Hollywood (1942)

Xalent Scout "I was in a daze — in so much of a daze that I didn't have sense enough to be nervous," explains Richard, still a little baffled by his luck. "When I was told later that the test had won me a big role in The Man Who Came to Dinner, I just turned around like a sleepwalker, wired the folks that something had hit me on the head and I hadn't awakened yet." He was promptly initiated into the hectic routine of being transformed into a prominent leading man. He was photographed and interviewed by the press. A stand-in and a secretary were hired for him. "I can understand the stand-in," he said. "But why the secretary?" "Oh, to handle your fan clubs," was the nonchalant answer. He reeled. His real name, Bill Justice, was changed to Richard Travis for no apparent reason, since Bill Justice suits his virile handsomeness much better. He can't get used to the new name, so Bette Davis still calls him "Bill" to make him feel at home. "All this fuss over me," says Bill blinking. "Imagine Bette Davis calling me 'Bill.' Why I used to set her name up on the marquee of the Paragould movie house last year. The folks in Arkansas wouldn't believe me. I had to send them a picture of me and Miss Davis together!" ■ By JOHN FRANCHEY ■ Heaven knows what would have happened to John Sutton if it hadn't been for Bette Davis. And as for Susan (the very thought of it is enough to make you shudder!), she probably would have ended up a tramp. This is how Bette managed to rescue the Sutton gentleman from himself and to save him for the movies. The time was mid-afternoon; the scene, Stage 11 on the Warner lot; the picture in production, a costume piece called Elizabeth and Essex. Miss Davis, of course, was playing Elizabeth. According to 'the script Miss Davis was to be encountered by a very minor character designated as the "Captain of the Guard." He was to dash in, salute, pay his respects, say a few lines, click his heels, and then beat it. Well, there she was all set for the captain of the guard to show up and make his microscopic speech so she could get on to a more dramatic scene with Errol Flynn when all of a sudden in dashed a knightly figure, pranced up to her, flashed his eyes in her direction, saluted like a real soldier, spoke his lines with a manly abandon, and disappeared. JANUARY, 1942 "Who was that?" Miss Davis, somewhat out of breath, asked the assistant director. "John Sutton. He does occasional bits." "Only bits?" "That's right. He doesn't seem to give a darn." Later that afternoon Bette Davis and John Sutton met for a chat. Bette wanted to find out more about this, man Sutton. She did. She asked him what he did between bits and was astounded to discover that he spent his time "looking for a job." What kind of a job? Any old job. Just so long as he and Susan had a roof over their heads. Didn't he have an ambition? None especially: he didn't have any qualifica Smiling John Sutton owes his new star classification and attractive contract to Bette Davis, who insisted he buckle down to work. John appeared in 20th Century-Fox's A Yank in the R.A.F., and more recently as the male lead in Moon Over Her Shoulder tions. What about that military manner of his? Oh, that. He had picked it up at Sandhurst Military Academy in England. What about acting as a career? He wasn't cut out to be an actor. He did bit parts simply because he could find no other jobs. This is where Bette Davis saved him from himself. She told him that as an actor he had fine possibilities. She was sure of that merely from what she had seen him do that afternoon. She thought he ought to give acting a real try. Furthermore, she would do all she could to help. That pep talk from Bette Davis did the trick. He went home to Susan a new man, determined to give Miss Davis' theory a real tryout, just as soon as his ten-day stint in Elizabeth and Essex was over. Bette went to bat for him the very next day with the Warner front office. The Warner chiefs listened very patiently and said they'd keep him in mind. She talked to the big boys over at T.C.-F. They said they'd test him the first chance they got. Meanwhile, she passed the word around to every studio in town. That talking campaign of hers bore quick fruit. Hardly had he kissed the Warner paymaster good-bye when he got a call from Universal. They wanted to test him for a part in Towers of London. He took the test, got the part, landed a contract, and settled down to the business of becoming an actor. That role in Towers oj London was a killer. He played the part of a tinsel hero who was, in his own words, "a blooming bore who saved the queen's jewels and won the girl, only God knows why, in the end." He hung around doing small roles over at Universal until he began to wonder if maybe Bette Davis had thrown him a curve in suggesting that he get serious with pictures. In time, he was shoved into a picture called, I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby, in which he played a stooge to Broderick Crawford. Sutton quit Universal when his year was up and there he and Susan were once more, at sixes and sevens. For two months he waited for a call from someone who might need a slightly disillusioned captain of the guard, and not one yip out of Susan, the ever-understanding. At the end of the ninth week he noticed she was getting slimmer. At which point, just like in the movies, a call came in the nick of time from the boys over at Twentieth Century-Fox, the very boys whom Miss Davis had worked on. It seems that an outdoor saga called Hudson's Bay was going into production and needed someone along the lines described by Miss Davis. Mr. Sutton dropped by the next morning, got the test, the part, Gene Tierney for a heroine, and a wave of favorable mention from the critics for the nice job he did. The John Sutton whose performance in A Yank in the R.A.F. has brought him a memo, with gold star attached, from Darryl Zanuck, has a background which explains his diffidence to the movies up until the time Bette Davis gave him that pep talk. The man certainly has lived, as they say. He was born in Rawalpindi, India, the scion of a com [Continued on page 45]