from April 1944 Motion Picture...

Excerpt from "What Makes a Star?" by Charles Samuels.

This article consists of material from interviews of 
people involved in various aspects of the motion 
picture business.

--

FROM THE MAN who sells star material we go to Ben 
Piazza, a man who buys it. He, too, is stout and bald, 
but harassed-looking, unlike Levee. Piazza is casting 
agent for RKO.

"I have a slant all my own--stars are not made, but 
remade. I say that because most of our stars come from 
the theater today. And there isn't a top star in 
Hollywood who wasn't kicked around for years before 
finding himself or herself.

"That's because they come from the theater and have 
much more to unlearn here than to learn. In the 
theater they have to over-gesticulate and over-project, 
or the people in the back rows can't see what they're 
doing. On the screen everything in magnified, especially 
in the close-ups. So what? The same technique they use 
on the stage looks hammy on the screen. They have to 
unlearn some of the very tricks that brought them to 
Hollywood in the first place.

"Take the case of Melvyn Douglas. You probably regard 
him as one of the most restrained actors in pictures. 
Well, he is, but he certainly wasn't restrained when I 
brought him here.

"But Melvyn Douglas is a most intelligent actor. He 
rapidly learned not to over-gesticulate, became a master 
of body control, which is all important in screen 
performances. He had to unlearn rather than learn.

"You can go down the line, make your own choices of the 
really important stars--Gable, Barrymore, Bette Davis, 
Rosalind Russell--they're all theater-trained. And after 
they get here, as I say, they're kicked around plenty 
before they find themselves. Because unlearning takes 
longer than learning, sometimes years.

"Robert Taylor," he smiled as he remembered, "was in 
Pomona College when I found him for MGM. I nursed that 
kid along for a year. I wanted him to go to the MGM 
school, but Louis B. Mayer had given orders that no 
person, not under contract, should be permitted to study 
in the school on the lot. I sneaked Bob Taylor in 
against the boss's orders. I knew he was too green at 
the time to get a contract.

"I used to lend him carfare out of my own pocket to get 
to Culver City. I advised him to get stage jobs with the 
Pasadena Playhouse and elsewhere. And in the end MGM 
signed him--at $35 a week. The stage gave him poise, 
self-confidence, experience. That helped, but he had to 
unlearn much of his acquired stage technique before he 
became a star.

"When I brought Rosalind Russell out to MGM, the 
executives there couldn't see anything in her. 'What is 
she?' they asked. 'She's not a lead, a character woman 
or a menace. What in the world did you ever see in her 
to think that she'd make the grade in pictures?' Roz had 
to go off the lot to make her big hit but today those 
same men know what I saw in this great comedienne years 
ago.

"What makes a star? It's personality plus individuality. 
The actor has to have that individual personality 
whether it comes from within or without. The technical 
side of acting can be achieved, but the personality you 
have to have.

"I was one of the first salesmen in Hollywood of 
theater-trained talent. But once in a while I'm willing 
to bet on a person without a theatrical background. Our 
new hopeful, Barbara Hale, is an example. She was a 
Chicago model when some one sent two photographs of her 
to my desk. I wrote to Arthur Willy, our New York talent 
scout, to look her over when he took his next trip to 
Chicago.

"He was favorably impressed, and we signed her. She has 
great personality and beauty and charm, but has much to 
learn. If she becomes a star--and I honestly believe she 
will--it will put to rout all formulas for screen 
success, including my own. Besides beauty, Barbara Hale 
has a humility in approach. She's modest, eager to 
learn.

"What stops most young actors, and actresses from 
becoming stars is their monumental bump of conceit. So 
many come out here on studio contracts and fail 
completely. This is most often because, after they get 
the wrinkles from hunger out of their bellies, they lose 
perspective, become flighty and temperamental. That's 
the beginning of the end for them. That kind never see 
their names in lights."