SHOW BUSINESS
A beauty-and
she comes from Liverpool
• Gia Scala-despite her exolle name
und
Italian
looks actually halls from Liverpool. Now $ fast-
rising Hollywood actress, she is back in Britain mak- The Clock Without a Face opposite Jack Haw-
THE
kins.
Does she intend to look
up her birthplace-wideh
she left when she was A
baby?
"don't know," says Miss Scala. "I have heard it is rather grinand I'm not sure I could understand that Northern accent."
< THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MAY 31, · 1058.
Roderick Mann
HELL-RAISER FLYNN RECRUITS Mr. FINCH FOR HIS CLUB
W
E were celebrating Peter Finch' return from the wilds of Africa and he was in his socks-dancing a fandango in a downstairs restaurant before the bewildered natives of Kensington. Eventually exhausted by his endeavours-he stagged back to the table to gulp down some vino.
"I am getting too old for this kind of caper," he said, breathing heavily. "What you need," I said, "ls advice from one who knows....the old Hell Rainer himself."
"Errol Flynn?" said Finch. "Is he here? What are we waiting for?" We piled into a car and drove at great speed into the unsuspecting Berkshire countryside, to the retreat where the irrepressible Errol has been holding court all
We apologised for the over- sight, and he took it with forti- tude.
week for his special cronies:
And there, in the bar, wearing a giant sweater, slacks and crocodile shoes, was the old villain himself quaffing great draughts out of a huge tankard in which was clustered enough greenery and plant-life to start a small window-box.
bul
He greeted us warmly, without surprise. Verifying what suspected that I have long
shoke
nothing short of revival of ong of his old films would Errol.
Pago: 18
MICKEY ROONEY PLAYS
ANDY HARDY'S FATHER!
By RONALD SINGLETON: Hollywood
TICKEY ROONEY came home recently stouter, older,
Mature, at
film set. Mickey, 36, was completing a circle.
He was on the first day of a new picture about Andy Hardly. Yes, the tousle-haired, small-town techago
aymbol of America in the early 'forties.
This Andy is grown up, and Mickey's eight- year-old son Teddy is Andy junior.
Ironically, after an erratie grown-up career and an unsettled love life of
marriages, of four
he was turning back to the film series
which
had sel him on his own vay to stardom, as sis Lang Turner, Judy Garland.
પ Esther Williams, Donna Reed, Kathry Kathryn Grayson,
In the new film
hes a scene in
he
which
he looks at the pictures
of all of them as they were then-tight-school for Andy Hardy.
FLASHBACK: Asoney as Hardy Jun,
of The Roisterers for breaking
with Lewis Stone back in 1940 le One-Never Know Any-crushes thing About Your Lines"
"What do you think of them now Andy jun., Mickey "Talking about lines," now?" I asked. Taking me by Rooney's son. asked, "what news of your auto-the
The town 0 arm Mickey said with wink: "Brother! If I knew what rame - the blography?"
I know about them all now. "Alas," Flynn said. "None, that
have been offered to return the Wow!"
bad £3,000 advance to the publish so you can see how things are. But I find it so diff- cult to write about myself."
"We have been discussing.” I said, "the lack of characters in the Alm world today.
"Ah."
said Flynn. "I have
thought given some
Lo myself. While Alming Roots of Heaven in Africa with Trevor Howard, we decided to form club. The Rolsterers. You
are both hereby enrolled."
The Rules
91
a
Are you telling all?" I
naked.
REMEMBER?
HAD called on him to ask what had happened to the him family of old Judge Hardy, which had made such a hit in wartime Britain and America,
Remember how it was? Lewis Stone, as the old judge, barging his gavel and for ever recessing 50 after dealing with offender whose story served as a it moral for
his son's latest life problem?
the
"My confessions," sald Flynn, I raidly, "will shame even Frank the Harris. Aiready there has been
of lawyers at a meeting summit.
We'd been there a long time,
the
"Before I sign anything," said, "I'd like to bee rules.
"Nowadays," *sald Flynn is no opper- *there "How Goverely "Dear boys," he said.
people to gather the hell-raisers and. I. and
Finch site of you, by tunity for
and pleasant. Did
In hell ruising. was time to go. chance, bring un extra shirt for experience
Remember I learned from the Flynn--two king-size characters me?"
Barrymore masters-John
THE FILM THAT
ROCKS
-It's
HOLLYWOOD
The Rise
And Fall
Of A Goddess
KIM STANLEY AND LLOYD BRIDGES IN "THE
GODDESS'
Nothing succeeds like excess
FERDINAND
LONDON will soon be
seeing "The Goddess," a film that examines clini- cally the life of a movie queen. And writer Paddy Chayefsky who made big money from realism with "Marty," has seared Holly- wood with his cold, search- ing look into what makes a film star.
hea
about the savage way in which Chayeisky
scraped the glamour of the stars. The film had no premiere there and has opened in
cinema in a smoli San Francisco.
