Hollywood (Jan - Mar 1943)

Anything for a Laugh The screwball dance routine of Lorraine and Rognan starts off conventionally (above), but ends up unexpectedly (right). The team is in Salute for Three | Practically every important figure in show business, including that fringe of folks known as critics and columnists, was at the Paramount theater in New York on the evening of December 19, 1940. It was a gala premiere and the affair was going to be interesting. The famous feudists, Jack Benny and Fred Allen, had been lured into co-starring in the picture Love Thy Neighbor. Before the picture, however, there was a stage show and one of the acts was presented by a young couple known as Lorraine and Rognan. Rognan was a serious-faced, normal-acting, handsome chap in "tails." Lorraine was a trim-figured, pretty-faced, well-gowned, little, darkcomplexioned girl, who at the most unexpected moment, was given to contorting her body and face. Lorraine and Rognan "laid 'em in the aisles" that night. Their "lines" were bright and hilarious, their comedy of the "belly laugh" kind, and they wound up with a burlesque ballroom dance which left both themselves and the audience breathless. Reviews on them were "terrific." Interviewers and columnists descended upon them, asking, "Where have you two been?" "Why, in and around New York. We've been on Broadway seven times in the past couple of years," they replied. And that was the truth — just one of many strange facts, events and occur 80 rences in the lives of this amazing team. They had done Broadway turns in several theaters before that night; but always, on previous appearances, it had happened that no one in a position to give them sparkling "write ups" or offers for movies was around to see them. The day after their hit at that premiere, Lorraine and Rognan were swamped with film offers. (Both had been in pictures before, unheralded and unsung.) Paramount, however, had the inside track on the talents of Lorraine and Rognan. That studio signed them to work in The Fleet's In, which they did with huge success. When the comedy team reached Hollywood for The Fleet's In they were astounded to learn they had been signed as a dance team. Four years before, they had joined up as a team. They were in Hollywood at the time and the movie city had a famous night spot known as the Trocadero which featured guest acts. Lorraine and Rognan were invited to be a guest act four days after they had shaken hands and said, "Let's be a team." There wasn't time for rehearsals of fast patter which needed the skilled timing that practice since has given them. The easiest sort of hurriedly-concocted act would be a burlesque dance routine. They whipped up one and presented it at the "Troc." That brief turn brought them an offer at the Biltmore Bowl. Before and during that engagement, the two had time to build up an elaborate act for which their dance was only a comedy excuse to get them off stage. But it seems that Paul Jones, a Paramount producer, had seen them in their guest-night debut at the "Troc." So, when he was told that Lorraine and Rognan could be had for his production, he never knew they were anything other than comedy dancers. Hence, they had to dance in their first movie. And today they have to grin and bear the almost universal belief that they "dance." After T7xe Fleet's In, the couple was signed to a two-pictures-a-year-contract by Paramount and took a swing around the country, to return recently in advance of starting time on their next movie, Salute for Three. The first thing they did on arriving was to ask the producer, director and writers of the film to see their act. They invited themselves as free guest stars at the vaudeville show at the local Orpheum and strutted all their stuff. They deliberately did not dance. So time came for their chore in Salute for Three. It was to dance. Seems plans already had been made that way and couldn't be changed. So, this comedypatter duo still hasn't uttered a single line of dialogue in a movie. Today, they eagerly accept every offer to do a benefit act (they even seek them). They have appeared at every camp show possible and played at the Hollywood Canteen eleven times in three weeks. They have made a pact not to dance a single step in any of these shows. Eventually they are going to break that dance team load around their necks. The two are more than comedy partners. Four weeks after they met, they were engaged. Six months later, they were married. Their home life is the exact opposite of their professional work. Rognan is the clown of the family; in fact, he was once a circus clown. Lorraine is the serious one. She started out as a ballet dancer and is considered truly good. At home, it is Rognan who is likely to do a screwy Indian dance in bath towel and with dust mop on his head while Lorraine looks up from some serious reading or knitting and laughs. Rognan thinks up all the gags — and Lorraine executes them. Jeanne Lorraine was the first of the two to start entertaining. She was born Jeanne O'Rourke, and at the age of five was singing and dancing for soldier boys at camps in 1918, just as she and Rognan are doing today. From that, she went into silent movies in Hollywood as a moppet and did pretty well until, at fourteen, she started out with Fanchon and Marco units as a toe dancer. Next step was to get a partner and go in for comedy, and that was her status up to the time she met Roy Rognan. Rognan had started life in Sands Point, Idaho, grew up in Minneapolis where he became a gymnast at the Y.M.C.A. When he moved to Everett, Washington, he soon found four other youths who liked to "tumble." They got pretty good doing free shows and then at the age of sixteen, Rognan ran away from home and joined