Hollywood (1941)

Playhouse was perfectly willing. The director wrote and said that it would be all right for him to come along but not unless he had on hand $300 to deposit in a Pasadena bank against rainy weather, which is always harassing poor actors, especially when they're far away from home. The $300 ante was quite a blow to young Cregar. Just for the heck of it he tried to raise the money from members of his family. No luck. In desperation he wrote to the local Rotary Club which, he had heard, lent money to deserving youths of 19 who wanted a professional career. The secretary of the Club replied to his application for an appointment to address the Board in the affirmative but added a postscript to the effect that the Rotary Club regarded actors as the world's worst risk. Still, if he felt like it, the Board would hear him. He snatched at the opportunity, appeared before the Board, and talked so eloquently that they lent him $300 and then some. He caught the train for California the next morning. He took with him a duffel bag and a huge volume of Shakespeare. He did very well at the Playhouse. He served two years as an apprentice. Then he hied himself East to try his wings on the professional stage. He got them clipped in short order. So he returned to the Playhouse for a year's post-graduate course. That second trip to California and the Playhouse almost finished him. He completed the post-graduate course, was hailed as a sensation, and then promptly set out to get himself cast in a play. The West Coast casting men couldn't see him with a telescope, figuratively speaking. Actually, they could see nothing else. (He weighed something like 330 pounds and looked 400.) Things got to such a sorry pass that he had no place to sleep. Some good Samaritans showed up in the guise of a young married couple with whom he had romped on stage at the Playhouse: they let him sleep in their sedan. He barely made it. But that didn't solve the food problem. There were times when he would get so hungry that he would try to divert his mind by going on long walks up and down Vine Street. These are the walks we told you about, on which occasions he would poke his head into the Brown Derby, sniff the nice smells, and exit cussing Shakespeare who was responsible for his plight as an unwanted — and hungry — actor. He calmed down one day and was struck by a marvelous thought. In New York a play called Oscar Wilde had been a terrific hit. A hefty named Robert Morley had wowed the critics with his performance. Why wouldn't that part be a natural for him? If some one would sponsor the play it would be. He started out that afternoon in search of a man who would produce Oscar Wilde on the West Coast. Five days later he had found an angel, a man named Arthur Hutchinson who thought Oscar Wilde would go over big in Los Angeles. The play opened on schedule and Laird Cregar got four curtain calls. The next day he got five telegrams, one from every major studio in Hollywood and all of them offering him a test and a contract. He liked the terms offered him by Twentieth Century-Fox and three months later he was co-starring in Hudson's Bay with Paul Muni. The Mr. Laird Cregar who weekly draws down $750 of good T.C.-F. money drops by the Brown Derby nowadays just as often as he did in those drear days in the fall and winter of 1933. Only nowadays it's a little different. He prances in and takes a seat with Phil Regan or George Raft. Furthermore, he orders a threedollar steak, mushrooms extra. Life, as you can see, is very wonderful for our Mr. Cregar. It will be more wonderful yet. His role of the effeminate critic of bull-fighting in Blood and Sand was named by New York critics as one of the best acting jobs of 1941. Mr. Zanuck, ever grateful, is right this minute combing the country for a starring vehicle which will really give his find an opportunity to win the Academy Award. Laird's one lament is his weight. He wishes he could bring it down to 250 pounds and keep it there. But if he doesn't quite make the grade, he won't let out a peep. Just as soon as he's salted away an even $250,000 he will use that ponderous bulk to good advantage. He will do Falstaff in Henry IV on Broadway. You know who wrote the play, don't you? It was Shakespeare. | First and Only Candy served the "Quints" i UM-M-M! You'll agree with the "Quints" and millions of Americans that Baby Ruth is candy at its finest ! You'll love the luscious, velvety-smooth coating, the chewy caramel and tasty opera cream center, the abundance of golden, freshly roasted peanuts which make up this great candy bar. Baby Ruth is good food — good for you. Its ingredients are all pure, wholesome foods — nourishing and delicious. Enjoy a big bar of Baby Ruth today ! CURTISS CANDY COMPANY Chicago, 111. 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