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City Lights Clippings 12/387

Variety, New York, October 24, 1928.

Picked by Chaplin

      Chicago Gold Coast Girl Finds Way to Stardom Ready

      Paved After Meeting With Screen Comedian“

      Photo. „VIGINIA CHERRILL.“

      „By IONE QUINBY.

      Staff Writer for Central Press and The Montana Standard.

      CHICAGO, Nov. 17. – The story of Virginia

Cherrill, Chicago girl, doesn‘T resemble in the least the popular

idea of a girl storming Hollywood for recognition.

Virginia is in the limelight as Charlie Chaplin‘s latest choice

for a leading lady.

      Blonde and lovely, Virginia, or „Jinny,“ as she is called

by her former schoolmates in the fashionable Starret

school for girls, has ridden rough shod – or silver shod, one

should say – over all the old traditions that one must

wait and work and even starve for a chance at stardom.

      There has been no waiting at director‘s doors,

no eating of crackers and milk where she should have had

steak, no working as an extra on small pay or living

in lonely rooms while she ate her heart out with homesickness.

All these have been spared Virginia Cherrill, 20 and

lovely, in whose boots thousands of girls would like to be

today.

      Sheltered Since Babyhood.

      Born to start with in an aristocratic Chicago family, whose

sole ambitions for „Jinny“ were to educate and bring

her up beautifully, the daughter of the Cherrills has been

sheltered since babyhood. At an early age, she

entered St. Mary‘s convent t Kenosha, Wis., Later she was

sent to the fashionable school for girls on Chicago‘s

southside.

      „I just didn‘t want teas and parties and things,“ Virginia

says, tossing her lovely blond head which resembles

that of Mildred Harris, Chaplin‘s first wife. „At one time I was

crowned queen of beauty at the Arts ball and received

the golden apple, which is first prize, and at that time I thought

it would be to get in the movies, but I really never

dreamed of trying.“

      Not long after she finished school Virginia married

a young lawyer, Irving Adler, but she was divorced from him

a few months later. That was two years ago.“

(...) Ione Quinby, Montana Standard, Butte, Montana,

Nov. 18, 1928

„Upon her refusal to play a blind girl“

Editorial content. „U. A.‘s Unknowns

      Almost without exception United Artists‘ stars pick

unknowns for their leads. Myrna Kennedy has never appeared

in any picture except with Chaplin, and upon her refusal

to play a blind girl in City Lights, the next Chaplin film, the comedian

selected Virginia Cherrill, 20, an amateur.“ (...)

      Merna Kennedy did not „refuse to play a blind girl.“

      Grace Kingsley, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 4, 1928:

      „Merna Kennedy will not be Chaplin‘s lead in City Lights.

      It is understood that the reason is because the heroine

      of the story is a blind girl, and Miss Kennedy‘s eyes are too

      dark to convey the idea of sightlessness.“

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