New Star Visits Boston For Premiere of Her Talking Picture, “Hell’s Angels”–Thinks Young Players Are Coming Into Their Own
No matter how many persons may tell you that a talkie actress becomes a box office bet through her voice, her mentality or her ability to act, don’t believe them. It is the same old-fashioned sex appeal that makes an actress a star in the talkies as well as it did in, in the silent films. If a star hasn’t “it” and plenty of “it” she may have a brilliant mentality and histrionic ability and a cultured and beautiful voice, but she won’t get thousands of fan letters every day. And the men and women won’t crowd the box offices to see her.
This is the opinion of Jean Harlow, the over-night film star, who is the leading woman of “Hell’s Angels” at the Tremont Theater and is staying in Boston this week in connection with the local premiere of the picture. Jean is at the Ritz-Carlton, where the former small-bit player is now occupying a huge suite with her mother. Incidentally her mother, who appears to be her in late 20s, but is naturally older, calls Jean “The Baby”. And The Baby is about the most exquisite bit of femininity that has visited Boston in a long time. One is not surprised at her rise to prominence. Anyone with the mop of curly white hair and the baby skin that Jean possesses just couldn’t stay in the minor ranks.
She’s an intelligent, keen-thinking, charming young woman. “Boiled down to its essentials charm is merely sex appeal,” says Jean, “I admit it, which is more than many actresses are willing to do.”
That Daring Gown
In “Hell’s Angels” Jean wears an evening gown that is about the most daring that has ever appeared on the screen. It is far more revealing than the famous rope of pearls which Betty Blythe wore as “The Queen of Sheba”, when that Biblical photoplay was shown at Tremont Temple some years ago. Jean’s evening gown has no back whatsoever and might as well have no bodice if one takes literally the definition that clothes are meant to cover the body.
But in her suite at the Ritz-Carlton Miss Harlow wore a modest black crepe frock, trimmed with white, which did not hide any of her voluptuous beauty. Jean Harlow has a glamour about her which is not often found in even a film star. Maybe it’s the “platinum hair” and maybe it is her vital youth, but at any rate, Jean Harlow is a girl who will make men and women stare, no matter where she goes.
She comes from Kansas City, where her parents were very well known socially. As a girl she often spent whole seasons in California with her mother. It was then that Jean attended the Hollywood School for Girls where her best friend was Dorothy Sills, daughter of Milton Sills.
The family went from California to Missouri every year or two and Jean attended the Miss Barstow School in her home city. She also went to a finishing school in Chicago for a time. Then she married a wealthy Chicago man and is now divorcing him. She obtained the lead in “Hell’s Angels’ because James Hall and Ben Lyon, the two leading men, suggested that their friend Jean take a test for the part. Hundreds of other tests were taken, and several actresses turned down the role since they were busy on other pictures. So the unknown Jean was chosen and today she is sitting on top of the world with a contract to work for that millionaire film genius, Howard Hughes.
New Crop of Stars
Miss Harlow believes she is in the vanguard of a new crop of film stars, of which Lew Ayres and Joan Bennett are the leaders. They are the young men and women who are making their reputations solely in the talkies.
“Film stars of the silent days must learn how to talk and how not to do much of the pantomime which made them stars under the old regime,” she remarks sensibly, “Stage stars are learning an entirely new game. Furthermore, the public resents stage stars stepping into leading roles from Broadway. The public likes to have a hand in making its stars. What the new talkie stars are doing is learning talking and film acting simultaneously, and these girls and boys will step into the shoes of both silent film and stage stars.”
Harlow Heaven 