In New York yesterday Frances Farmer, stage and screen star, denied it all, categorically and every other way - denied that she wore big shoes, that she was overweight, had a bad "do" on her hair, needed guidance in nice conduct. All of these things were asserted against her by one Shepard Traube, who is suing her for $75,000 for "managerial advice."

NEW YORK - Saturday, June 4 - (UP)

Frances Farmer, golden-haired star of "Golden Boy," testified in Supreme Court yesterday that whatever success she had attained in this world was due chiefly to her own efforts and not to anything Shepard Traube ever said or did.

The Seattle girl, who made good on Broadway by way of the "movies," defended herself against Traube’s charge that she owed him in the neighborhood of $75,000 in "manager’s fees" and against his assertion that when they first met in 1935 her hips were twenty pounds too big.

"Was anything said about your appearance?" her attorney, Louis Nizer, asked after she had described her meeting with the man who declares he put her on the road to stardom.

    "No," she replied, "nothing that I remember."

    "Anything about your diction?"

    "No."

    "Your hairdress?"

    "No. We had just met."

    "Your footwear?"

    "No."

Traube had testified that Miss Farmer’s diction was sloppy, her hat old fashioned, her shoes "exaggerated." He also testified he had obtained for her through a wholesale house, a wardrobe worth $500.

That, Miss Farmer said, was where the exaggeration came in. She estimated the figure at nearer $50.

What publicity she had received, Miss Farmer said, she had earned herself in Seattle by winning a subscription contest and a trip to Russia. She was, she said, well known in Seattle, New York, London and Russia.

When Traube took her to see Oscar Selin, a Paramount test director, Selin told her, she said, that he was "interested" in her because "he had been reading about me."

Article appeared in the Seattle Times, June 4, 1938

Provided by Ulrich Fritzsche M.D.