Evening star., 1944-05-21
HOLLYWOOD.

dOLL4 WOOD.
Most actors" like children. Many
are doting parents and at the drop
of a hat will bore anybody to dis
traction with tales about their pre-
cocious offspring. But, privately,
any actor or actress will tell you
the place for a child is at home
and certainly not on a movie set.
The same goes for dogs. Children
and dogs are a liability and a
threat to any actors career.
They are the most feared tyrants
on a movie set because nobody
knows what they are going to do,
and no matter what they wind up
doing it's a cinch they'll steal the
scene from the adult.
Scene-thefting by babes and ami
mails goes on every day in Holly
wood, only sometimes It's more so.
One of the latter cases came to our
notice the other day on the set of
The Impatient Years." at Colum-
bia studio. Here were three grown
up actors and a veteran director
exhausted and ready to toss in the
sponge because all their tricks of
appeasement failed to make a 10
month-old child take the thing
seriously.
The Adults Were Licked.
First, there was Charles Coburn
stretched out in his dressing room,
a quivering heap of outraged the
spian trying to relax. He looked
glum and weary and all out of sorts
with himself and the world. He
had just finished playing a scene
with Jean Arthur, Lee Bowman
and baby named Vic Beaver. Not
far away on the stage. Director
Irving Cummings WAS slurnped in a
canvas chair, sadly mopping his
forehead.
Doing one scene like that" said
Coburn, pulling himself up on one
elbow, "is as wearing as week
of f1ve-a-day vaudeville. I'm ut
terly exhausted. And what do we
get for 1t. No one watches us on
the screen. All eyes in the theater
will be on that baby and our dia-
logue will be muffled by murmurs
of isn't he cute?'"
Ccburn was merely echoing the
perennial cry of all movie actors
who have played with children not
yet arrived at the age of reason.
That is when an actor has to
direct himself" continued Coburn
THE director has to keep his eyes
glued on the baby. In whatever
take the child gives its best per-
formance, or rather its best be-
havior, the actors have to be at
their best, because that Is the take
that is necessarily chosen.
IF you happen to slip up a bit
or miss line, that's your hard
luck. Only the baby can command
another take by not being quite to
the directors liking. And then, nc
matter how good you think you are
in the scene, it doesn't matter. The
folks out front see only the baby
anyway"
Some Prefer Suspension.
This sort of situation is one of
the most acute of all the rigors of
movie making. Stars have been
known to take suspensions rather
than act in pictures where the
script gave too many scenes to
babies or animals. They know In
stinctly that they can't act tver
a child and rather than make the
attempt they refuse to do the
story. Their protests, however, are
always based on some other reason,
1t certainly wouldn't do to let the
public know the facts in such
cases.
One Of the funniest feuds in
Hollywood is that between a we'll
known star and a dog playing with
him in series Of pictures. Scenes
between the dog and star are shot
privately because the two don't get
along. 1t requires all the trainers
ingenuity and versatility to hide
the CANNES dislike and register the