Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 30

Gladys George ani "Mungkee," the cling Persian est which, says Aij, George, was the caun of a sadly misimda-stood incident in ha hotel room. Mir By Helen Welsliimer BAND it -hadn't been for Mungkee, her prize Persian cat, Gladys George, glamorous star of the Broaclway hit, "Personal Ap pearance," mightnot have been called on It was her sick cat, says Gladys George that accounted for the eary morning presence in her room of an actor friend, and the scene was much like one in her play, but unconvinced hubby brought suit for a divorce to face an embarrassing moment that parallels the midnight scene in I her play. But Mungkee, wh(j had been to the animal hospital for an operation, had come home. The doctor had said that 'it would be all right to take off the bandages in three or four days. A little fearful about it.

Miss George let the cat go swathed in the white dressings. But there came a night when Mungkee grew restless, her mistress says. She tugged at the bandage. Miss George removed it and then wished she hadn't. Blood began to flow.

Mungkee, terrified, hid under the bed, in the wardrobe, anywhere. Something had to be done quickly. Whereupon Miss George made another move, which she says she wishes she hadn't made. She remembered that Leonard Penn, a young actor whom she had known a long time, was living in the same hotel. It is the Lincoln Hotel, in the Manhattan theatrical district.

She called him, asking him if he would help her with the cat. Now any man with a streak of chivalry would come to the rescue of a platinum-haired, lovely lady with an ailing cat. Miss George says that she had been asleep when the cat disturbed her. She slipped into a lounging robe when she got up. Leonard Penn, too, had been in bed, he says.

He told the actress that he would have to dress but he would come as quickly as he was clothed. He did. She invites them up, always. But she can't, in the Struthers hox-t-hold. She must come down to the iiviaj room where the boy is perfecting hs drawing so he will be ready to present it to the Hollywood technical experts.

She has changed her glittering backless, golden gown to a trailing negligee, and filmy as a colored rainbow, SHE dances and tmiles and mats herself generally entertaining, but the boy keeps on working. His fiancee, who had brought him some mill and crackers, decides that her time is up, and leaves him with the actress. Just when Carole Arden has coaxed the youth 'to sit by her, the old maii aunt walks in, arrayed in her drab brown bathrobe, announcing that it isn't often that they get any night life in that house. The boy is a little surprised at he: appearance. "You're late.

Aunt Kate." he says. "I hope not too late," she tells him, as she prepares to listen to the radio. This scene, which was remembered with amusement when Fowler accused Miss George of entertaining an actor in The Penn TEDICINE was needed for the cat. hotel has a popular pharmacy. Leonard Penn, the actor who brought first aid to Mungk.ee was named co-respondent in a divorce suit, as a result.

went downstairs to get antiseptics. As proof that he did there is the added humorous incident of the drug store drunkard who was trying to find a telephone number. He asked the young actor to assist him. Penn agreed to, at once, while his prescription was being prepared. "What is the name of your party?" he asked the drunkard.

The intoxicated man had forgotten his appeal for help. her room at an unconventional hour, immediately called attention to the parallel of the off-stage, and pn-again, situation. Many critics have hailed Miss George's theatrical performance as one of the best acting jobs being done on Broadway. She has been letting the audience in -on Carole Arden's romances before crowded houses. There is another point, too, in which the role which Miss George plays as Carole Arden resembles her own life.

Carole Arden cast as an actress who, five years before, had been a waitress. She has worked her way up the cinema ladder. powerful, foreign motor car. She, her manager, her maid and her chauffeur are in a semi-hysterical state. They have stopped outside a nice old family mansion, lately converted into tourist hotel.

They intend to stay for dinner, insistent on getting to her "Penn opened the door. Instead of an empty corridor he bumped into a regular retinue of people. Fowler, detectives and witnesses Were standing there." ISS GEORGE is a Carole Arden is M1 resident of Califor hotel in Wilkesbarre, where she is receiving TSS CFDRGF. while her entire lite nas een devoted to the stage, has had to wort Who wants to knowi1 he shouted and began a fistic battle. When he had been quieted the drug clerk and the actor smiled over the incident.

All of which is proof presented by Miss George that she did summon Leonard Penn as an ally in helping her take care of her cat. Leonard Penn, back in -Miss George's room, began to doctor the cat. The telephone rang. An eager, masculine voice announced that its owner had just arrived from Springfield and was at the Grand Central Station. The voice belonged to Edward Fowler, a millionaire paper manufacturer from Springfield, who is Miss George's lawfully wedded husband.

