34
PASADENA
PLAYHOUSE:
(3 cran ad Do ax? tHhio S'O'cacrs
Gilmor Brown
By JOSEPH STOCKER
'ant to be a movie star?
This is no guarantee, but your best bet
may be the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
The largest dramatic school in the nation, it has
given a start to dozens of Hollywood stars.
One of filmdom's early finds at the Playhouse
was a young fellow from Georgia named Randolph
Scott. He had come hoping to lose his drawl.
But Hollywood took him, drawl and all, and made
him a horse-opera hero.
Another Playhouse product is William Holden.
He was a junior-college student in Pasadena doing
amateur theatricals at the Playhouse when
Columbia was casting Clifford Odets' "Golden
Boy." Columbia's Harry Cohn saw Holden and
said, "There's our Golden Boy." Holden, in due
time, became an Academy Award winner and one
of Hollywood's most glittering "golden boys."
Others following the Playhouse route to fame
have included Victor Mature, Dana Andrews,
Eleanor Parker, Louise Albritton, Joyce McKenzie
(she was selling tickets in the Playhouse box
office when a Hollywood scout spotted her), Robert
Preston, Victor Jory, Edgar Buchanan, Marilyn
Maxwell, Lloyd Nolan, and Wayne Morris.
The prime mover in the development of this
extraordinary talent factory is a tall, urbane man
named Gilmor Brown. Under his guidance, the
Playhouse has grown from shaky beginnings 39
years ago in a Pasadena burlesque house to a
$1,000,000 organization.
Its greatest value, however, is the training and
encouragement it gives young Americans who
hope to star on our stage and screen.
Newcomers get a chance to work with ex
perts like Billie Burke (left) in first-run
plays that attract major audiences.
Appearing before the footlights is only part of the training, so students
also learn how to design and construct a set. The Playhouse has a $70,000
costume department, an extensive library, and four stages for "classrooms."
WEI3;n vast fkl V
"
The Playhouse, a burlesque theater 39 yearj ago, is now a $1,000,000 or
ganization. Some 250 students study the drama in palm-lined surroundings
and hope that some Hollywood producer will notice their next performance.
The Pasadena Playhouse has trained such
film stars as Louise Albritton (above)
and Academy Award winner Bill Holden.
Family Weekly, October 13, 1957