1958-05-02 — Page 4

INSIDE

SHOW BUSINESS

THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, MAY 2, 1958.

* * * * * * * * * *

THE TENSE MOMENT AS Bardot gets Boyd*

PICTURE BY EXPRESS PHOTOGRAPHER ALAN HEEK.

THE KINGDOM OF THE CAMERA WHERE ONCE THE INDIAN RULED

YOU

VOU may be one of those who know all there is to know about the celebrities of a fabulous district where the sidewalks have led many along the direct route to dollars and diamonds, and-where-any-more have found have you ever only disillusion and heartbreak. But pyused to wonder how that locality gained its name and ita fume-the extraordinary locality renowned throughout the world as Hollywood, capital of the Motion Picture Industry?

A hundred und

eighty-ninis

years ago this August, a amull force of Spanish soldiers under the command of

by S. FIELDS

DONAT

IS BACK

IN FILMS

HE WAITS AT THE SIDELINES AFTER THE FOUR LOST YEARS

ROBERT DONAT returned to a film studio the other day

knees

after four years of illness and anguish. trembled, his hands shook, and his voice stumbled again and again. Yet in spite of his fight to take the first step back he was n happy man.

Nobody at Elstree studios could remember a more tense time than the day that Donat returned. He is back to stor with Ingrid Bergman and Curl Jurgens in "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness." the Alm Everything and everybody-the vast £00,000 set, crew of 80 technicians-walled and depended on whether Donat could make it.

He had suffered from mounting panie over the week-end. For this was a return that most people, including his doctors, had sald could never be made.

from Britain as her new co-star

RIGITTE BARDOT

has a British co- star for the first time in her new lim "The Night That Heaven

Fell" He is Stephen Boyd,

the husky CX- cinema usher

who has now gone to Holly- wood.

This also is the frst im in which Bardot will make International impact. It will be retensed by 3 Hollywood company which has signed the French

kitlen" to a ven-

year contract-on her own terms.

One of her demands

Weas

That she should have her plek

candidate has already

He arrived at the studios at 9.45 in. The time-most fim of top men co-stars. One sult- stars have lo report at 7 o'clock was a concession to his con- able dition. As he walked on to the sel there was a strange moment been named: Frank Sinatra. of silence, then a cheer from the crew,

AND SHE PICKED HIM

After

The question Brises whether the YANK

There were dozens of lelegrams, some from Hollywood, and any other men would risk being there was a huge bouquet of carnations and daffodils from the film in Bardo picture. It seems that the sex kitten has a habit

crew.

Donat spent two hours in the make- department. up

Director Mark Robson and Curt Jurgens, mode up as a Eurasian Army officer paced up and down.

Stumbling.....

AL 11.15 Donat came on to the sel In his hands carried

D

he

throat spray ready in case he had an asthma attack. He looked ilker the most ner- vans beginner fac-

(cent suburb eight miles from Hollywood since it established ing the cameras for the centre of the now great and itself as the Film Capital has UM that cosmopolitan prawling city of Los Angeles rested the Santa Monica mountains, tural beauty of its setting and a suburb nestling at the foot of character, as well as on the na- enibelishments of Its handsome tree-lined the crisis with Mircels and boulevards running designers who have had a hand down from deep gleres to the in its planning. contal plain or stretching along le hilsides in winding terraces and drives.

He might have heard i des- cribed as a vast bower of foll-

actresses who have been drawn FIBINUJEN KEQJUE WIN a lowered trucant deed

Again, the surrounding coun- im officerry was remarkably varled in Get fall character, and breath-takely foul of a tund of Real Plans in

covered by there now Film City which is pet really a city in self but district of Los Angeles, the lending busi ness and Industrial cite if southern California.

the

by John Lambert

of lapping up all the attention of the camera and the audience, which her co-stars And less than endearing

*** ** ** *

at Oxford...

Cam-

TUE Rank Organisation is to

make a film about bridge University called "Light Blue." They say It will have the true spirit of a British univers Dirk Bogarde accepted the sity and all the typient fun of challenge once in "Doctor A student lite. But the surprising Sen." But Bardot was only

choice for the star role is Ger-

beginner then, and the camera man actor Hordy Kruger,

He

stayed mostly on Bogarde. culted

Brigitte "begulling." Since she became

big slurs PUBLICISTS are promis-

in nga "new look" Liberace when

the men stars have become more wary, Said Rossano Brazzi, London now: " am offered a role opposite Bardot in her next plcture.

be arrives in London this week- end. The ex-chubby charmer is

But I do not want to now 2nt. 121b. lighter after a long slimming elint. But he is still commit professional sufcide.

