Evening star., 1928-11-25
MOVIES AND MOVIE PEOPLE
BY MOLLIE MERRICK.

HOLLYWOOD, Calf, November 24.-
If you're out with your telescope look
ing for the next bright star, it's fairly
safe bet that you'll find it IN Joan
Crawford.
Now that one of the periodical ava
lanches which. occur in the industry Is
well on its way, the stardom will prob
ably come more quickly, for there Is a
marked tendency on the part OF the
gentlemen who place names In the SKY
to put actresses of 10 years standing
and more on the creased chute.
The girl who learned to shake her
feet so nimbly in New York chorus
has a story which parallels to a certain
extent the beginnings of Gloria Swan
son, and in her most recent work she
exhibits 8 technique which is indt-
vidual yet strongly reminiscent Of
Swanson in her best moments.
If Gloria worked In Hollywood on the
Mack Sennett lot in the pie-throwing
days, Joan did the rounds of the cast
ing Offices as an extra. She stood In
the mobs, was ioStled and wearied and
discouraged for couple Of years with
out ever getting her face before a
camera.
She was a play girl in her hours of
the lot. No Hollywood party was COM
plete without her tremendous vitality
and life and her ready laughter.
Then she got chance in q picture,
and the sleeping artist woke to the
realization that she could do something
with all this some day. And there be-
gan the first of the changes which
Hollywood has watched in Joan Craw-
ford
1t isn't more than year ago that
she wore her hair in poisonous near
cerise shade, curled forward all over
her head like a French groteSque. But
the Joan Crawford who thought that
was beautiful one week knew it was no
good the next. This girl has moved
forward that rapidly. She was sewn
into her dresses by her maid SO that
each line Of her perfect figure would
show. Each line shows now, but Joan
Crawford has learned that there is such
q thing as subtlety, and you do not
arrive at it by sledgehammer methods.
Her concentration on work is per-
hapS the keeneSt Of any girl in the
business. Since her engagement to
Douglas Fairbanks, jr., she has lost in
terest in the show about her. Life has
narrowed down to Joan and Dodo."
The empurpled hair is gone, and In
llS DldCG d 6LIiok b4y SCuI AkCcSA ia NOAAs
Servative shade. But there is nothing
conservative about Joan Crawford. She
scatters the largesse of her tremendous
temperament extravagantly. She may
be making picture which calls for a
degree of energy, but of the set or be-
tween sequences she is dancing, run
ming about, sewing, or reading book
never sitting with calm brow gazing
placidly into space, as most movie
actresses do when not working.
She'll tell you frankly that her great
est extravaganza in life at the present
moment is her shoe bill. But once she
had two pairs of shoeS-the wet one
and the dry one. That was a New
York Winter. And some of the time
there was only the wet pair-when the
dry pair got holes In them. She is al
once very gay and very sad, very young
and very old. That would be tragic II
most cases, but it is valuable to the
artist-the first tiny bud on crown
that is destined to grow leaves of laure
if she keeps up the same pace forward
that she has made in the last year.
She's shrewd enough to rent her cal
TO the studio for a shot in a picture
and charge them $28 for it; childish
enough to talk some terrible doggere
pig-Latin hours on end to Doug, jr.