FOREVER...?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 349, 1 March 1946, Page 24

FOREVER...?

EW ZEALANDERS, thanks to a decision by the Customs authorities, are not likely to have a chance to read Kathleen Winsor’s sultry best-seller "Forever Amber," tor this novel of high and yery low life in Restoration England has been banned in this country. According to many literary experts they will not be missing much. However, thanks to 20th Century-Fox, New Zealanders may still have a chance of seeing an expurgated screen version. Whether this will be any compensation may largely depend on the actress who plays the role of Amber. ‘s According to "Life" magazine, that actress may be a fresh-faced, Irish 19-year-old named Peggy Cummins, who is seen above as herself, and on the lett as she might be likely to appear in the film. Of the 40-odd actresses already tested for the role of Amber, Miss Cummins is currently first favourite in a publicity campaign which 20th CenturyFox hopes may rival the 1938 search for a Scarlett O’Hara in "Gone With the Wind" (the role won finally by Vivien Leigh). Peggy Cummins has never acted in the U.S. She was born in Wales and brought up in Dublin, and began acting 12 years ago in Dublin’s Abbey and Gate Theatres; later she made four films in London and was a big hit in the stage production of "Junior Miss." Five months ago she flew to New York and, so the story goes, spent her first day there replenishing a war-depleted wardrobe with the help of money she won in a poker game on the trans-Atlantic plane trip. Then she took the train for Hollywood, where the movie technicians dressed her up (left) in the red-gold lamé gown worn by Joan Fontaine in "Frenchman’s Creek," in order to give her a screen test as Amber. :