Modern Screen (Jan-Nov 1952)

as any why Dare Harris took a crack at the movies in the first place. He didn't earn it, didn't want it, didn't know anything about it, but he did know, rather resentfully, that the only reason in God's world it happened to him was because of his face, which he happened to hate. So the whole thing began as an easy dodge. Oh, he showed up at acting classes with Helena Sorrell like the rest of the new kids but he wasn't interested. The big day for Dare was payday. Then he and his pal, Tom Devlin, would round up a few girls and go out for some fun — without leaving a thought behind at the studio. It wasn't a big thrill to him, only mildly annoying, when they called him for a job one day in I'll Be Seeing You. He sat at a table feeling silly and self-conscious. Togged out in an Air Corps lieutenant's uniform but still looking like the high school kid he was, he was told to watch Shirley Temple come into the room and sigh "Beautiful!" It was the first acting job of his life. And he was terrible. He tried again and again. "Look at her!" screamed his director, teutonic William Dieterle. "She's beautiful, isn't she? You think she's beautiful, don't you?" "I guess," said Dare. He thought she was pretty. He knew her and liked her. In fact, he was dating Shirley then and he didn't know a nicer kid. But he couldn't honestly feel she was beautiful. The director threw up his hands. By now he'd been at it three hours. One simple word. And this stubborn, stupid kid couldn't say it right. "All right," he thundered, leaning heavily on the table. "Say 'keen'— say 'swell'— say 'nice' — say any of your childish expressions— but mean it, mean it!" Then he stalked across the set shaking his fists in the air. "Why," cried the director for all the set to hear, "why do they give me this awkward amateur and hold up my whole picture — just to start his career?" William Dieterle has probably forgotten that incident long ago, maybe that very afternoon. Probably he had a right to his rage, he had to come up with a picture. But John Derek hasn't forgotten. It reels through his memory still, and everytime he steps before a camera he says to himself, "This has got to be real, you've got to feel it, you've got to believe. . ." And that can tear a guy's insides to pieces if he can't believe it and he's not the kind to make false faces. But back then — and that was eight years ago — it only made him burn inside with shame and resentment — mostly at himself, although he didn't know it. He wanted to shake the whole racket, clear out. And soon, of course, he did. Uncle Sam saw to that. For the next couple of years Private Harris rattled around Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Burma as an airborne trooper, six months in combat, the rest in occupation. He loved army life, the action, the physical exertion, the rough clothes. Nobody eyed his looks, his curls were butchered and he usually was sweaty and mussed. But when the war was really over and all the GIs started worrying about their jobs and getting them back, Derek knew it wouldn't be rough for him — not with that face. He signed a contract at Fox the day after he got home. There was nothing to it, not even a test. He got $200 a week and he hasn't missed a paycheck in Hollywood since. For the record, Derek Harris did nothing constructive at Fox, except attend some drama classes, lose a few inhibitions, wise up a little — and coast along on. his good looks, as usual. But actually the two events which were to change and complicate his life happened to him the year he spent there. He met a girl and he read a book. The girl, of course, was Patti Eehrs, a European dancer in his drama class, who's now his wife. The book was Knock On Any Door. It made him want to be an actor for the first time in his young life. That he got the chance is just one of those incredible things that happen sometimes in Hollywood. He quit Fox and tossed aside another easy meal ticket MGM offered him. He had his agent, who thought he was nuts, take him to Max Arnow's office at Columbia, and Max is as hard-cooked a casting director as you'll find anywhere. This kid had no experience, no credits, no anything as Hollywood ratings go. And all he wanted was the prize dramatic part in a big budget production—like that. And all he could say was, "I know that's for me. I'm the guy. . . I don't have to act. I know him. I'm pretty like he is but tough underneath. . ." "Well," said Max tossing him a script. "I don't know. I don't think so. But, take this home." "I don't have to. I can do it now." "Take it home," said Max. He took it home, but he didn't even study it. He already knew it. Next day he read it, the first time he had ever read aloud to anybody. And of course when he did, for Max and Bob Lord and Nick Ray and Humphrey Bogart, that was all there was to it. Bogie jabbed him in the ribs and winked an okay. His agent said, "If you want this boy you'd better talk fast. MGM's after him." "Nobody's after me," said John Derek. 