Evening star., 1944-01-12


school uniform which looked like a
tired old cocoon.
"Why she's lovely" said everyone
In happy surprise. Wait until the
movies lay eyes on her. She not
only is prettier than most movie
starlets' pictures but she also is
talented"
For the next few months, the
papers were full of young Miss Kelly
and how she was going to be the
next Bette Davis, only better look
ing. Or, If she preferred not to
succumb to the cinema's lucre, there
was stage career for her. 1t might
be a bit slower, but everyone was
sure it would be very brilliant.
That was what everyone said and
with very great emphasis, and no
career looked more promising. The
shock was pretty great when 1t did
not work out that way at all.
To make the story more brief,
Miss Kelly went to Hollywood and
got terrific publicity build-up. 1t
seems, however, that she had kind
of rugged individuality that pretty,
talented girls we're not supposed to
bring with them to the cinema. In
the exercise of it, she became a kind
of irritation to her bosses. They
could not recant on the build-up
when they discovered how Miss
Kelly was, but they do have their
ways of dealing with youngsters
or even oldsters-like that. The
trick is just to give them bad pic
ture after bad picture, the kind that
would ruin Bernhardt or Duse, and
let time and nature take their COM
mon course.
There was considerable dudgeon
on the part of Miss Kelly's faithful
following, the professional prophets
of the theater and movies that she
should be treated in this fashion.
They expressed themselves freely
for a long time but it accomplished
exactly nothing. Miss Kelly's doom
was sealed and eventually she dis
appeared. Every one said 1t was too
bad. but what chance had even so
fiery little character as Nancy?
X X X X
Just today, it turns out that she
had much more of chance than
anyone realized, that she is as pug
nacious as she is pretty and that the
people who gave up on her lacked
awareness of her real spirit.
A picture came over the drama
desk that looked familiar. But the
way people come and go in the
movies and the way they look alike,
it is pretty hard to be sure. A check
of the name, however, made 1t GER
tain that it was Miss Kelly.
Miss Kelly Is not working for one
of the larger studios. In fact, she
is working for one OF the smallest
of them, one of which you don't
hear very often along F street. Her
current employer is Monogram, an
earnest little organization that has
to make a dollar go farther than
you do. 1t seldom gets an actress as
young and well known as Miss Kelly
to work for it, but when 1t does. it
is willing to undertake a picture of
her caliber even though both Of
them are rather up against it. That
is what it has sought to do in con-
nection with women in Bondage" "
a rather f1orid title attached to a
story of the brave fight which the
supposedly weaker sex is putting up
IN occupied countries.
1t has not yet ben screened for
critics, so no one knows its actual
merits, beyond those implied In the
fact that 1t has been booked for
the Metropolitan, which means that
both Monogram and Miss Kelly are
coming to F street. She back, the
studio up, to F street.
There still Is plenty of time for
q career for her in the movies and
she evidently is determined to make
one, the hard way.
X X X X
Addenda: All three of the new
items added to the repertory of the