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Show STAGEviSCREENRADlO By VIRGINIA VALE Released by Western Newspaper Union. TWO full years have passed since actor Douglas Walton, Wal-ton, called up for army service, serv-ice, worked all one night to finish a picture assignment at RKO. Early the next morning, morn-ing, with no time in which to change from his costume, he reported for duty in white tie and tails. Now he's back Lieut. Douglas Doug-las Walton, medically discharged and reporting at RKO to play the man who gets his in the Diet Powell-Anne Shirley thriller, "Farewell, "Fare-well, My Lovely." And on his first day before the camera, his costume was white tie and tails! After giving Linda Darnell the biggest big-gest break of her career in "Summer "Sum-mer Storm," then realizing, while critics raved, that they had no further fur-ther claim on her services, Angelus Pictures is taking no more chances. They've signed up Dona Drake with a contract calling for a starring role a year for four years. Dona's been around the Paramount lot for some .r - ' I LINDA DARNELL time without ever getting a good break, so finally she won cancellation cancella-tion of her contract so that she could take advantage of the Angelus An-gelus offer. Douglas Sirk, director of "Summer Storm," made a special spe-cial test of Dona, and it was on his recommendation, because he thinks she's potentially a dramatic star, that she got the contract. Norman Price, tenor of the "Mother and Dad" quartet, chose music as a career not too many years ago, but it was a toss-up whether he'd sing or earn a living as a professional swimmer or a baseball player. Norman was a star athlete In his borne state of Arkansas; Arkan-sas; he hails from Berryville. Polly Robertson, organist and arranger for the quartet, is another Southerner, South-erner, from Kentucky. Claude Rains, currently featured in Warner Bros. "Mr. Skemngton," starring Bette Davis, is expected back from England by mid-July for his next assignment under a long-term long-term contract. He went to play opposite op-posite Vivien Leigh in "Caesar and Cleopatra." As part of its twentieth anniversary anniver-sary celebration Metro has dug into the files and come out with some bits of interesting information. For instance Glenn Martin, the plane manufacturer, once was a movie actor. He played opposite Frances Marion, the ace film writer and executive. ex-ecutive. He was given the job because be-cause no other leading man could be found, in 1916, who owned an airplane! In a poll of enlisted men embracing embrac-ing the entire Southwest Pacific area, conducted by the Overseas Motion Picture Service, Humphrey Bogart was voted the year's No. 1 actor, as a result of his performance in "Casablanca." An "Oscar," a facsimile of the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel of New Guinea, is being forwarded to him, as an expression of the gratitude the men feel for all that he has done for them. The well-worn theory that mystery mys-tery stories are too exciting fare for children receives another knockout blow in results from interviews with youngsters having roles on "Mystery "Mys-tery Theater." All report that never nev-er in their lives have they slept better than on the nights after they have been in on a few choice murders mur-ders in the NBC mystery thriller the more murders, the better. m Sounds difficult, but it worked when writing "The Little Bit of Heaven," musical to be produced by Metro, Capt. Luther Davis, with the army air corps in India, and Marine Capt. John Cleveland, stationed sta-tioned at Quantico, Va., collaborated by mail with Robert Andrews in Hollywood. ODDS AND ENDS Victor Borge has been signed for an additional 13 weeks on the Basin Street program, beginning be-ginning in September. . . . With "Prac-tically "Prac-tically Yours' her last picture under her Paramount contract, in the bagf Claudette Colbert intends to free lance. . . . They had to change the script of "Murder, He Says," and make the heroin an ash-blonde instead of platinum; plati-num; Helen Walker wouldn't bleach her hair. . . . In his Beverly Hills office Edgar Bergen k$s an ash tray modeled after Charlie McCarthy ; it was sent him by a fan. . . . Guy Lombardo's band will be used in the current series of recordings re-cordings for WAVE enlistments. |