Evening Star Newspaper, June 7, 1931, Page 79

CLOSE vo DEATH THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 7, Just for a Thrill! “My Narrowest Escape,” as Tt old b y Screen Stars, Reveals the Hazards That Are All in a Day’s Work at Hollyzvood—R isks for the Sake of Realism That Ofttimes E.nd Just on the Verge of a Fatality. BY ALICE L. TILDESLEY. TS all very well to speak carelessly of the “pright face of danger,” but when it con- cerns you at close range the effect is none too radiant. % At any rate, this seems to be the re- action of those #Hollywood stars who have taken thrilling risks for the sake of their reen careers. Irene Rich recalls with a shudder a scene in which she lay waiting for a pack of hungry 'wolves to menace her. ““This was in the old days,” recounts the dark beauty, “when film companies were not so well equipped as they are now. We were making & picture in the Truckee country and traveled across the snow in mule-driven trucks, real wolves obtained from a 200 in St. Louis oc- cupying the last truck. During the trip the wolves were fed regularly, but as soon as camp was reached they were given only one meal & day in order that they might be hungry enough %o g0 after bait planted in the scene. nT.xn: action of the scene called for me to lie with a tiny Indian baby in a sleeping bag on the snow. Bits of raw meat to attract the wolves were stuck in around our pillow. The odor of the meat was expected to draw the animals to us, and when they had arrived the director would signal me so that I could slowly open my eyes, regard the wolves with horror, scream, pick up the baby and flee. “M2n with guns stood back of the cameras, ready to shoot if the creatures forgot them- selves and attacked human meat first. I be- lieve I was more afraid of the guns than of the wolves. It was very hard to compose myself and almost impossible to close my eyes. I don’t know how I looked, but I felt far from peaceful when I heard the crunch-crunch of the padded paws. My imagination lived a scens in which the child and I were torn to bits by the starving Jrutes before I felt their breath on my cheek. The welcome ‘now’ sounded. Instead of slowly ning my eyes, I leaped to my feet with a yeJ, snatched up the be)y and flew!™ ATER, it seems, is the most prolific cause of trouble in pictures. Sidney Blackm:r was neaily drowned during the making of Otis Skinner's talkie “Kismet.” _The veteran actor was called upon to hold \Sidney’'s head under water in a studio pool Juntil he received a signal from the submerged | victim—the blowing of air from his mouth { through a tube. The signals got mixed, and . when at length they drew Sidney up he had / to be rolled on a barrel by the studio fire de- ‘partment. “That's nothing, old chap!” commented Mr. ‘_Skinner when Sidney was again conscious. “vou should have been with me on the stage when we played small towns in the dead of Winter. The fellow who did your part almost froze to death!™ The Little Big Horn River, one of the most treacherous of watercourses, was the scene of 1 Ken Maynard's most dangerous exploits. { ~+I was to jump Tarzan, my horse, into the river from a steep bluff, hang onto his tail and V swim under water so the policz pursuing would } think me drowned. I was dressed as a medicine man, wearing a heavy headdress, leather leg- gings and so on. I made the jump all right, caught Tarzan's tail and startzd swimming after him. Suddenly we struck a bggnch of a tree that was buried in the stream, my clothes got mixed up with it so that my grip on Tarzan's tail was broken and I began to sink with the weight of my wardrobe. I went down twice before the men on the bluff realized what had happened and threw me a rope.” GmRGE O'BRIEN is one of the Coast's champion swimmers, yet his closest bout with death occurred in the Pacific Ocean. He as told to make a midocean dive of 50 feet fi\pm the top deck of the steamship Alexander for the purposes of a picture. “When I had gone about 25 feet I became unconscious,” relates George, “due to the rapidity of my fall. I regained consciousness after I hit the water, which was lucky, consider- ing that it was seven minutes before the speed- boat picked me up.” “The trouble with playing dead for the camera is that no one knows about it if you're really dying!” confides Janet Gaynor, who looks back on her drowning scene in “Sunrise” as her marrowest escape. Nobody guesses that her collapse was real until the director called “Cut!” and she didn't come to! Thrills are expected by riders in airplanes, dut Helen Chandler’s biggest spine-curdler came from a plane she wasn't in. She was standing on an airplane field, waving to the pilot of & plane that was to swoop low. He miscalculated his distance and swooped so low that his pro- peller grazed the brim of Helen's hat, and watchers turned away thinking she had been killed. Ken Maynard nearly lost his life when he became separated from his horse, Tarzan, after leaping into a stream. The hat brim was the only thing damaged, ' unless you count Helen's nerves. “One scene in an early picture called for me to b2 dragged along bchind eight horses,” says Louise Fazenda. horses, pulling ahead for all they were worth. Fortunately nothing happened to halt my animals, because if they'd slowed up for a min- ute I'd have been mowed down by the rush.” Riding herd on buffalos is nothing to write home about, according to John Wayne, who | tried it in “The Big Trail.” It seems that no- : body can direct buffalos, so the best thing that ° could be done was to station the ~director, cameras and sound truck out of the way of harm and send the young man out to tackle George O'Brien is an expert swim- mer, but