Variations

Joseph M. Schenck, president of United Artists, anxious to improve his golf, engaged as private tutor Leo Diegel, famed professional, paying him some say $12,000 for six weeks.

Asked last week whether he would endorse the Film Arts Guild (Manhattan organization for encouraging artistic films). Theodore Dreiser, novelist, said: ''The influence of the movies on the American public has been greater than any other force. . . . My sympathies and my appreciation will always be ... opposed to the American cinema magnates on the ground that they are more or less concentrated on the bastardization of the cinema not only with wearisome nonsense in regard to sex and romance but now with the talking pictures, the aim of which latter apparently is to exhume old stage plays which can be reproduced poorly and cheaply, yet be made to pay well. ..."

Pointing out that in spite of their great salaries many money-hungry cinemactors have ways of making money besides acting. Critic Regina Cannon (New York American) listed the extra-studio businesses of various stars: John Gilbert, Antonio Moreno, Thomas Meighan--financing real estate developments; Mary Pickford-- banking; Karl Dane--raising chickens; Chester Conklin--raising turkeys; Bessie Love--dairy farming; Lon Chaney--part-ownership in a plumbing company; Constance Talmadge--manufacturing cold cream; Lew Cody--automobile agency and part-ownership in a barber shop; Conrad Nagel and Jack Holt--stockyards at Fresno, Calif.; Renee Adoree--French restaurant.