Pittsburgh, the city of eternal smoke, came Katherine MacDonald, carefully
educated, and with a tremendous ambition to succeed. For a short while the
"American Beauty" played in a musical show of the "Follies"
type, but motion pictures called her and she appeared in support of William
S. Hart. "Shark Munro," her first picture, was the means of a
letting the world know that the immature beauty would some day attain greatness.
Douglas Fairbanks chose her as his leading lady in "Headin' South"
and following that, in "Mr. Fixit." In his search for an actress
to play the suppressed English wife of wealth in "The Woman Thou Gavest
Me," Hugh Ford, then director-in-chief for Paramount, discovered Miss
MacDonald, and immediately signed her to appear in the title role.
Mr. Ford called Miss MacDonald an "actress ten years ahead of her
time," for in those days, action was the watchword in motion pictures,
and Miss MacDonald's cool poise was something new to the screen.
Even while the picture was being taken, a firm was negotiating with the
actress in an attempt to obtain her signature on a contract to star in famous
stories. Other offers followed in the wake of her success in the picture,
and she chose First National as her mentor.
In the Hollywood film colony Miss MacDonald seldom is seen about the
usual haunts of the screen players. She lives with her mother in a bungalow
home she designed herself and chooses books and magazines for companions
in preference to the celebrities who are a part of the everyday life of
the professional workers in the film capital.
For the information of the feminine correspondents of the star, it may
be said that the famous sailor hat and sport clothes in which Miss MacDonald
has been seen so many times-through the lens of the camera-are not affected
solely because of her liking for this variety of wear, but because she is
an ardent lover of out-of-door life.
Miss MacDonald's activities, after joining the Schulberg producing forces,
were as star in a long series of pictures. |