Evening star., 1947-05-25
HOII,ywOOD

On June Is Bryan Foy will ceie-
brate the first anniversary of his
Eagle-Lion independent studio. And
Its amazing how much Bryan
more usually called Brynie, and eld-
est Of the Seven Little Foys"-has
accomplished in II months.
He's made nine top and Is low
budget pictures. Among them are
1Out Of the Blue" with George
Brent. Virginia Mayo and Turhan
Bey;; Lost Honeymoon" with Syl-
via Sidney, John Kodiak and Ann
Richards, and Repeat Perform
ance." starring Joan Leslie and
Louis Hayward.
Foy has rebuilt his entire studio
lit used to be the PRO lot. He
had no stories, no stars, no dfrec-
tors. The only thing we had was
q lot of money" says Foy in the
fancy dining room on his lot.
In the II months of its existence
Eagle-Lion has established 81 ex-
changes In the United States (and
is now doing the same for Canada
and South America) and a huge
sales force to sell its pictures. It
employs about $500 people.
The studio has a deal with j.
Arthur Rank through which he
markets Eagle-Lion's pictures in
Europe and Eagle-Lion shares with
Universal International the Rank
pictures in this country. So far
Brynie has snagged "Bedelia." star
ring Margaret Lockwood: "The Ad-
ventures" with Debor rah Kerr and
Trevor Howard, and Green for
Danger" with Trevor Howard.
Knows Women Stars.
II want you to see Joan Leslie
in Repeat Performance" says Foy.
You won't recognize her. She's
grown up. beautiful. q new Joan
Leslie. She's doing q part that
Katharine Cornell would be happy
to play" did see Joan while she
was making the picture with Louis
Hayward and Richard Basehart of
the New York stage and think that
Joan will be sensation when the
picture is released.
Brynie, very good looking Irish
man-knows how to handle women
stars-or should I say women
period! Il personally found him
fascinating.) He's had a lot OF ex-
perience with movie maidens, from
the time of the beginning OF his
career at Fox when he gave an un-
known girl called Jean Green a Job
with salary tag of $75 a week
in a picture with Ken Maynard.
You know Jean today as Jean Ar
thur! 1t was silent picture and
Fox didn't care for her much and
they let her go. 1t was only after
Jean clicked on Broadway in THE
Man Who Found His Head" that
Hollywood discovered her for talk
ing pictures.
And Foy was the first man in
Hollywood to make a talking pic
ture. He had landed job in pic
lures as the result of song he
scribbled for pair of comics who
were just catching on with the
public. The song was called, "Mr.
Gallagher and Mr.. Shean." and Mr..
Gallagher and Mr.. Shean suddenly
became famous. Winfield Sheehan
decided that a talented guy like
Foy should be working for him; SO
he hired him as writer for the
old Fox company. He worked as
a gag writer, then as a director.
The Good, Old Days.
In 1925 Brynie went to Warner
Bros. and took over the shorts de-
partment. When talkies were just
something you talked about. Foy
was given a talkie two-reeler to
make. 1.-THE Lights of New York
On his own hook he turned the two
reeler into full-length feature
film.
Warmers wanted to fire him when
it found out. But when Brynie
tried to buy the picture from Warn
ers, it decided to take a chance
and release it. THE Lights of New
York" cost $4,000. 1t crossed more
than $4,000. 600! Those really were
the good old days!
Picture costs have ilInnped IN