- "Leading men in her pictures wrighed down with sequins. spend most of their time

just

lookng at her. And so does the

audience, Few pelors are shy

enough to take that treatment A Vie Frankle

Bladly."

moves

AFTER Shakespeare at the Old Hinwerd the comly who is trying to establish Before he flew to Hollywood, a reputation in drama, after The Night That Heaven nyer to Moliere. Commercial TV Fell," Stephen Doyd said: "That is giving him the lead in Miles was the maddest

I have Malleson's adaptation of School. ever been in. I would not care for Wives" "a sort of Fe mandel

with part in eighteenth-century o

lume."

SHE HAD HER PICK...

to be in Bardot."

sorry

"It's been so

50

the Arst time.

that He asked

closed the set be to everyone except the camera crew. So from behind the lattice windows of The whole world has con- tributed in making it what it is

the

we" palace watched thron go Birst -in furnishing the great pro- through his

aclors und scene. ducers, directors,

Again and again, there, the operatie story. the his voice shook and

playwrights, dried up. I'm by Man and Nature in splendid u prestries, the easy reach of the men who were

the develop alone, with top-ranking sur- the technicians, and all who are sorry," he said. "casting " on

moving pleure veyors, architects and landscape associated with the glittering long." He looked imperious in a Furthermore, Los An- gardeners blending their talents Kingdom of the Camera. black skull-cap and cost over u comorZI. note: ilself was elty which to create a place to work and

blue costume. But his legs were had already earned something live which must surely

There is u reverse to the trembling. of a reputation in Atherica us a

The scene loveller than any this side picture, of course. It is in the Robson rehearsed Paradise.

unwritten stories of fallure and over and over. "Watch Donat," ihrntrical centre.

disappointment that belong in he said. "He's stumbling now. the hearts of so many who have Bul each timu it gets ensler. filed to realise their dreams, Soon he will be running." And and who know it as Heartbreaks he was right. Bollywood. It is in the well- publicised stories of some who galued the heights only to fall from grace.

on ground which has since wit russe countless dramas play out in the realin of mak belleve, and in the realms of real

ife too.

Yet for more than a hundred years after the time of Gaspar de Pertola nothing of oarticnit

certainty nole Courred there;

place nething to glve Tetown!

of the

In bal ero, Europe might have taken the lead in the lim

but in 1914 Industry.

thu

Fabulous etc. etc. etc.

The Spaniard would stared in meredulity spectacle of

risen built phenomenon

this

be

of

district,

Blazing.....

talent his

blazed

"Cut,"

Mark Robson

He dashed

Up Country:

THE

another

HIGH

thin

onu

FLY FOUR

by Thurlow Craig as the

TOUR huge birds hovered necks, big beaks, and long legs new marvel I was about to be-

the

thai

The blood spilled on th,

hutred August day

aud eighty-nine years ago gave brief noto iety in the site of what

the was later to become Hollywood. The light unacted there was the o'ng of pletures on the east recorded history side of the Atlantic was almost beginning of

I watching a duel to the death bands and knees.

At last I saw them!" Four head, dead black against a between three raging males for brought to a halt by a deadlie

After lunching alone in his kind of shooting with

have

dressing-room, which has an air-brilliant sky, wide wings one avidly watching female? sedate old herons steed knee- they swooped and deep in an evenly-spaced lino outbreak of World War 1. In

at the It is in the scandals, too, that purifying plant bullt into it, beating and snake-like necks, Lower

plunged on wide pinions, and Just like match anglers, fishing its zymote stronghold thousands of inlles away from the conflict,

brillant have shocked the world from Donat faced the cameras again. a'twisting.

then it seemed that two were away and attending strictly to from the time to time, the American Industry

Yet it has been This time

grim silence. A business, looking neither to ivit un serenely into a position vilds he had once known-and said, and perhaps with a good through.

