1936-09-21 — Page 3

G.B.S. OUT OF FAVOUR: GALSWORTHY

IS IN

FILMS' HELP

TO GOOD BOOKS

FILMS and the B.B.C. are helping to

popularise good literature; there is a diminishing interest in the works of Bernard Shaw; Dickens is a perennial favourite, but Thackeray is rarely read. The popularity of Scott and Rudyard Kipling is waning, but George Moore and Hardy retain their place of honour.

..

These disclosures are made by Mr. Frederick Sinclair, Borough Librarian of St. Pancras, in his annual report, which discusses the tastes of thousands of book- borrowers and the fading reputations of literary giants.

Among the moderns. Galsworthy holds an out- standing position (in St. Pancras), thought his plays are ont in much demand as his novels.

Francis Brett Young, Henry Charles Morgan, Williamson, G. K. Chesterton and Somerset Maugham are not after to be found waiting on the shelveL

Circulation is increasing, particu-.

educational larly among issues of books, dealing with all branches of knowledge

USEFUL ARTS POPULAR Poetry, drama, essays and belles- lettres are most popular in the litera- ture section; next come booka on geography and travel, then those on the useful arts and social science.

Mr. Sinclair declares that on many occaslona film adaptations of famous plays and novels have pro- | voked a demand for copies of the original works and a general in- terest in the authors concerned. The films thus mentioned include "David Copperfield," "Mutiny on the

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1936.

The Real Tragedy of My

Life By Mary Astor Greater Sheerness

"Finis" has been written to thebitter court row between Mary Astor, flim star, and her ex-husband, Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, it's playtime again for Mary and her daughter, Marylyn, shown at Miss Astor's home. Under terms of the settlement, the child is to slay with her mother nine months of the year, spending the balance of the time with her father.

WORLD'S MEANEST WOMAN

£10,000,000 Tax Claims

"MY PARENTS

DROVE

ME TO FAME"

By A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 1. GLAMOROUS Mary Astor, whoso court fight with her ex-husband, Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, for the custody of their child was watched by the whole world, has disclosed to me the real tragedy of her life.

It is the age-old story of conflict between parents and a successful daughter.

As she unfolded this astonishing story with deliberate restraint I knew that her present court ordeal is merely a continuation of the unhappiness which seems fated to follow this lovely woman, Simply and directly she told me how:-

Her parents planned for her a career of fame.

She only received personally £4 a week while she was earning £300 a week.

While a film star she was only allowed out two nights a month.

At 17 she fell in love with a man aged 35, Here is the story as she told it to ime in her own words:-

On Hetty Green's Fortune

Works

The B.B.C. has influenced iterary Bounty." "Shape

hape of Things to Come," and musical taste, he adds. "Lorna Doone" "Les Miserables," recommended by broadcasters are "Mystery of Edwin Drood," "The Old demanded from the library as well

vocal Curiority Shop" and "The Little as copies of operatic, Minister."

pianoforte musle.

ON

MERCY SLAYER

FOR

J

and

TRIAL YORK LIFE IN NEW

Newburgh, N.Y., Sept. 16. Mrs. Dorothy Sherwood to-day begins her second trial for life for the murder of her starving baby last fall. Her first trial resulted in conviction and the death sentence. The Court of Appeals re- versed the death sentence because the jury had recommended clemency in the face of statutes which make death mandatory for first degree murder.

Mra, Sherwood spent five months in the shadow of Sing Sing Prison's electric chair beforo the Court of Appeals acted...

MARRIED A MAN

FOR MONEY

AND REFUSED HIM HELP. WHEN HE WAS POOR

HETTY GREEN, who loved money so much that she lived to become the richest woman the world has ever known, must be turning over in her grave.

More than £10,000,000 is being claimed by three States and the United States Government as back-taxes and heritance taxes on her vast estate.

But despite the nerve-wracking ordeal, she refused to plead Life Does

guilty to second degree murder on July 20. Such a plea would have meant a long prison sentence.United Press.

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JER.

Exist Outside Our Earth

-SCIENTISTS' CLAIM

Los Angeles, Sept. 20. Science at last has concrete proof of the existence of life outside our own earth.

This was the highlight of the fourth annual meeting of the Society for Research Meteorites, held recently on the U.C.L.A. campus.

On

Dr. Charles Lipman, Head of the graduate division at the

My life has been so extraordinary that it seems fantastic even to me.

I was literally brought up to earn a fortune for my parents. There was to be no galety, no love for a man for me. I was to have fame as my recompense.

There was nothing in me that drove me on to become an actress. I was driven.