The girl
H question How true is ? I put that to the girl who plays the goddess.
the
She is Kim
Stanley, blonde and brilliant actress, now playing in "Cat On A Hat Tin
toot," in London.
She answered: "I only agreed to play in the film because was convinced that it was a true and honest account of some film stars' lives."
I
Hollywood, naturally, does noi
But gice.
such
controversy. could help Chayefsky to clean
Gloria
His story trees the career of up at the box-office again. girl whose main talent is her "Sunset Boulevard," which was appeal to men. She begins with Just as ruthless, helped this philosophy from an agent: Swanson to make a come-back. "If you're not Bette Davis you
golta be very nice."
She deserts her child, decelves
her husbands, and finishes as a
of
film star living on a steady diet sleeping pills, whisky, and scandal,
The faces
HER outlook from the lonely
heights of Hollywood is: "I een hardly get out of a taxicab without hundreds of people screaming that they love me. I've known men, hundreds of men....just blank faces, I can't remember them at all.
neo
"All The things that supposed to be fun really ain't no fun, and all the things that are supposed to be important really ain't nothing at all, 1 can't think of anything I want or look forward to." It's all a fraud."
Hollywood,
smeared by such recent scandal as the Lana Turner love affair, is worried
John Lambert
BROWNS
AND
"What we wanted was ?
Jones. Brown, Brown, Brown and Jones Ltd. / "
London. Express - Service
By Mik
court
and who have given the world a lot, provincial home-town
of Carvel is the same sets, the same folk, the same heart-to- heart talks, this time with litte Andy conding in Andy Ben. Everyone is there (Fay Holden Ma Hardy) except the is still old judge. Lewis Stone had a heart attack and died a few years ago after chusing boys off a lawn.
The series brought Metro- Goldwyn -
25,000,000 Mayer dollars from 14 Hardy films from 1938 to 1940. Millons on TV have been seeing them all
gain.
Fond
а
Now M.-G.-M. are making typical quiet new Andy Hardy pictures.
In this new Alm the Carvel
And Andy Is W. C. Fields. As President 1 more fun than they have taken where everything always worked townsfolk
the out just shall lecture to members once from it-gaid goodbye at
right for Andy, the helpful visitor, get him to stay. trilby-hatted high-school boy, and ask him to fill a vacancy on a week and at the close of the door.
"I shall be roughing it In who would always go back to the Bench, course they will receive a scroll,
girl. next door-Polly So, just before the fade-out, signed by me."
Paris for the next six weeks," the
to Benedict (Ann Rutherford) Andy Hardy, walked
in grand judge's spid Flynn as we the car. "Why not come over? after a love affair with a strik robes, walks to the chair where old Lewis Stone used to crash We'll get Trevor."
ing newcomer?
his gavel.
Ma Hardy It would make
Httle weep. Her son have a Andrew-she was so proud.
He chuckled to himself.
"I just finished filming in
be there," promised Africa with Audrey Hepburn Finca. "Up The Roisters.".
the "I formed
"We'll have some sport," said
said Finch.
After 12 years it is all return ing in "Ardy Hardy Comes Home." Now we have a mature
Somerset Maugham Club there. Flynn. "Depend on that............” Andy who is a lawyer, and
wear
three
To join you must days' growth of beard and spenel manten et least four hours a day at the airport watching the planes."
"Ah,"
"I'd for said Flynn. golton you were in Africa. Can't think how we misard cach other. Where were you?"
"Where was," said Finch, moodily, "the natives practised cannibalism. We had a roll-call every morning...."
said onc
"I had no such luck," Flynn. Though, of course, gol up to some sport. I got a of the Ubangi. big bang out And we had one lively afternoon when I gave pep inblots some natives who were doing an assegal dance.
to
"There must have been Bone snags," Finch said.
saiti
"Indeed there were," Flynn, "There was an appal- ling lack of women-excopt for some odd maidens with plates in their lips. And some idiot used
to keep shouting in the midril of the night: 'Put down that damned mongoose.' I never did (t discover who it was- but.
the from to come seemed direction of Juliette Greco's hut
"Isn't your im about sama- one who rates elephants higher than humans?" said Finch.
A CHARACTER
"Correct," sald Flynn, "Thai escapes particular philosophy me, I confess. Before I leti 1 wrote a letter to the author, Romain Gary, asking: Whigt the devil is the film all about?" "He'll love you for that," said.
1
"Fortunately," sait Flynn, “I signed it with Trevor Howard's
name."
I got on well with Trevor,"
eald Flynn. "A great character.
ile used to come on the
こ
every morning looking vogue and -scene all zay: "What's this about?' though we knew he'd been up all night studying his lines.
I caught him at it one night and he was terribly athamed. He was sure I'd throw.him.out
"Early bird"
your
cargo
れ
GET SET FOR EVEN MORE SPARKLE WITH THIS
quick, refreshing lift!
Nothing does it
like Seven-Up
7up
SWISSAIR