Having landed a seven-year movie contract, Darla Jean Hood, 3½ years old, leaves for Hollywood next week to star in "Our Gang Follies."
Accompanying her will be her teacher and manager, Miss Kathryn Duffy, who won a contract as assistant director on the "Follies" and as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer dance director.
The contract Darla Jean signed in New York with Hal Roach and M-G-M calls for roles in feature pictures after finishing the initial starring part. The plan is to try to build her into a feature picture star of the magnitude of Shirley Temple, Fox's sensation.
Darla Jean's final appearance in Oklahoma City will be Friday (the 6th), when she is scheduled to sing and perform at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
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She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Hood, Leedy. Hood is cashier of the First National bank there. By a coincidence, Shirley Temple's father also is a banker.
The child's parents brought her to Oklahoma City early last spring. She was given a part in Miss Duffy's "Follies de Paree" at the Shrine, and a packed house applauded her singing.
Her second appearance here was at The Daily Oklahoman and Times milk and ice fund "Theater Cabaret" at the Criterion, where the crowds again acclaimed her.
Miss Duffy and her husband, H. L. Braudis, confident they had a child prodigy in their hands, took her to New York.
The party stopped at Chicago, where Darla Jean sang at the Continental Roof of the Stevens and at the St. Clair roof.
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In New York Darla Jean sang at the Hollywood restaurant. The child caught the eye of film men wherever she was taken, Miss Duffy said. Braudis relates that one evening he was carrying Darla Jean down Broadway when George White saw her, and stopped short.
He stopped and talked to the child and was amazed at her talent, said Braudis. Next day White's manager called at their hotel and offered her a part in White's new "Scandals."
By this time, however, her contract with M-G-M had been signed. She was given a 1,000-foot screen test at the Long Island studio. She sang the 15 songs she knows by heart, carried on an impromptu conversation, danced, and enacted Shirley Temple's scene with Adolph Menjou in "Little Miss Marker."
A telegram reached here Thursday (the 5th) from Joe Rivkin, Hal Roach's assistant, which read: "Try to leave for Hollywood before September 11. Darla in lead 'Our Gang Follies' which goes into production next week."