once he lost consciousness in midair while making a 50-foot dive in filming a scene. “Following me were 15 other 1931. he situation with nothinz but luck and courage © attend him. Buffalos have a habit of wheeling and turn- ing. and omly agility, sharp sight and good fortune prevented John from being caught and crushed in their milling ranks. “But I wouldn't do it again for my weight in film contracts!” asserts John. This same director thought it would be a *good gag” for El Brendel to be stuck in the mud while engaged in trail-blazing. EIl agreed. With nonchalance he went into the pool selected. But it was deeper than had been expect~d and had a quicksand quality to it that sucked him farther in all the time, so that when his danger was realized and he was dragged out he was utterly exhausted. During the mystery picture, “Charlie Chan Cairies On,” Marguerite Churchill was the goal of s malevolent knife-thrower, who was sup- posed to just miss his victim. An expert was engaged to do the hurling of the knife, since the usual method of impaling the weapon and then withdrawing it by wire and running the film backward could not be used in a dramatic sequence. The knife got out of control and cut through the girl's coat, the only reason it didn't take her arm with it being that Mar- guerite had moved involuntarily. Janet Caynor once collapsed in the water during the filming of a picture, The other actors realized her true cone dition just in time to save her life. And after that she had to retake the scenet John Gilbert declares that a fire hazard is worst of all. “I was playing extra in the old Ince Studio as one of a troop of Conf2derate soldiers; we were supposed to be lying dead in a burning building. The walls of the set had been soaked with kerosene and the soldiers were ordered to lie perfectly still. All went well until I felt a terrific heat and pain in my leg and, opening my eyes, discovered that my trousers and shoes were on fire. I popped out of the scene and jumped into a pool. My life was saved, but the director never forgave me for ruining the scene.” The habit of soaking inflammable stuff with kerosene almost wrecked the early career of Norma Shearer, too. It seems that in “Lucretia Lombard” she and Irene Rich were directed to run through a blazing forest. The forest was buiit on the stage and drenched in coal oil. It burned so much more rapidly than expected that the two women found themselves halfway through the woods when they were surrounded by a wall of fiames. How they got out remains a mystery. NE of the most exciting scenes in “Painted Desert” pictures the drive of a wagon train from a mine to a frontier town. The location men had discovered an old, disused mountain road in a bad state of preservation that seemed excellent for the wild pictorial scenery required. Its danger, however, was apparent, since Bill Boyd, the star, must head th> train driving the first wagon, with all the train, hitched together, to act as dead weight going downhill, and the director hesitated to suggest it. “If the camera boys are willing to ride their truck over it, I'll take a chance,” said Bill. No double could be used, since the ride had to be mainly in close-up. Once the lead wagon lurched and was almost over the side of a precipice before Bill could get the mules under control; once th: whole train seemed to be slipping backward, and once Bill lost his seat and fell nearly under the feet of his team be- fore he regained his balance. ” “There was no discussion of retakes,” grinned Bill. George Fawcett has come to the conclusion that he bears a charmed life. “Accidents always ‘nearly’ happen,” he ex- plains. “In ‘The Old Homestead’ I had to walk under a building that toppled over the instant I had passed, wrecked by a storm. In another scene a safe was supposed to be hurled from a window before ths players came into the pic- ture. Through mistake, the safe wasn't hurled until after we were on the set, and it hung over us threateningly, falling just as the last of us fled to safety.” ; When DeWitt Jennings was playing the part of a rum-runner, he was driving a car along a deserted highway on each side of which was a deep ditch. A pursuing airplane swooped down so low that he lost control of the wheel, skidded to the side and overturned in the ditch. Rising unhurt from the wreckage, he was al- most run down by the camera car. “Gosh, I'm the villain,” groaned Mr. Jen- nings, “but you ne2dn’t be so darn realistic!” Carole Lombard wasn't aware that her greatest risk was risky until afterward. She had been cast opposite an ape as a circus ani- mal trainer. She thought the ape a well trained creature and went through the scene without trepidation, only to discover later that he had a history for sudden temperament that had incapacitated several strong men! Mary Brian's first Western picture was very nearly her last. Richard Arlen had to pick her up from a plain where she stood in the pa‘h of stampeding -cattle and ride at a gallop out of sight. During the scene Mary’s grip on Dick’'s arm slipped and her entire weight was suspend>d from his grip. If Mary had been heavier or Dick less strong, the ride had better never have been made. (Cepyright, 1931.) Salt Statistics. HE man who “isn't worth his weight in salt” and the one who “feels like 30 cents” seems to be about on a par, judging from the salt statistics of last ycar. During that period 8,000,000 tons of salt were produced and the total value was about $25,000,000, which om the basis of a 200-pound man works out at about the rate of 30 cents. Michigan led in production, and with New York, Kansas and Louisiana accounted for 98 per cent of the national production.