Motion Picture Classic (1923, 1924, 1926)

REG the REGULAR OF all the host of young men who have passed in review across the screen this past dozen year two stand out as symbols of highspirited American youth. The first was Wallace Reid, whom a pitiful death immortalized. The second is Reginald Denny, whose star is still in its ascendancy. There are those in Hollywood and elsewhere who believe that Denny's popularity in five years will be even greater than was ever Wally Reid's. There are still others who believe that Denny would already be a greater figure I than was Reid at his prime, had Denny been given Wally's opportunities of story, direc tion and exhibition. These however, must always remain matters of conjecture. They are interesting to the men who make pictures and display them. They are questions for the fans to debate. But they have no bearing on the personality of Reginald Denny himself. Judged by His Nickname think the best barometer of Denny's personal popularity is his nickname. In the opinion of low-brow America, of which this writer claims to be the greatest living example, Reginald is not much of a name. It smacks of cutaway coats and pink teas. It borders on the effeminate. It is very easy for a man named Reginald to be called "Reggy," in which case he is invariably pictured as wearing a silk hat and nursing a lap-dog. So far as I know, nobody ever thought of calling Denny, "Reggy." His nickname is Reg, the last letter slurred as in "George." It is an honest name, a blunt, straightforward sort of name ; a man's name. It is typical of Denny. It must have been five years since I first met Reg Denny. Engineered by that splendid actor and intrepid sportsman, Ben Hendricks, a group of us had planned a trip to lonely Santa Cruz Islands off the California Coast, where there were rumored to be mountain sheep and wild boars. We gathered before dawn of a cold, foggy, miserable morning, on a long pier that stretches into the sea from the town of Santa Monica. A few early-rising gulls screamed overhead, unseen, wraiths in the mist. The heavy rollers of the changing tide thundered against the pilings and cascaded on the beach. Eventually we tired of waiting and dropped gingerly from a rickety ladder to the deck of a fishing-boat that rode the swells like a water-logged cork, one hawser carelessly looped about a barnacled piling. A Good Sport \X7hen Denny appeared with his duffel; dropping to the deck as the little boat lifted on the crest of a twelve-foot ground-swell, there was a little altercation. Plainly, a storm was making." Some of the more timid souls argued for postponement. Not so Denny. His spirit rode down all objections. We went. An hour at sea and the gale struck. Thereafter Reginald Denny is one of the most popular actors in pictures. He believes in doing favors for everyone who comes in contact with him — that is, if they play the game on the square. His home life is particularly happy. On the left he appears with his wife and daughter Barbara 48