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Show i Poking at liOLLYWOODl rAME MAY WHITTY'S like a spring tonic. She should be "taken" regularly three times a day by all the women in the world. If by so doing they could capture even a part of her vitality and great courage cour-age it would be more than worth their while to make a textbook of her life. A definite threat to Hollywood's glamour girls ever since she arrived, ar-rived, the gay little actress, who has chalked nn some 70-odd vears of living, is the center cen-ter ol attraction wherever she goes. Her background back-ground deals not only with folk of the stage and screen but with brilliant political figures as well. Some day it will be told in a book written by her Dame May daughter, the well Whitty known stage director di-rector and Shakespearean authority, Margaret Webster, who is carrying on the family tradition as established estab-lished by her actress mother and actor father, Ben Webster. Dame May has brushed shoulders and opinions with newsworthy head-liners, head-liners, from princes to presidents, for the past decades. Her "political career," if you can call it that, dates back to a London party given by Mabel Terry, niece of the famous stage star Ellen Terry. Women's suffrage was just beginning to take form, and the conversation began drifting toward the suffragets. Goodness Gracious! "How," went the general trend of talk, "could women lose their self-respect self-respect to such an extent? Where was their pride? Of what were they thinking?" It was at this point that Dame May Whitty began to think, deeply and sanely. The more she thought the more she agreed with the movement. move-ment. Suddenly she found herself defending the group. "Why, I actually think you are a suffraget," Mabel Terry remarked with surprise. "I believe I am," answered Dame May. This marked a turning point in her life. From that moment she began coupling her make-believe life on the stage with the real business of fighting fight-ing for a cause. She doesn't regret this decision, either. She feels woman's wom-an's suffrage was prompted by courage cour-age and idealism and quotes H. W. Nevinson, who said, "It was the greatest spiritual movement I ever saw." Miss Debutante's Career Shirley Temple has had more offers of-fers since "Since You Went Away," y - ' L ' V"' i 1- 'ill liii m1M but she's being kept right on her own home lot and will co-star with Ginger Rogers and Joe Cottcn in "Double Furlough," Fur-lough," in which she'll have her first love scenes. At least first on the screen. . . . Shirley Temple George Murphy, Pat O'Brien and Carole Landis will do "Having Wonderful Won-derful Crime," at RKO with Eddie Sutherland. Yes, they'll have a wonderful won-derful time, too. Eddie's that kind of a director. This is the third straight picture Murphy's done at RKO. I Green Light for Movies Comdr. William Chamblias of the United States navy has written "Boomerang" fiction based on facts. The facts will not be known until the story comes out in the S. E. P. after which it will be done as a picture by 20th, with Louis De Rochemont producing, and probably prob-ably Dana Andrews in the star part. . . . Alexander Knox, who's just finished "Woodrow Wilson," leaves for his native land, Canada, and its army camps. Knox doesn't depend upon our writers; he's whipped up his own material. ... Ethel Barry-more's Barry-more's play for the Theater Guild come fall is Franz Werfel's "Embezzled "Em-bezzled Heaven." Sfi7 at It Fanny Brice and Jimmy Durante do an act together for "Ziegfeld Follies." Fol-lies." Maybe to teach youngsters how it's done, or bring back memories memo-ries to oldsters who've been watching watch-ing -them do it for years. . . . Columbia's Co-lumbia's working on "Glamour for Sale," with Hugh Herbert in charge of beauty. It's to be a musical. Already Al-ready Ina Ray Hutton and her band have been signed for it. It isn't star glamour in the studio, but concerns a lady on the street. As She Wrote It Preston Sturges telling about time his mother wrote a daily beauty column for a London paper. She got $25 weekly. It supported three of them. Preston didn't think her grammar gram-mar was good enough, and suggested rewriting it, but-' her husband screamed, "Hey! We've gotta eat, haven't we? If they like it, why shouldn't we?" . . . Which reminds me, that rugged individualist Lloyd Lewis once wrote about beauty, too. But Lillian Russell's name was signed to it |