Hollywood (Jan - Mar 1943)

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Darnell A. One-third of my salary, but all of my trust fund (under the Coogan act) goes into bonds. Q. What acting flaw have you which you'd like to overcome? A. I lapse into "Texas" once in a while in my speech. In Mark of Zorro I used to forget myself and say "you-all," ruining take after take. Q. About what are you most sentimental? A. Anniversaries ; my sister's for instance. She is very happily married and I love to plan celebrations for her wedding anniversary and her baby's birthday. Q. What do you remember about your first kiss? A. Jimmy Ellison delivered it in Hotel for Women. This is true. My first off-screen kiss came later on. to /ST pst "gi, e.» "o0 Q. What advice would you give a girl coming to Hollywood to crash pictures? A. Anything but come here! Do Little Theater work, be a big frog in a little puddle. Let Hollywood come to you. You'll never get anywhere without some sort of introduction. Q. What is the greatest adjustment [Continued on page 68] Kent Smith has a phobia about anything borrowed. So he wouldn't change his plain name. R-K-O picked him for stardom in spite of his unglamorous handle. He's in Hitler's Children Mr. Smith Goe§ to Hollywood | There used to be a well circulated belief in Hollywood that no one named Smith would ever be a star. That is, if he used "Smith" on the screen. But R-K-O is breaking the jinx with their new leading man, Kent Smith, who refused to change his name. Certainly his first few pictures make him star material. Ever since Kent Smith appeared on the New York stage, where he was a popular leading man before coming to Hollywood, people have tried to make him change the "Smith." He refused, because of a phobia against using anything borrowed. When he signed his movie contract, he stipulated (in writing) that he retain his real surname. Smith has two other distinctions, in addition to his name. He is one of the few native New Yorkers in movies. He is also one of the few actors who has always been able to support himself just by acting since he graduated from college, without recourse to mowing lawns or slinging hash. As typically American as his name, Kent Smith looks more like an athlete or young business man than an actor. Six feet tall, tipping the scales at 170, he has brown hair and deep-set hazel eyes. Kent was born in Manhattan on March 19, 1907, went to Lincoln School of Teachers College, one of the early progressive schools, then to Phillips Exeter preparatory school and Harvard University. It was at Exeter that he became interesting in acting and in a strange way. By JILL LANG The French department wanted to do a play, but needed a tall, broadshouldered boy for the lead. The best French students didn't qualify physically. KeVt did, but he had never studied French. He was invited to try, learned his lines phonetically and was given the part. Kent's father, a hotel manager, hoped his son would follow in his profession and had him start learning the business from the cellar up. During one vacation, while still in prep school, Kent worked in the basement storeroom and as a "checker." "I didn't see daylight for two months. I hated it. And I didn't want to be a 'nice young man' behind the front desk. So the next vacation I found a job as a 'spudder,' stripping bark off felled trees, in a Maine lumber camp. That I liked," he says. Kent was active in dramatics at Harvard, but his urge to make acting his life work was born in Wood's Hole on Cape Cod, where, during his freshman vacation, he was invited to participate in the annual entertainment for the benefit of the public library. He played the lead in two of Eugene O'Neill's short plays and danced an exhibition Charleston between the acts! He and other members of the cast, Harvard and Princeton students, decided to form their own stock company. They found a movie theater in nearby West Falmouth where business was always bad the first three days of the week. They convinced the manager he'd do better with "live" shows and made a deal to split profits. [Continued on page 71] 31