Here's a message to the boys and girls of Iowa from Jean Darling, former leading lady of the "Our Gang" comedies. She is appearing on the stage at the Paramount theater.
Jean is 9 and pretty. Her ambition is to continue on the screen. In a few more years we may see Jean, grown up, play acting love scenes and dramas for the older folks.
Dear Boys and Girls of Iowa: I think if you worked in the movies you wouldn't like it so much because it is quite hard to memorize the lines but it is easy to do the acting.
I was three years old when I started in pictures. I have made 36 silent pictures and six talkies.
When I grow up I want to be a star like Greta Garbo because she is dramatic. She cries. She is my favorite actress and Clark Gable is my favorite man actor. I would like to have him for a boy friend.
But I have a boy friend named Freeman Kincade. All he ever gave me was rattles of a rattle snake and about a year and a half ago he sent me a nice little fox which he trapped all by himself.
For fun I like to wade and if its too cold for that I get in the bath tub.
In my first picture I was an extra kid and I did well so they put me in the movies. The first picture I did was going up in an elevator with a goat and I was scared stiff. I thought maybe he'd butt me. I didn't like it at all either.
The second picture I was in I was an orphan and I got beat up with a big whip but it didn't hurt because it just sounded like it hurt.
Some of the kids in the movies are all right but I don't like some of them. Mitzi Green is nice.
When I am on the road I go to the "Professional Children's school" at New York, by correspondence. They send me my next week's work every Friday and I send my last week's work back on Friday night. They send it back corrected with three big gold stars when I do good work. I like going to school that way.