Evening star., 1945-07-18
BY HAROLD HEFFERNAN.

Personality parade: Film vet
eran" is q term usually associated
with old age, gray hair or no hair
at all and character roles, but in
this crazy Bagdad of ballyhoo you
can be dubbed "old-timer" and still
be In your teens or early 20s.
Most of those catalogued thuSly
have lived and breathed Hollywood
since their cradle days. AS babes
they faced the film cameras, and
as young women they're still at it.
and with an accumulated expert
ence that makes them expert scene
stealers.
Heading the veteran" list Is
Bonita Granville, who at the ripe
old age of AZ has 10 years of movie
work on her record. Today in
RKOs The Lie Detector" Bonita
is playing smart lady lawyer. a
role that q ss-experienced actress
of that age wouldn't dare attempt.
And it wasn't so many years back
that Bonita, In pigtails, was play
ing 'brat" parts. Today she can
be- assigned to almost any type OF
character.
s#*
On the same lot is spry old
timer whose birth. record shows 26,
but who has been earning movie
money for 23 years. She is Anne
Shirley, one of the few girls who
galloped right through that So
called awkward age" without leav-
ing the screen, as have SO many
other juveniles. At the age of 16
Anne became a star because of her
work In Anne of Green Gables"
and 1t was from that picture she
received her name. Prior to that
she was Dawn Paris and later Dawn
ODay.
No longer the dimpled baby star
Adored by millions, Shirley Temple
is today a beautiful young woman
of II and engaged to wed. She was
the top money-making star for SO
many years that adults have long
since given up trying to equal her
record. Shirley dropped off the
screen for a couple of years, but
returned recently under David SelZ-
hicks banner to be featured in a
number of important productions.
Shirley definitely is one of those
old-timers without the wrinkled
brow-and she knows how to steal
a scene better than actresses sew
eral times her age.
Jane Withers, who has kept right
on df you don't count brief re-
tirement to do q stage play), won
her first big break in films IL years
ago--and by means OF a Shirley
Temple picture. She was hired to do
a nasty job of tormenting the idol
lied Shirley in this story and she
did 1t so well that Fox launched her
on a starring career. Jane was play
ing extra roles at the age of 5 and
before that had two years stage ex-
perience in her home town of At
lanta. Today Jane is 10, with total
of is years experience behind her.
Naturally, she knows all the screen
ropes.
Ten crowded years of experience
have passed since Deanna Durbin
burst forth melodiously on the
screen in Three Smart Girls" Now
she's % and it's difficult to realize
that this lovely young songbird was
only Is when the picture started.
Virginia Weidler's ability is ad-
inired by young and old veterans
alike. Virginia is 10 now and Is of
those years have been spent in and
around the movie lots. AS spindly
kid she played so many brat roles
she never could keep track of them.
Today she Is pretty and talented
and MGM is giving her heroine
chances.
..a - y y
A 1896 musical called "Pigskin
Parade" made at 2oth-Fox, first
called attention to a kid named
Judy Garland. 1t also reminded
NON, her, home lot, that they
should do something about her.