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80 IT TOOK NINE TAILORS
"Oh, the usual thing. Table stakes/'
I knew I couldn't afford to play in a table stakes game— or any other kind, for that matter— but it was important for me to meet directors, so I went. There were three or four directors there, among them Al Green and Frank Lloyd, also Nat Deverich, who used to be John StahTs assistant, and Teddy Butcher, production manager at Metro-Goldwyn.
What a poker game that was! Every pot opened for five dollars. There were dollar chips in the game, too, but nobody ever used them except to make one of those Texas bets like "I raise twenty-one dollars just to make it more confusing." The game was full of banter and repartee, but I was sweating blood. Every time I got into a pot for five dollars, somebody said, 'Til raise it fifty just to keep the pikers out." And I was the only piker in the joint. By the time the game was over I had lost $300 just in antes and openers. I think I only stayed in one pot, and that was when I had aces back to back and caught another ace. Everybody knew I was loaded and folded fast.
When we started to settle up, I didn't have enough money to pay my losses because my wife had most of our money at home with her. Nat Deverich was the banker, so I suggested that he walk by my place on his way home and I would get the cash to pay him off. I hoped he would wait until the next day, but he didn't. He came right along with me to collect!
Looking back on those first few months, I still get cold shivers. Strong athletic legs were the prime requisite in obtaining a job in those days; I was sorry I hadn't gone out for track at Cornell. I used to start out every morning and make the rounds on foot— first to the old Paramount lot at Selma and Vine, then down to First National a mile or two away, then over to the California Studios where Fairbanks used to shoot his pictures, and finally back to the Fox lot at Western and Sunset. By that time I was exhausted.
When I went to Metro, it was half a day's ride on the street car, and the trip to Universal City was just as bad. There were