Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1931)

Consent to Tell All About Each Other 55 "She Just Steals Every Picture, Says J u )i i o r D u r k in J I Mi >R DURKIN admits that taking Mitzi's father for a horseback ride may have been unfortunate. Hut be won't admit he's to,> old to be interested in Mit/.i. In New York, where lie is to be starred in a Broadway play at the head of a cast of fifty, lu is ready to insist that Mitzi Green is the greatest woman on the si reen. "She's wonderful." says Junior. "She steals every picture. She'll probably steal 'Tom Sawyer.' She's fun off the screen, too. As much fun as a hoy. Gee, we had a great time making 'Tom Sawyer.' We played miniature golf all the time. "Jackie Coogan owns three courses. Everybody has a course out there. There must be three in every block. Good ones, too. You know if you have real estate you build a miniature golf course. Even if it doesn't make big money, it pays the taxes Finance may be a strange topic of conversation from a boy. But remember that Junior Durkin has been a self-supporting young man from the age of three. He went on the stage at that very early age. Last year he scored an emphatic hit in "Courage." The movies idled him West. And his biggest role is that of Huckleberry Finn in the immortal •• lorn." When Paramount makes "Huckleberry Finn" early next year. Junior will return to the coast to play the title role. I Ie is looking forward to it. As much as Junior admires Mitzi dreen, he has another idol in the movies. Walter Huston. Not Charles Rogers, not Chevalier, not ' -~^ Ramon Novarro. Junior has his own theories about acting. "Huston is wonderful," he announces enthusiastically. "Why, he really acts. Everything he does, with his voice and his gestures, has some point. He never overacts, either. And that's as important as just acting. I WENT to see him in 'Abraham Lincoln.' Gee, he was wonderful You know 'Abraham Lincoln' was just about the only movie they made that children could enjoy. They just haven't been making pictures for children. That's why I was so glad when they made 'Tom Sawyer!" " Have modern children really read the book?" I asked this solid young man, because I hail had some doubts. " I'll say they have." from Junior. "Why. that's a great story. Fverybody still reads 'Tom Sawyer.' ' Junior is as bovish as he can be. Like Mitzi, he gauges life by the measure of fun. The theater, in which he was rehearsing, was littered with paper darts. The first scene of the play, being a schoolroom scene with twenty-eight boys, had been colored with Junior's instinct for realism. Darts and spitballs. Junior Durkin in his ric-out as Huckleberry Finn in "Tom Sawyer." Junior, at fifteen, has made his mark and a bright one — on both stage and screen Junior has a tutor. He actually . tin. His mothr handles his financial affairs for him. He has an agent to make professional deals. Two sisters, a few years older, are also actors. But his parents were non-professional. Like Mitzi, Junior loves work. Like her. he also loves fun. Like her. he contrives to have it. They'll have it together again in " Huckleberry Finn." And we'll all be able to share in it. s a great adventure for Junior, as well as for Coogan and Mitzi -this filming of Mark Twain's immortal yarn. As he labors away in crowded, thundering New York, no doubt the kid will be thinking of the coming summer, when once more he can put on the rags of Hut ■: and loaf before the camera along the banks of whatever they use in California for the old Mississippi. Gee — he'll be sixteen then! Wonder if Mitzi ever thinks of that? Well, even if she does, she probably comforts herself with the thought that then she'll be an oid lady of air eleven.