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Show By VIRGINIA VALE Released by Western Newspaper Union. TIME was when an actor was likely to lose his public pub-lic if he stayed off the screen for even a short time. Some can't risk it now. Alan Ladd doesn't belong in that class a large part of the public is remaining faithful to him while he's off serving his country, and refusing to put anyone else in their idol's place. He worked hard for his successhad suc-cesshad years of encouragement but few good roles, and put in time working in radio before he got a good role in "Joan of Paris." Then ALAN LADD he tested for "This Gun for Hire," and when Paramount executives saw his test they didn't bother about test-i test-i lng anyone else. His success in that role was like Marlene Dietrich's in "Morocco" instantaneous. Gary 'Moore, who co-stars with Jimmy Durante over both CBS and NBC, will make his picture debut under David Selznick's sponsorship, and will be developed as "a sort of combination of Fred Allen and Bob Ilope" which should be something! It'll be Allen on writing: ability and Hope from the slant of his delivery. Howard Petrie, announcer of the Moore-Durante air show, had both Paramount and RKO after him with a long-term acting contract. He stands six feet four and weighs. 240 pounds right up with Paramount's Bill Edwards, of "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.' Hildegarde, the new radio star who has the "Beat the Band" show on Wednesday evenings, introduced a song called "She's Got Bars on Her Shoulders and Stars in Her Eyes"; the WACs couldn't resist the title so adopted the' ditty for their official recruiting song. Pompeii's emergence into frontpage front-page Importance because of the fighting around Naples inspired RKO to reissue its spectacular "The Last Days of Pompeii," originally released re-leased in 1935; its cast includes Alan Hale, Basil Rathbone, and Louis Calhern. Dick Haymes' first tests at 20th Century-Fox turned out so well that his part In "Four Jills and a Jeep," with Carole Landis, was made bigger big-ger and bigger. Meanwhile, his radio ra-dio sponsor pays for the lad's popularity. popu-larity. Half the program comes from New York, with a full orchestra, orches-tra, chorus, and Jim Ameche featured fea-tured another orchestra and chorus goes on In Hollywood, accompanying accompany-ing Haymes' songs. Flossie Flynn, head of Loew's Telephone Information Service in New York, says that recently her office has been swamped by inquiries in-quiries about Metro's two-reel short, "Heavenly Music," a tale of a jive musician who can't get into heaven until he convinces a jury of famous composers that swing is real musicsays mu-sicsays she gets more calls asking ask-ing where it's playing than she does on feature productions. It's taken 14 years for Hollywood to get around to remaking "The Bridge of San Luis.Rey," done in 1929 as a silent. Benedict Bogeaus, a business man who bought Hollywood's Holly-wood's General Service Studios a year and a half ago, bought the screen rights and put Rowland V. Lee in as director and now the picture's pic-ture's timed right to coincide with the work of the Committee on Inter-American Inter-American Affairs. The Ellery Queen cast likes to be heard above the incidental music of the organ, except when guest detectives detec-tives turn up early," during the dress rehearsal then, when the crime's solution is . given, the organ fairly roars, drowning out all voices. ODDS AND ENDS Tenor Dill Days, discovered by Groucho Marx in his radio ra-dio program's chorus, and then given the solo singing part, has been signed to a 26-week contract . . . Looks as if "Dlondic" Penny Singleton would soon be kicking her pretty legs again in musicomcdy films she was orig-' orig-' inally brought to Hollywood because of her success in musicals on the Broadway stage . . . Maureen O'llara, list seen in RKO's "The Fallen Spar-row," Spar-row," and Paul Henried will co-star in that studio's "The Spanish Main" . . . Roy Acuff, a star on radio's "Grand Ole Opry," may be a candidate for gover-nor gover-nor in Tennessee's elections next year. I |