But I could not identify fighting in is for the palaces In the fashion deal of justification, that other

дес So I have yet to

the Uces surrounding of prominence" which it still

There was no sound but his them and wondered what as they disappeared between right nor left. Hills able Beverly

was herons' maling dance. I didn't holds today.

homes of the Great Ones of the communities possess their dis-suddenly strong, confident volce they were. They seemed to quicl pool. The suspense

the sct,

even wait to ask what luck they Tr after

be engaged in some strange unbearable, Hollywood had Screen, these would have seem- creditable members of society in

Bent double, 1 shuffled fpst were having because my knees Tenene: that proud position, ed to him fabulous beyond be a ratlo neither greater or less shouted

than the Film Capital The towards Donat. "Robert, that duel.

and crablike towards the sins were wet and cold, and it was Gaspar de Portola could have Bef.

"Just Ane, difference is that the spotlight was, fine," he said

A long-overdue spring had ter spot, wondering what strange time for sea. returned to the scene of hus

all. brush with the Indian braves,

cosmopolitan character of universal attention does not You made it"

forcely

Donat on their

amiled warmly and Anally asrived and nearly bis astonished gaze would have of Hollywood Is expressed in shine to

it 115

does од architecture of its transgressors

said.

for being the wild things WELL/Occupied "Thank you

with family affairs. Our tame beheld one of the wonders of the varied

patient, it's good to be back."

Hob cut ferret Jill had turned of the nest to make it comfy for the babies soon to arrive. This meant that 1 had to fix up bachelor quarters in my room, for poor Hals hates to be stone. From the valley rose the lovely, nostalgic weil of the carlcws as they gracefully circled the wel lowlands, and I had gone to the river to sag if 1 could photograph a rimping otter: but there were mone about.

It could have been British

.

There was a time, during the 19th fury, when the future! Film Cantel might have become Briti

tilere. The whele of California, Mexican possession from 1 to 1848, was offered to Crit Britain by the Republie of Mayin in settlement of out- standing debts, but the offer was declined.

W33

In February of 1818 Upper California was ceded by Mexico to the United States. Still there no such place-name as Hollywood

the territory, though there was a city of the Angels. r Los Angeles-und there was spot on the trail to Los Argeles where Spalsh- American missionaries had erected a wooden cress, a spot to which

Redskin converts had

theke own. given name congue, Translated, the name was Holy Wood.

About, eighty years to an American who had rattled there and started up as a Truit-grower decided to call the cres of his homestead Hollywood,

And why did Hollywood blossom out as the capital ol the Moilo Pleture Industry? Firstly because climatic con. Hons in those parts were so ideally suited to the making of films. The carly matlon- pictures had to be "shot" out in The open under bright sunshine, and here there was plenty of runlight through the greater part of the year with little or no rain from May to November, and an 'atmosphere which was axceptional in its crystal clarity,

The

the modern world: A magni- buildings. Indeed the charm of Hollywood's.

| Lili

STAGE DOOR

French Follies

Millo

CLOSED FOR

ALTERATIONS

BRITISH AND

AMERICANS W.KEEP OUT! TUNIS-ALLERY GOOD OFFICES

"DON'T WORRY, I'LL USE MY GOOD OFFICES FOR YOU WITH THE NEW

LEADING LADY—WHEN THEY GET ONE!"

they Seeming to know that were out of season and there- fore safe from man, duck were flying about in dozens, or shoot- ing up and down the river In couples.

Then, nearing a placid sheet

of water that is connected to the river only in time of flood, I saw birds. Their high-flying "circus" was. something I hadn't Been before.

The

Country born and bred, "what knowledge possess is that of the pusant and gipsy, stemming from observation and hearany, plus a modleum of legend. We know the order of the seasons. We know what the different bcosts, birds, and Ash eat, and how they behave. But Latin Wa azmes mean nothing to us. don't care that the Swedish Ornithologist Linnteus tagged cur magpie with the ridiculous name of Pica Pies Pien, nor does It make any difference to tho bird concerned.

hugo

But what were there birds, Marming and tumbling hundreds of feet high,

what were they doing?"

Then

and

they fell below the jorged mountain skyline. Bluey-grey plumage, "serpentine,

Keep your sugar dry

EVEN IN THE

DAMPEST WEATHER

Fine granulated sugar is now

available in new/5 lb. plastic bags

TAIKOO SUGAR

REFINED SINCETM 1884-