Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

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19 Carefree Charlie Charles Farrell has not lost himself in the clouds with his rise to stardom, and he has not even acquired a complex. B? William H. McKegg FIVE people were in a room in Hollywood, some four years ago. To their way of thinking, it was a crazy musical soiree. Charles Farrell was the only one, I believe, who took it in earnest, and it is like him to do that with everything. Among those present was Walter Lang, to-day becoming a well-known . director. • He purposely made a lot of tremolo and glissando passages with his voice, as if he were singing "La Traviata." Two others joined in. Another, being an excellent pianist, accompanied the warblers. All were in the spirit of the fun. Charlie had been quiet, sprawling on an armchair, altering his languid positions every few minutes, as he does even to-day. When Charlie is ever quiet, you may depend upon his having something very important on his mind. The others guessed what he was likely to do — and they were not wrong. Pulling himself out of his sprawling pose, he got out his pet cornet, the instrument he never tired of playing. "Let's have a go at this," he gayly suggested. "Keep on singing just the same." During a lull Charlie would rest his beloved cornet on something — the mantelpiece as likely as not — but he invariably held onto it with one hand. As soon as the music was begun again, Charlie got in on the first blast. On this particular evening his companions made him mad. "That trumpet of yours, Charlie, or whatever it is, sure makes a strange noise !" "Try and keep in tune, old chap !" Charlie put up with their chafing for about half an hour in a hesitant, goodnatured way. Gradually he believed they were in earnest. It became too much. He got mad. His musical talent had been impugned ! Out of the kindness of his heart he had played for the others' entertainment, and they gave him the "merry ha-ha !" Almost dancing about the room in rage, Charlie brandished aloft his cherished instrument, seemingly determined to smash it to smithereens. He was frantically looking for a suitable place to commit the deed. Finally he flung his cornet from him — but only onto the bed, where it bounced up and dov/n on feathered softness. Only on very rare occasions do you get a glimpse of Charlie in a temper. The one way to rouse him is to make fun of something he likes, or does. But, hang it all, Photo by Autrey Charles Farrell stubbornly hung on in the face of difficulties until his big break came. they wouldn't let him sing, and they wouldn't let him play ! That sure makes a chap sore ! At first Charlie takes it all in a sportive manner, then off he goes. He lacks humor when it is directed at himself. Let me mention the last of Charlie's cornet. He and his instrument went one night to King Vidor's home. Whether King got rid of it in his own way, I have never found out. I do know, though, that the cornet was never seen again. Charlie, for a year after, made various resolutions to go to "Vidor's home for his misplaced child, but for one reason or another he never went. Perhaps he knew it would be no use. But he never said so. Scenes for the last picture made by Willard Louis were shot at Venice. It was low tide. A man was supposed to fall over the end of the pier into the shallow water below. Charlie's part called for this action which, of course, required a One way to make him mad, in his early movie days, was to kid him about his cornet. stunt man. As a joke, the director and others kidded Charlie about being