevator operator in Chicago. Bing Crosby, too, and Bob Hope, who co-star with her, arc department store graduates. Crosby was once a cash boy in Spokane,' while Hope is proud of the fact that he once set a weekly sales mark in the Wm. Taylor Co. in Cleveland for disposing of shoes, Not to be outdone by this group of department-store ex-employees, Director Victor Schertzinger, who alternates between handling players in pictures and writing songs, says that he once sold pianos in New York. Charlie Ruggles's father was a wholesale druggist and wanted Charlie to take over the business. It almost caused a family schism when he stop-

pod wrapping bottles for a career on the stage and screen. Madeleine Carroll admitted that she once modelled and sold hats in a London store. There are many more. , Cary Grant, for instance, once ran a men’s store. Frances Dee sold stockings one Christmas holiday season in a Chicago establishment. Greta Garbo modelled and sold hats in Stockholm long before she ever heard of Hollywood. George Raft once ran a similar , department in a New York store. Eddie ‘'Rochester” Anderson, was once r janitor.