Salt Spring Island
Golf Course

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An interesting 9-hole course, length
3,019 yds., in beautiful surroundings

*
VISITORS WELCOME

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HARBOUR HOUSE

An Ideal Summer and Winter Resort
Auto Ferry Service from Vancouver
Island
Vancouver Island Coach Lines Direct
to Hotel

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Page Fifty-eight

natural. Promotion in the Force was
too slow for me. Life was hurrying
by. I decided to take up law. That
promised to be a slow business in
Canada. I selected California as the
place for a young man in a hurry.
Unfortunately I found a good many
others had the same idea. The place
was lousy with lawyers.”

“Then at a party someone from
M.G.M. said, “You are just the man
we want!” And in no time at all I
found myself technical adviser for the
picture they were making of Cur-
wood’s Flaming Forest, which is a
story of 1873 and the inception of the
Mounties. Fortunately during the
years I had been with them I had
enthusiastically collected and read
every book I could have found about
the Force so I suppose they might
have got someone worse.”

“But make-up?” I insisted. “How
did you get tangled up with make-up
and help revolutionize and stabilize
the craft?”

“That was great good luck, too. An
Englishman at that time was head of
M.G.M.’s make-up department. When
he found I could draw and paint,
knew a shadow from a handsaw and
had studied at Bath School of Art,
he gave me a place on his staff. I hit
Hollywood at the time they were
looking for new techniques—that was
luck, too. Hitherto the movies had
more or less inherited stage make-up.
But what was all right behind the
footlights looked dreadful under
Kliegs and cameras. Phosthetics and
color made all the difference to movie
make-up. Yellow grease paint became
outmoded.”

“What are phosthetics?”

Mr. Pierce explained and spelt it.
“Phosthetics are the artificial bits and
pieces now used to alter faces. They
have made it possible to do all kinds
of stories the movies had been turning
down for years. ‘Good-bye, Mr.
Chipps’ for instance. We did that in
’35 at Denham, England. Five years
earlier it would have been impossible.
I aged Robert Donat from eighteen
to eighty in ‘Chips.’ ”.

He told me something of how such
aging is done. “We model a cast of the
face that is to grow old. Then with
plastescine we add the usual signs of
progressing age. Heavy lids, jowlish
chins, bags under the eyes, baldness.
Nothing ages a person like lack of
hair. We make a pliable plastic skull.
On it we can fix any type of hair;
tonsure, single white strands. It takes
six, sometimes seven or eight weeks to
prepare the masks before the pro-
ducers and directors get busy. They
are our pattern.”

“How do we get make-up to jibe
from day to day? Why, stills, photo-
graphs and more photographs from

7

every angle. Plus of course a darn —

good memory. Every character in the
cast is photographed. The smallest
part can be checked back for a retake
months later.

“Technicolor had quite a few pit-
falls and problems for make-up artists
at first,” said Mr. Pierce. “Hollywood
was scared to put aging characters in
plays in the new medium. That's
where I found my art training most
useful. I could paint a shadow on a
face for color film exactly the way ]
wanted it far more easily than for
black and white.”

He spent two and a half hours
daily making up Anna Neagle when
she played Queen Victoria in Sixty
Glorious Years. Another challenge to
his skill was Don Ameche in “Heaven
Can Wait.” He had to age him from
youth to eighty-five. “The Thief of
Bagdad,” which he did for Korda, was
a tough one on color, too.

“What do you think is the greatest
innovation in make-up?” I asked.

“Sponge noses,” said Pat and Guy
together.

Pat Pierce is an American. She
started her professional life in cos-
tumes; studied the wigs and head-
dresses worn throughout the ages;
became her husband’s partner when
they went to London.

Together they have redesigned and
redecorated the house they all
Journey's End; have a twenty-foot
power boat in which they cruise the
Gulf. Guy likes to fish and hunt.
Pat to garden.

One Big Police
Family

Mrs. E. A. Pates of England, wrote
to the Editor of that country’s “Police
Review” as follows:—

“Sir,—My grandfather, an original
‘Peeler’ at Streatham, when only four
policemen were there, drew a police
pension for 39 years. His son, a ser-
geant, did over 30 years’ service; a son-
in-law, who was a sub-divisional in-
spector, had over 30 years’ service; and
a grandson also had over 30 years’
service. My husband served for 25
years and was an inspector for 15
years at Leman Street and Balham.
Our son did 26 years as a mounted
man at Bow and has been retired four
years. My husband was pensioned for
30 years. Is this a record for police
family?”

The editor of the “Review” wisely
acted on the journalistic precept of
“when in doubt, leave out,” for he
did not publish an answer to the last
sentence in Mrs. Pates’ letter, prob-
ably because he did not have ready
information at hand.

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