REDHEADS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 November 1940, Page 9

REDHEADS

NOW IN FAVOUR. For the first time since Clara Bow. the "It” girl, blazed her way across the Hollywood horizon, the redheads 'are reigning favourites over the blondes and brunettes. Green-eyed Vivien Leigh's copperyhued tresses, which helped her win the role of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind," Wave set the pace for the bevy of dazzling brick-topped newcomers. These range from the true fiery red of Greer Garson to the titian glory of Lana Turner and the duskier red glints of Maureen O'Hara and Mary Martin. Among the established redheads and brownettes with reddish tints are such feminine film charmers as Jeanette MacDonald. Myrna Loy. Janet Gaynor. Barbara Stanwyck. Joan Biondell and Ann Sheridan of “oomph” fame. In the opinion of Mervyn Leroy, who is directing Miss Leigh in a film, this is a good sign that the screen will have a notable year. Discoverer of Miss Turned, he is a student of redheads. “Redheads,” he said, “are the greatest of emotional actresses and always have been. Look at the immortals of the stage, Sara Bernhardt, Fritzi Scheff, Mrs Fiske. Mrs Leslie Carter, Cecilia Loftus, Margaret Anglin, and Ellen Terry. All were redheads. So were those history makers. Queen Elizabeth, Helen of Troy and Cleopatra. Scientists put redheads in a class by themselves temperamentally. A man may turn round to look at a brunette. He may look twice at a blonde. But he will follow a redhead a long way.” Leßoy recalled that the late Flo Ziegfeld was also a redhead expert, having married one, Billie Burke.

, MICKEY ROONEY SIGNS A NEW CONTRACT. The wolf will not howl outside Mic,key Rooney's door for a good many years. Ho has just signed a new contract with M.G.M. that will keep a whole pack of wolves from the door. Under his new contract he is to receive 1.000 dollars each week for 40 weeks a year. In addition he is to receive a 25,000-dollar bonus for each picture he completes with a minimum annual bonus of 50,000 dollars over and above his regular salary. His salary will increase to 1,250 dollars a week in the second year, and will climb to 1,500 dollars weekly in the third year of the contract. Thereafter, if options are taken up. his salary will soar to 3,000 dollars weekly. The Superior Court approved the contract and stipulated that the bonus money must be placed in a trust fund. Mickey to get two-thirds of it when he reaches the age of 35 and the remainder to go to his mother. The Court also allowed Mickey 100 dollars a week spending money, the other 900 dollars weekly going to his mother for household and othet expenses. The

Judge thought that 100 dollars a week was a lot of spending money for a boy of nineteen, but Mickey's mother, Mrs Nell McGuire Yule Pankey, explained that her son needed the money in order to pay the salaries of the jazz band he sponsored lor his own and friends' amusement. This band allows Mickey an outlet for his own trap-drum talents. and assures him that the tunes he composes will be played. Mickey also can play almost any instrument in his band. All this is a far cry from the day Mickey arrived in Hollywood a tiny, freckled-faced boy trying to get work in pictures. His mother took him from studio to studio trying to get him parts, but was never able to get him anything much but small bits. She rented rooms to keep them both alive. She finally dyed his tow hair and got him the leading role in “Mickey McGuire,” which brought him some fame for a few years. But then he began to grow up and parts became fewer. He got his chance to make a comeback in "The Devil Was a Sissy,” and since then has gone from one triumph to another.