He wanted to see his wife. He said he would be right over. nia, where she is under contract to a large motion picture company. She was released to her Broadway producer to make the play which is considered a high point in 1934 theatrical history. Fowler is a Massachusetts resident.

Divorce actions, therefore, can't be legally instituted in New York state, the actress says. The whole event she considers more of an embarrassing moment than anything else. Leonard Penn, the Edward Fowler, Miss George's husband, who Was sadly unimpressed by the Miss George met off-stage Gladys George is cast in "Personal Appearance" -as a curved and platinum-haired blond with all the combined charm and sorcery of a Mae West, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, and a few other romantic notables. She is a movie star, in the play, who is making a personal appearance as her movie, a film entitled "Drifting Lady," is shown. "Drifting Lady" is a production of Benjamin Fineberg, who is the husband of Carole Arden, the star of the film.

Carole Arden is the role Miss George takes. Opposite her there appears a young man who had loved a sweet young thing until he met Carole. She has broken his heart and his dreams and is now going away, pleading with him not to hate her. to think of her as an April lady who drifted his way. to marry the first girl, and a few other nice lines.

The part of the boy is played by Leonard Penn, the same actor who appeared, off-stage, in the Persian cat comedy. This movie is shown, on the stage, as the play opens. Immediately afterward. Miss George, in the role of Miss Arden making her personal appearance, tells the audience that she is glad that they like her and her plays. She tells them, too, what an innocent, home-loving person she is.

Then the drama proper begins. Carole Arden, on her way to the next town to make her appearance with the film, discovers that something has gone amiss with her charges reversed a cali from a poor young actor in Hollywood who is the present love interest in her romantic progression. But she notices the handsome young proprietor of the filling station that is established in the front yard of the Struthers mansion. she hears that he has an invention he would like to take to Hollywood, she makes up her mind. She will take the boy and the invention both with her in her car in the morning.

The boy's fiancee, the daughter of the house, realizing that the actress interest is strictly dishonorable, tries to curtail the plot. But the actress has a way about her a way that the boy is slow to understand, though. When he takes her to the barn to see his invention, he thinks that the steel which composes the new lighting apparatus is of importance to her. But the boy's fiancee is wiser. So is Miss Arden's manager, who asks if there is any hay in the barn.

The entire movie-struck household is quite excited over the star and the lad's chance at success. All but the fiancee, who feels that she is being replaced, and the old maid aunt who decides a little chaperoning is in order. All of which brings up to the midnight scene in the play. Miss Arden Gladys George's role is portrayed as an actress with a hospitable complex where young men are concerned. of Mungkee story her way to the stardom which has come at She has never had time for athletics, musk, pursuit of the household arts, vacations at home or abroad.

She couldn't learn French, Italian, anything she wanted to. But she has read extensively. Miss George was one of the sextet youngsters whom Winthrop Ames picked from a score of applicants to play with him in Maeterlinck's "Betrothal." years ago. She appeared next as the little French girl in the Coburm production of "The Better 'Ole." She on tour in it, and the tour took her to the coast, where she entered films and was successful. But she was seriously burned.

There a year in the hospital. She went back to after that, and for 10 years was a star in stock, playing stands all the way from BosM to Honolulu. Her name on a program was a signal for crowds at the theater. She had married, too. Her first husban was Arthur Benjamin Erway.

She divorc him quietly in October of 1930. and iwrnj Fowler, who is 28, in December of said to be worth $3,000,000. The marriage it would seem, was not a successful one. young couple spent very little time togetiie They were estranged in a short while- Thinking that her husband would prefer to talk to her in private. Miss George says, she thanked the actor and said good night.

Penn opened the door. Instead of an empty corridor he bumped into a regular retinue of people. Fowler, detectives and witnesses were standing there. And Fowler promptly explained his purpose for the belated call. He brought divorce action against Miss George, naming young Penn as co-respondent.

He made it clear that he believed none of this story about Penn having been there to tend to a sick cat. third member of the triangle, first met Miss George several years ago when he appeared as one of a large group of young men in a play in which she was starring in stock, in Springfield. When the play ended its run of a week most of the members of the cast asked the star for her picture. Some of them gave her their pictures, too. Among them was Penn.

That, as it happens, was before she had met her husband. But to get back to Broadway and the play which presents a situation like the one which.