Paramount Pictures and Life in Hollywood
In 1933 he entered a talent contest organised by Paramount Pictures and was selected as one of thirty winners and one of only two from New Zealand. He was rewarded with a contract with Paramount as a bit part actor, was credited in If I Were King (1938) and appeared uncredited in several other films. Tapley had the debonair good looks, voice and talent of a star, but he found his niche in playing character roles, and appeared in American and British films for more than 30 years without any real desire for movie stardom. Colins desire for character parts came early in his Hollywood career. He wrote home enthusiastically to one of his brothers about his small part in The Scarlet Empress (1934), describing the long black beard and wonderful uniform that transformed him into the captain of the queen's bodyguard. Although his performance went uncredited, Tapley is seen directing the firing of the guns from the palace battlements, and yelling, "It's a boy!" to the excited crowd after the future empress played by Marlene Dietrich gives birth to a son". He continued to work in some of the biggest movies of the 1930s, starring the likes of Cary Grant, Loretta Young, Sir Richard Redgrave and Gary Cooper. "The most wonderful experience of my life," is how he later recalled those years "I adored every bit of it."
During this time he shared a flat with Donald Gray and they would remain close friends until Gray's death in 1978. His best friend in Hollywood was Frederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray, who with his first wife, Lillian Lamont visited Colin in New Zealand and England with his second wife, when Colin had moved back to be with his own wife and children. MacMurray and Tapley remained great friends up until MacMurray's death in 1991. Colin was a keen horseman and an avid polo player; playing at the Riveria Polo Club, and on his ranch in the San Fernando Valley where his friends and neighbours would spend time, one of whom being Ginger Rogers. He recalled later, 'popping over to her place for tennis and what not', before the war broke out whereupon he left Hollywood and returned to England.
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