Modern Screen (Dec 1931 - Nov 1932 (assorted issues))

Because he always gives his best to his screen work, Eric is afraid that his creative talent will be wasted in this endeavor instead of being used for writing. (Upper right) With Dorothy Wilson and Richard Cromwell in "The Age of Consent." on because I've got to keep them going — now. Nor should I mind/' he continued more evenly, "if I thought that it's possible for me to hang on to that — that feeling I have for things, and that desire to get them down on paper. But I'm not certain I will be able to — not at all." "Can't you write nights?" He shook his head. "Too tired — not a thing left. Oh, I've managed to get some things done, at odd times. But nothing big, nothing sustained. Nothing like I want to do. Just now I'm giving the works to acting. "But acting in the end is — just acting. There is nothing fundamentally creative about it. In twenty years someone can repeat one of my parts and do it fully as well as I. No one can repeat a writer. That's why it is so much more important to put things down on paper than on film. Literature is larger, more real — because it is more permanent. A picture — no matter how fine — is made, shown, and shelved . . . whereas a book may go on indefinitely. "That's ego, basically, I suppose — the wish to make a lasting impression on the world. That seems to be the reason so many people have children. I'd love to have them. How thrilling to see your own product grow and develop, and perhaps become something that you've never dared to be yourself ! "But I know marriage isn't for me just yet. I've always shot toward a 'youngness,' an unfettered state, as best I can. I feel that when I drop that hope my responsibilities will crystallize me, and I'll become set in a definite mold. I don't want that. Much as I would love to have children, I feel that just now I can express myself best without those little atoms of flesh running around me. They — with their added responsibilities — would keep me from the full life, the complete development, that I am going to ask myself." That's not ego — it's sincerity. HE has worked at a variety of jobs, this Eric Linden — errand boy, selling newspapers, making deliveries, anything — all the time he was attending school. These naturally were poorly paid occupations, and at fifteen he selected the theatre as the place to make money. "I managed to get a few small things around theatres, and some dramatic coaching," he told me. "Then I was told that the Theatre Guild was the best spot in all the game for a young actor, and so I went there. I put all the charm I could into my eyes and the corners of my mouth, and told Theresa Helburn how much I wanted to work. She believed me, I guess, for I was given seven small parts in 'Marco Millions.' "I was writing all the time. I had got my first taste of literature, and it had been developed at the time I had managed to put in at Columbia. My whole thought was for the time when I could break away — and write. "Well, it is taking me longer than I hoped, but it looks like the end is ahead. If I can fill out my five-year contract with Radio, I'll have enough." Just the other evening he dropped in for a few minutes and struck this off between cigarettes : "Keeper of stars . . . why have you kept me striding Over the lonely streets of the lonely town ? Love's in the air tonight ... I have seen him ridingPoised on the tips of the new white moon He was riding . . . I must be in my bed When the moon comes down." Ripping the paper from the machine he wadded it into a ball and threw it at the fireplace. Because he stumbled as he threw I was able to retrieve it. "It's terrible," he said. To which I answered then, and repeat now: "You won't lose, Eric. You have what it takes — and more." 43