The Magic Key

These days the Americans are turning their eyes and their thoughts toward television and the rapid strides it is making toward progress and expansion — as though people's ears had grown weary of merely listening to the radio and had found in television the finest pleasure for the eye, added to the pleasure of hearing.

Actresses and actors look upon television differently from everyone else: they consider it a new door to fame, which before was hard to reach, its path barred by numberless obstacles.

Let us listen to the story of Miss Rita Colton, the first girl to discover that television is the magic key that opens the doors of Hollywood and crowns its holder with the wreath of fame and glory.

Miss Rita Colton says:
"It is no longer necessary for an actress to force her way to the screen with the difficulty she used to face. I rose overnight from a salesgirl in a children's doll shop to a starring role in a film of Hollywood production — all of it the result of a single appearance on television.

"I shall tell you how it happened:
"One day Mr. Lewis, the director of television plays, the man in charge of the preliminary tests of actresses and actors — this man was walking down the street, and I was on my way to the shop, when suddenly he tapped me on the shoulder, without any previous acquaintance with me, and said:
"'Are you an actress?'

I glared at him and asked angrily: what did he mean by this mockery? And what could he possibly be after?

He led me, holding my arm, and in his office, across the street, I acted for him a scene from 'Hamlet'; and when I had finished, Mr. Lewis handed me my first role for television.

My appearance on television caught the eye of the motion-picture directors, and they hastened to sign contracts with me. Then I felt an importance beyond all importance; I began to play the coquette and to set my conditions, and they bowed to my wishes, convinced that after my appearance on television I would count for something in the world of the cinema as well."

Such is the story of the first actress television has produced. The experts believe that Rita — now preparing to appear in the film "The Red Spy" — is on the fast road to the summit, and it would not be surprising if very soon she became a star of the first rank!