The Daily Alaska Empire

"Second Leads" May Shine
But Not in Filmland's Sun

By
ROBBIN COONS

HOLLYWOOD, Cal., Feb. 3-

Barring an extra's complete oblivion, the greatest anonymity in Hollywood is enjoyed by the girl who plays "second leads."

She can be well-known indeed. she can be beautiful and a fine actress, she can be as agreeable and pleasant and surprising as ice water at a cocktail bar, but in the Hollywood spotlight she just isn't.

Why this should be isn't clear, unless you fall back on the obvious, which isn't necessarily true. As a second lead, she's always eclipsed by the greater glitter of the star.

Some of us were ruminating on this circumstance the other day, and the name of Margaret Lindsay arose as the perfect example.

Say "Margaret Lindsay" in any gathering of movie reporters and they'll all think-"Oh, yes, the girl who got into pictures by pretending she was British."

That's been the "angle" on Margaret for five years now-ever since she fooled her way into the all-English cast of "Cavalcade."

For about two years the publicity men at Warner's have been doing their best to change the angle -- you can't blame Margaret for wearying of it-but they've had no luck.

Often, they themselves give up and start their stories with: "When Margaret Kies of Dubuque, Iowa, was unable to crash pictures as an American," etc.

Other "angles" that have found their way into print on the Lindsay girl have been few. It has been dutifully recorded that she and Janet Gaynor are good friends, that she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City, that she sculptors a little, that she is fond of vacations in Mexico, adores Hawaii, and so on.

Once her adoration reached the point where she planned to buy an island, but to date there's no deed of transfer recorded. She dresses smartly, is a favorite companion of some of the colony's most eligible young men, she makes a nice salary, puts enough of it away, and keeps on playing second leads with an occasional first lead in second-string pictures.

Margaret Objected

Among her workers she is rated very easy to get along with, an excellent actress, a sincere and hard working performer, intelligent and sympathetic. About the only occasion on which her nice disposition was ruffled arose because of a publicity man's desire to depart from the she-said-she-was-English angle.

The young man, going into communion with himself, produced a little squib to the effect that Miss Lindsay, when troubled with a sore throat, always found prompt relief in gargling hot beer!

This item found its way to print,