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see something grow and mature and sustain itself because of his handiwork.
I told all this to Wally once and he chortled. **So how about the way I use false whiskers and putty and grease sticks to create a kindly frontier judge out of a rummy ham actor and then destroy the whole face at the end of the day with a few yanks at crepe hair and wipes with a cheesecloth?’ Worse yet, he moaned, was how soap and water. turned an angelic, ‘teen-age feminine beauty back into middle-aged jowls and baggy eyes.
One thing Wally managed to do that I hadn’t the talent for. He created exquisite and awesome bits of furniture in his-.workshop so he could leave something real as_ lasting -memories of himself. Those hours with his lathes ° nfust ~ have been soul-satisfying. :
Wally never let the realities of his trade warp his sense of values: Actually, he told me, he had started late in his. speciality because he arduously sought to break into some field on his own, something that was not.a. “family heritage.” But he was too cleaver an artisan and a lot of movies benefitted from his being swallowed up. by a profession’ he resisted.
His talent and. his fine humor prevailed one’ night when I. was publicity director. I had fallen into a
fine relationship with Pete Martin of:
the Saturday Evening Post through our mutual efforts that enabled Pete to do six-part stories on Bing Crosby and Bob ‘Hope. So Pete listened when I telephoned him with a pitch to do a story On Paramount’s then production chief, Don Hartman,
I said that’ Don ‘was the wittiest, fastest-quipping person [I had ever known-which he was. Pete said he was coming ‘to Hollywood with his two immediate-superior editors. Why not all of us--editors, Pete; Hartman and I--go out for a fun evening in Hollywood? The highlight -would. be listening to: some Dixieland combo, since. hiseditors were ape for that stuff. Just one thing. Could I ask Wally Westmore to come along? Wally had helped Pete get hours of interviewing Bing on board.a steamer en route to France for “Little Boy -Lost.’’ He wanted a chance to thank Wally.
So a full evening started. Somehow, I couldn’t get the train on the track for. Hartman’s’ delicious humor. Innocently, I sought some ice-breaking by reminding Wally of a funny story he had told me. It concerned the
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typical female star who gropes her way to his make-up chair at 6 a.m. to get ready for work on the set: Her mouth tastes like coal dust, her head throbs. She complains of a cigaret cough, premature arthritis in a knee; her wrinkles, the beginning of a cold sore on her lip, sagging chin, a couple of pimples of her forehead.
“God, I look awful, darling,’ she moans. “My beauty’s fading fast. Please help me through this film. My option’s coming up.” :
So Wally, the make-up master, plies his trade and as he finishes, the dame stands and stares at the mirror. What a thing of ‘beauty is reflected: She straightens haughtily, sniffs toward the make-up man as though to say, “Old man, I’d let you kiss:my hand if I thought you wouldn’t contaminate me,” and regally stalks away.
The. editors fell on the table. What else could Wally: tell them? Well, he talked with great respect about his
‘marvellous brothers, Perc, Ern, Frank,
Monty, Bud... About how _ they belonged in. the movie world because they were past-master salesman. ‘I’m not in their league; I wish I were,” he said. He added that if they all headed for the North Pole Eskimos with the other brothers offering electric fans and he ear muffs that by day’s end the brothers would have sold all and Wally would be holding every single ear muff.
Well, the gate was open. Wally told story after story. Hartman never got to open his mouth, excepting to laugh
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” 1932. Frederic March and Mariam Hopkins.
politely. Pete never did a piece on Hartman. But those editors comissioned him to pay Wally for a two-part article on his hilarious adventures.
But I confess that the most colorful experience I had with Wally was the morning when I rode in the back seat of a car Wally was driving toward Busch Gardens in Pasadena. A location shot was to be made for “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” [I handled the publicity on that one and, of course, Wally created those astounding make-ups of Fredric March as Mr. Hyde.
Wally had put a horror make-up on March in the studio department and had picked me up to go on location with them. We three talked on the way over and it was not surprising that the man in the front with Wally was nice Freddie March and not-a monster. It never occured to us that he looked unusual.
That is, until Wally wheeled into a gasoline station to ask directions about how to find the location site. The attendant came up smiling, took one look, began to gasp, screamed and started running.
“Let’s scram,” shouted the fanged Mr. Hyde-March.
We scrammed. Wally and I often conjectured about that poor guy in the station trying to explain to others what he had seen in an auto—cold sober!
Bless you, Wally. It was a lot of fun knowing you. ***