OCR Text |
Show ANTHONY FRANCIOSA IS LATEST LEADING MAN "FIND" TO HAKE THE LADIES SWOON Elia Kazan has him. M-G-M has him. Twentieth Century-Fox has him. Hal Wallis Productions has him. Everybody else wants him. Nevertheless, Anthony Franciosa doesn't look upon himself as a "hot" actor "Anything hot has to cool off' says the handsome, dark-haired Franciosa, who is well on his way to becoming the newest romantic sensation of the screen. "I'm just fortunate." Elia Kazan signed him for one of the leads in the film, "A Face in the Crowd," made in New York. M-G-M signed him for his Hollywood Holly-wood debut in a co-starring role with Jean Simmons and Paul Douglas in "This Could Be the Night." Producer Hal Wallis signed sign-ed him to a non-exclusive contract for one picture a year for five years. And, by the time he finished "This Could Be the Night," M-G-M had signed this much sought-after new star for two more films; Twentieth Century-Fox for three (including the movie "version of "A Hatful of Rain"), and he had made agreements with Elia Kazan for another two pictures to be made in New York. It's evident Franciosa will have his wish. A few year ago, however, acting act-ing jobs were so scarce for the young man that he was forced to supplement his income by working work-ing variously as a dishwasher, awning installer, welder and printer's print-er's devil. "Even after my first Broadway play, The Wedding Breakfast,' I held on to my job as a waiter in a restaurant in Greenwich Village he says. "I didn't want to take any chances. And I needed the extra money to continue my studies stud-ies at the Actor's Studio." Franciosa decided to become an actor when he was eighteen. He won his first part in a Y.W.C.A. play quite by accident Accompanying Accom-panying a friend who was reading for a part, he himself was talked into trying out and thus launched his career. u Jean Simmons co-stars with Paul Douglas and Anthony Franciosa in M-G-M s comedy with music , "This Could Be the Night.'9 Miss Simmons, who scored one of the screen's biggest hits in Guys and Dolls' now I plays a schoolteacher who be-I be-I comes involved in the hectic and hilarious management of a New York night club. |