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Up the Milky Way to Stardom
Milkboy, newsboy, "scoop" reporter, bus driver, camera man, daredevil double, and now a star elect, Cullen Landis is a Horatio Alger hero in real life. Here is his own account of his rise.
By Cullen Landis
S I play this a u t o b i ographica 1 s o 1 o — b y special request — on a discordant typewriter in my dressing room, I'm wearing the make-up of one /. Walling ford Speed. He is a bumptious, bragging young guy in Rex Beach's "Going Some." So if at times this story
One of his many jobs was to drive a sight-seeing bus.
inclines to braggadocio, remember, /. Wallifigford, not J. Cullen, is responsible. (Like all true artists, I have to live my part while playing it.) But of this bird Landis, of whom I, /. Walling ford Speed, am compelled to write
In the year 1895, A. D., according to the fly leaf of the family Bible, the clan of Landis in Nashville, Tennessee, was blessed with a son, who came into the title of James Cullen Landis.
Now the first great event in the life of this lad happened when he was still in knickers, but thinking of changing to long trousers. It happened thus : One Sunday, "Red" Flynn who delivered milk and washed bottles for the local dairy, ushered me, J. Cullen Landis, into a candy store and tossed out a dime for licorice "stove lifters." He acted as though it were a commonplace dissipation in his young life. At once I became dissatisfied with my penniless lot. I resolved to get a job. Through Red's influence I was given a milk route. A week on the milky way convinced my employers that the responsibilities were too great for me. I was ever offending the dairy by failing to bring back milk tickets, and ever irritating housewives by leaving a pint when a quart was called for.
But, once having tasted the joys of financial independence, even though it required work, I applied to the Nashville American for a paper route and got it. For the lordly stipend of twelve dollars a month, I bolted from the blankets at three Here he is o'clock every morning and beat Red Flynn's milk bus to as assistant the houses in the neighborhood. cameraman.
I did my first piece of newspaper reporting while in this position. A big auto race was being held just outside of town, and I went to see it with one of the regular reporters. He left me standing at one of the turns of the track and went on down the line to see the cars running in the stretch. During his absence a machine skidded into the fence near where I was standing, and four others piled up in a ghastly heap. In five minutes I was at a telephone giving the story to the office. When I got back I was received with all the pomp and courtesy extended the Prince of Wales.
But before long I began to wonder what the other cities had to offer in the way of entertainment and work. I had read some stories about the warm golden sunshine of California, so I headed for the State of perpetual sun. That was about five years ago.
For a while I drove a sight-seeing bus.
Then I got employment at the Balboa Studio at Long Beach. I was known as the truck driver, but I spent almost as much time sweeping up, running errands, and minding the switchboard. From this utilitarian post I rose to the rank of as