Modern Screen (Dec 1938 - Nov 1939 (assorted issues))

MODERN SCREEN about my work, but even so, nothing ever keeps me from sleeping. Even in my dressing-room at the studio! I'm sound asleep in there when they think I'm studying my next scene. I am temperamental, I suppose. The things my wife tells me about myself are frightening. I come in the front door after a day at the studio and she can tell me what kind of a day I've had. If it's been one kind of a day she tells me that the bills are on my desk. If it's been the other kind of a day she mixes me a drink. I must be moody or temperamental if my moods show through like that. Well, people who are on high must have a low for an average, I suppose. If things don't hit you where it hurts the most you're phlegmatic, or something. A Life of the Party can't be phlegmatic, now, can he? "Then there's being a book-worm. I don't suppose the Life of the Party can be a book-worm, do you? There's nothing very congenial about a worm, book or hook, or is there? I'm not even introspective. I never think about what I am thinking under my thoughts. I see you looking at all the books in here. My wife is responsible for them. She's responsible for everything in our home. She has exquisite taste and is excellent at interior decorating. "Left to my own devices, I wouldn't have a home at all. I don't see why a Life of the Party should have a home, he never goes to it, do you? I would be a nomad. I don't want to settle down. Settling down is frightening. But my wife is mad about houses. We built a little 'dobe house in Palm Springs just so she could 'do' it. One nice thing is, no sooner does she get one house 'done' than she wants to 'do' another. A nomadic home-maker, wouldn't you call it? Such a nice quality. It's like the old gag, 'I don't want to own anything I can't put on the Chief.' I didn't make that one up but you can say I did. I would have if I'd thought of it. So, as I was saying, I seldom read. I hate long books, 'Forsyte Sagas' and things. My wife reads everything. She gives me the Best of the Books of the Year and all that. A Life of the Party sometimes has to seem bright about books. "Mr. Morgan," I here interrupted, "haven't I heard that you are, actually, a very shrewd business man?" OH have you?" asked Mr. Morgan. "Oh, that — well you know how they are here in Hollywood; they always go to extremes. In their endeavors to make a 'story' out of you, they make you a Rockefeller or something — like the little item I read about my owning a frog farm. A frog farm! I got more silly letters. One man wrote, T have the biggest frog in Ohio.' I could just see the writer saying to himself, 'Maybe we can sell Morgan our frog!' "I read where I had a furniture store at Palm Springs. Well, there was a residuum or something of fact in that one. My wife wanted to have an antique shop, for making reproductions, you know. We bought the land and built the shop. Then we sold the land and the shop, because the gentleman who made the reproductions was so good that if you ordered a what-not in January you got it in June. After our customers had yelled 'What-not-yet?' a few times, we folded." "Then there was the oil well," I reminded him, briskly. "I read in your own studio publicity, that you bought an oil well and that it came in a gusher." "Oh, you read that, too, did you? Oh, dear, it went along all right for awhile— but we won't go into that. Amos 'n' Andy, Ralph Bellamy and I went into it once. It was in Louisiana or somewhere. We won't go into it again, do you mind?" I said, "I won't mind . . . but what I do want to know is this: is this vagueness of yours — kind of stuttering and all that you do on screen and air — is it an act or is it ... I mean, were you born that way?" "It's definitely an act," laughed Mr. Morgan. But now I noticed, as when he talked about his work before, that his eyes were not laughing. "Definitely an act," he repeated. "I mean, I hope it is. You know how it is, you develop a method of your own, individual or something. I developed mine when I was in stock, back in 1920. It reached maturity when I did 'The Affairs of Cellini' on the screen. People have written about me, attributing my professional vagueness, stuttering and all that, to the fact that I don't know my lines. But that isn't so. I started out to be a great study, a quick study and an accurate one. I still almost am. "You know," said Mr. Morgan authoritatively, "you know, comedy, like music, comes on a definite beat. You can kill any comedy line by two extra words. If you're ad libbing, timing is even more important. A beat too long and it just lays there on the floor." Reluctantly I rose to leave and Mr. Morgan rose with me, handed me my fur and gathered his dressing-gown about him, with great dignity. "No," he said, "it's not nearly so haphazard as it sounds, my comedy. I'm not nearly," he laughed again, "so dithering as I appear." He didn't need to tell me that. I had guessed long before! /jlM,BE A SPORT A I GO AND DANCE J r WITH POOR \ ^LONESOME LIL^y iiiilMB _SAID BEHIND HER BACK you'd Sin she'd get I WISE_USE ) LIFEBUOY J LUCKY FOR HER SHE HEARD WHAT THEY WERE WHISPERING! f * I LL KEEP HER DAINTY, I ALL RIGHT SAFE FROM V---v OFFENDING ! (good for you, > lifebuoy1 ( you're my pal. ""AT • You may not be able to see it, but it's a known fact that all of us perspire every minute of the day. So play safe . . . guard against embarrassing "B.O." by using Lifebuoy in your daily bath. Try it now! 91