Motion Picture (Aug 1935-Jan 1936)

Betw< em 6uc&elv£6 WE RECEIVED the first flash from a newspaper friend : "Will Rogers and Wiley Post crashed somewhere in Alaska early last night. Both were killed." After years of reporting, writing, and editing, I don't stun easily. I am accustomed to unwelcome surprises, unpleasant shocks. But as this message came over the phone, I found myself unable to say a word for a long moment. And my first word was one of disbelief. This was incredible, impossible ; this couldn't have happened — to Will Rogers. I called Fox Films. Huskily, the publicity chief confirmed the report. For the second time in five minutes, I laid down the telephone with a sensation of numbness. This time, with a dark finality. A few moments later, an associate entered my office. "Anything wrong?" he asked. "You look as if you had lost your best friend." I repeated what I had heard — what had been confirmed. His face dropped in stunned amazement . . . unconsciously, he registered the same expression that one would see on his face if he had received the same news about a close friend. Neither of us had ever known Will Rogers personally. Neither of us had ever met him. I cite this incident, only to make emphatic this point : Everyone who had known Will Rogers, even if only through his pictures, his radio talks, and his writings, felt that now there was a gap in life where there had been none before. CONFIRMED Broadwayites can remember vividly when he first appeared over the footlight horizon, twirling a rope, chewing gum, delivering pungent monologues about the topics of each particular day. New York had never seen anyone like him before. Neither, one suspects had the Oklahoma ranges where he grew up as a cowboy. He was an original. Here was a natural person — absolutely untheatrical, though he was One of the highest-paid stars of the New York theatre. Here was a homespun philosopher Avho always seemed to be talking to himself, rather than giving anyone else advice. (That made it doubly palatable.) Here was a man who seemed content to be just a human being, devoid of affectations. Here was an ungrammatical plainsman who could think faster, On his feet, than any statesman on earth — and could express himself more effectively, with more meaning, than most of them. Here was no slapstick comedian, no patter artist with a gifted ghost-writer ; here was a man with native wit, whose witticisms constantly bubbled to the surface, always new, from some miraculous reservoir beneath that towsled shock of hair. That's how Broadway saw him, the first time it ever laid eyes on him. That's how Broadway and the world have seen him, all through the intervening years. Fame and wealth did not do anything to Will Rogers — except to give him bigger audiences. IN THE beginning, he was just Will Rogers, cowboy — who became a comedian when an audience laughed at a remark he made in all seriousness. At the end, he was the personification of all the qualities we like to think of as American — tolerance, good humor, good sportsmanship, intelligence, sensitiveness, foresightedness, independence. The list could be extended indefinitely. Name all the qualities that you like best — and Will Rogers had them all. The newspapers have made considerable ballyhoo of the large fortune he left. Whatever the sum, he earned every penny of it. The world did not give him half as much as he gave the world. A FEW nights after his death, I was in a large theatre, attending the opening of a picture that was destined to rate four stars. But no one at the premiere remembers the feature picture half so vividly as one small segment of a newsreel that preceded it. That was the newsreel showing the twisted wreckage of Wiley Post's 'plane, telling a mute tale of tragedy in a bleak Eskimo outpost — and then, showing, in a flashback. Will and Wiley climbing into that same plane at Fairbanks, Alaska, beginning their last flight. Will, in fun, clambered up the wing to the cabin door on hands and feet, stood up, waved to those on shore, patted the plane affectionately, grinned his inimitable, infectious grin. And so magical was the man's appeal, so persuasive his personality, that nine out of ten faces in that theatre lighted up as he smiled, though throats may have felt constricted. WHAT happened in that one theatre, with a blase audience, must have happened in thousands of other theatres, the world over. And there, I think, is the answer to the question : "Will people go to see his last two pictures, Steamboat 'Round the Bend and In Old Kentucky — and will they enjoy them?" Seeing him on the screen, the same as always, they can forget — for a brief while— that Will Rogers is dead. And, after all, he is not dead. His body may have vanished from the earth, but his spirit goes soaring on. The soul of the man still is with us, thanks to the magic of the movies. The memory of the sweetness and light which Will Rogers brought to the world is something that will be cherished as a hallowed recollection by the American people for many years to come. His was a unique talent. And it was not kept hidden under a bushel. The wit and wisdom which were uniquely his and his alone were given freely to all who had ears to hear and eyes to see. A truly great man passed when Will Rogers died. 82 "KABLE BROS. CO., PRINTERS