'Tm after that part." So he got it and he did it and he was great. TVs an old Hollywood story. He was nobody and then suddenly he was the fair-haired boy. No one had ever heard of John Derek, then — boom — his name was on everybody's lips. Important people called him "pal," nattered him, told him he was the greatest young guy in the business. Twenty-two years old and suddenly the world was his oyster cocktail. It was all as strange and as deceptive as his new name, but he thought it was real, that he'd go right on from there — to the top. "I got the fat head," he'll tell you, a little bitterly, today. "I was sure the whole thing was a hundred per cent my doing. Actually, of course, it was a hundred per cent Nick Ray's. You know what I told myself? In three years, I said, I'll be on top of the heap, I'll be the biggest name in Hollywood. With that start — my first picture? How could I miss? Well — it's been three years and more. It's almost four—" Let's see what's happened to John Derek in those four years — He's had some surprises, not all pleasant ones. For one thing, the same people who found his handsome face exciting soon leveled off to outline it with knives. There was the night when he walked into Christian's Hut down in Balboa, hungry from surfing and set for a curry dinner. A middle-aged movie, producer at the bar spotted John as he passed. "Godalmity!" he bawled, "ain't he pretty!" John bit his lip and moved on to the juke box. The joker followed him over. "If I was as pretty as you, Baby, I'd own the world." He escaped to a table, but only briefly. The pest pursued him, leering. "Tell me, Kiddo — how does it feel to be so beautiful?" John got up and left. If the man had been younger he'd have socked him. But he wasn't hungry any more. He was sick. That's just 'a sample. It's happened right along. Sometimes, though, he's had a chance to talk back. On the radio recently the sportscaster, Bill Stern, asked him stunningly, out of the blue. "How do you like your looks? How do you really feel?" John paused a minute. It was unfair. "I like them," he came back truthfully. "I think they're good — I had good-looking parents. I'm proud of my looks and I like to think that underneath them I've developed the assets that make a man." "I apologize for a vicious question," said Bill. Stern. "You're all right and all man in my book, John." Today if you drive far out in the San Fernando Valley, beyond Encino, up a curving drive to the top of a tree-studded knoll, you -can see the good things that four years have given John Derek. And you can see John himself, as he is and really wants to be. He'll be there, for sure, unless he's off on a trip or making a picture. In dungarees or jeans, always, and usually out on the three-acre place chopping cypress, sawing eucalyptus logs, building a wall or herding a tractor. It's his home, the kind he wants, out away from everything — including Hollywood — and he knows that the things there are his because he's making them with his own hands. Inside the big Spanish style house will certainly be his pretty wife, Patti, and their two-year-old boy, Russell Andre. These are the real things in his life and John Derek knows he -couldn't have had them if it hadn't been for Knock On Any Door, and the pictures he's made since. John hasn't any wardrobe to speak of and neither has Patti. They haven't been to a night club since they were married. If they went to a formal affair tomorrow night (which they won't) he'd have to rent a tuxedo and she'd have to make over an old dress. None of the excitement and glamor of Hollywood enters their lives although both are young and certainly attractive. They never go to parties, seldom see friends. They're chronically broke. They can't afford to entertain. This is it — his home and his family — and it's what he likes. John Derek tells himself he should be completely happy — and sometimes he is. But sometimes, too, he's not. That's when he gets to thinking about himself and the life's work he was handed on a silver platter and then he says to himself, "The start was easy. But now the job's just beginning. The rough part is staying. And how do you do that?" Right now there's nothing wrong with John Derek that one terrific picture couldn't cure — but that's the trouble. Although he's made six since Knock On Any Door, nothing he's done has satisfied him. "Whether it's an Englishman in green tights, an Italian in black tights or a Pole in a football suit," he reproaches himself, "it isn't me. So my first picture is my best picture — what do you think of that?" he'll say, really talking to himself. "What am I anyway — a morning glory?" Brod Crawford is one who doesn't think so. "John," he told him the other day, after Scandal Sheet wound up, "you know I didn't used to like you. When you made All The King's Men with me I thought you were a swell-headed, selfish kid who needed a kick in the pants. But now," he grinned, sticking out his hand, "I want to say I like you, I like your work and I like to work with you, too." From reports, Scandal Sheet is a pretty fair picture for John Derek. But meanwhile he suffers keenly from every jab at his ability — far more than he does from the cracks at his curls. A Hollywood columnist' sized up a new script just the other day: "John Derek would be great for the part," he wrote — "if he could act." If he could act! How can you act unless you believe it? How can you ever be great again unless you go all out? Some seasoned stars wouldn't grant that a wrinkle. But with John it's so different.