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From under my Hat
with a four weeks' guarantee, and pictures usually ran from ten to twelve weeks.
I did no moping. If there was no part for me at MGM, I visited other studios and rented myself out. That's how I ended up in The Man Who Played God, with George Arliss. This picture was Bette Davis's first screen chance, her steppingstone to success. Bette had had a grim experience at Universal and was ready to quit Hollywood for keeps when she was brought to Mr. Arliss's attention. He appointed himself her patron saint. Wish he'd done the same for me; I was treated like an alley cat with the scurvy.
When it came my turn to rehearse, Arliss screwed that monocle of his in his cold eye and said, "Now let's see what you can do." As good a method as any of freezing an actor to the floor.
I won't say I lacked confidence, but George Arliss killed every vestige of it. I blundered through a rehearsal. Arliss said frigidly, "I suggest you study the part and do it for me tomorrow."
My trusty old temper boiled up, but in the nick of time a man who'd played with Arliss on stage and screen for twenty-two years edged around to me and said quietly, "Don't let him upset you. He's been doing it to me for over twenty years."
"Why have you stayed to take it?" I asked.
"An actor must live. The pay is good; there is always a long engagement. But I never walked on stage that I didn't tremble in my shoes. I knew life would catch up with him someday, though.
"It did. That was my reward. Remember when he played Shylock on the New York stage? The critics who'd always praised him to the skies tore him apart. For the first time I saw fear in his eyes when he walked on stage, just as all these years he had put fear in my heart. Just as he put fear in yours today." The man shrugged. "I'm telling you this because I didn't want you to feel humiliated. He's not worth it."
Bette got the opposite treatment. Arliss was all ingratiating smiles, couldn't furnish her with enough help. Bette blossomed.
I'd done well for Metro on loan-outs, and for myself too. But I'd been around too long; they grew tired of my face. God knows I was 230