At fourteen I became a leading lady, studying at home between pic- tures.

I longed to go out and have fun. 'We'll all go together, my parents would say, "Why should you ever want to be alone with other people?'

Love Affair Quashed

By this time I was earning a big salary, yet I had no money of my own.

At seventeen I fell in love. He was a friend of the family's, a man of 35, who declared he couldn't go on seeing me in face of my parents' opposition.

I was stin One evening, while

it any eighteen, I couldn't stand longer. I was only allowed out two

nights a month-with my mother. I a second storey climbed out of

window and went down to a little My parents were frantic. They in-hotel in Hollywood for the night

promised anything if I'd return.

Hetty, who lived in the days when a million dollars almost meant poverty in America, lived and died for money.

This radical concession was such a sudden change I wasn't ready for it. I went out a lot for a dizzy month: 1-become-engaged to an

assistant director-then broke it off.

Father's Contract

My father drew up a contract for

She met handsome young Ed- ward Green, heard he had made a fortune in. the Far East, and hurine to sign.

It provided that 50 per cent. of my riedly married him.

earnings went directly to him and She deserted him some years my mother: 50 per cent. of my half later, when he went broke, and was to be invested by him in a trust refused

unluckily Investments to give him a penny, fund-the Ite died because she would not were dead losses and I was to re- give him enough money to buy food. ceive for myself the remaining 50

When her son Edward graduated

Cui per

from college he went to work in a ruilway office and earned month. He wrote asking for a small allowance.

"Not a penny more until you're worth it," answered Itetty Green.

FATAL ARGUMENT

n

She died in 1916 because she

with argued about money drunken cook. Ils reply caused her to have a siroke.

of my share.

A year later I was, Introduced to Kenneth Hawks, Fox director.

We were engaged

ged a whole year before I told

told my parents.

Three months after, despite every argu- ment, I did marry him.

continued to enforce My father the contract I'd' sigried, although talkies began to affect my career. Then I took a stage job at £30 a week and loved it.

The week before the show closed, however, Kenneth was killed in an air erasli.

health broke. Lee Tracy sent My

·She left £20,000,000 to her son. who had become Colonel Edward me to Dr. Franklyn Thorpe. Ho Green, and whose request for a ordered me to bed for four months, I few dollars she had once refused. refused to go home. I toole a. smali apartment in town. Dr. Thorpe Colonel Green liked to spend

came to see me regularly, and o University of California at Ber-money just as much as his mother year and a half after Kenneth's

death I married him. keley, set the tongues of visiting liked to save it.

£200-a-Month Pact scientists a-buzzing on this oft- discussed question when he pre- sented a paper entitled, Bacteria

He spent millions on avlation, on radio, on destitute girls.

Colonel Green died in June this

After my illness I only had a few hundred pounds. My parents sald they needed my salary to keep their monalon going.

in Meteorites, in which he out-year. It was announced that he had left no will, but a few weeks later

I wrote to father that we would lined his findings.

Mrs. Matthew Astor Wilks, the only

forward cancel the contract and agreed to daughter of Helty, came and filed a will made by her brother give him £200 a month for a year, which during which he could dispone of the before his marriage, under she received Helty Green's fortune.place.

Since then, a legal battle for those millions has been waged.

Dr. Lipman said: "I have personal ly found a considerable variety of bacteria meteorites-and have seen them grow and nourish in a normal way after they have left their arrest- ed state."

24

Last week Mrs Green won the first victory. She was appointed executrix and sole administrator

At the end of the year nothing had happened. hiy parents con- tinued to resent my marriage, my baby, and my independence. The Superior Court settled the Into the discard also went such

matter. I am sending them £20 a oki-fashioned terms as shooting stars, of her husband's 'estate. new month and I shall never see them Oreballs, uranoliths, and many

valued at more than £15,000,000, wont. others which have come from alt Now comes the serving of notices I have such wonderful plans for the languages including the Scan by three States and the United my daughter-how different her

their dinavian. In

place Dr. States Government. Frederick C. Leonard of UCLA. suggested a newer and simpler ter- minology.

maturing is going to bet

NOT BULLET-PROOF

New York, Sept. 10.

Dr. L. J. Spencer, keeper, of minerals for the British muscum Natural history; contributed a paper on the mysterious tektites. They are queer shaped pieces of natural glass, some of beautifully delicato tints found nearly all over

the

Sergeant Harry Butts, ballistic expert of the Police Department, world. Science is not yet sure that has mode a thorough investigation of the subject and pronounces the they came flying like bullets from

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