Word: ilona
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...born in Budapest 27 years ago and her name was Ilona Hajmassy (pronounced High-massy). At 14, Ilona was a seamstress in a sweatshop, with a will to sing. So Seamstress Hajmassy applied at a Budapest opera house. When its manager asked her what she could do, she told him: "Nothing." He put her in the chorus. There she earned 60 pengö ($10.50) a month, got no curtain calls. An M. G. M. executive finally spotted her at the Vienna opera, took her to Hollywood, where for six months she crammed dramatics and English, dieted on cottage cheese...
Simple as a Hungarian peasant, beauteous, fun-loving, slenderized Ilona Massey is unspoiled, despite pounds of jewelry and dozens of furs lavished on her by ardent admirers. She likes to wear them to Hollywood hot spots, but she also scrubs her own garage floor on all fours. Blue-eyed and flaxen-haired, she tempers Madeleine Carroll's cool gorgeousness with some of Mary Martin's warmth and a richer voice. The talent scout who uncovered her in Vienna wired: "This is the kind of dame who would look naked wearing a fur coat...
Balalaika (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is the first picture in which Ilona, now Massey without Haj, has her first chance to star. Unfortunately, Hollywood has now got the idea that "social significance" has something to do with the amusement business. So the picture, which takes its name from a truncated Russian mandolin, the balalaika, includes not only fatuously lovable grand dukes and musicians, but downright sinister Bolsheviks. It also includes Baritone Nelson Eddy, the Russian Cossack Choir, an excellent cast (Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill, Charles Ruggles, C. Aubrey Smith) and a lot of gorgeous clothing and sets...
Thereafter, for seven months in Hollywood she did no cinema work, living first with Hungarian Ilona Massey, then in a simple, six-room bungalow in Beverly Hills, polishing her English, training her speaking voice, observing Hollywood ways. She swam, batted tennis balls, expertly-played her piano, stole the show at a few beauty-ridden Hollywood parties, to which she was squired at times by Rudy Vallee, Howard Hughes and lately by Actor Reginald Gardiner. When last April Producer Wanger borrowed her from M.G.M. for Algiers, it was discovered that she would require padding to fill out her bust -a deficiency...
...they are also very pleasant. The curtain-raiser, The Violet, is concerned with the trials of a theatrical casting director who becomes weary of the blandishments and caresses which shameless young women, seeking employment, lavish upon him. Changing places with his composer, he is astonished to find that Ilona Stobri (Ruth Gordon) is attracted to him rather than to the one whom she believes is the director. She gets the job. To Ruth Gordon (Serena Blandish, Saturday's Children) went kudos for making a triviality a delight...