Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Jun 1929)

B oy That's All Buddy Is To His Home -To w n s m e n In OLithe, Kansas Riohea fliem rhar if they would let us have the merry-go-round for one vhole .Tfrernoon they could use the lot. When the kids came to my i>.iii\ , we spent the whole time riding on the horses and camels and n the chariots till we were too dizzy to eat the ice cream and cake, in a little town like Olathe you go to Central School on Water Street and then to High with the same hoys and girls, and most of rhem go to Kansas University together afterwards. There was Martha Wf>odhury, and the Blankenheakers and Harry McCown and Gene\ ievp Haskins and Ruth Scott most of them are married now. Kids, foo. some of them. Last time I was in Olathe, Miss Carpenter, the principal of the grade school, asked me to come down and talk to the fhird and fourth grades. I was pulling the stuff ahout how I used to sit tight at that desk there, children, but I didn't study as hard as I should iiave and I hope you aren't as much trouble to dear Miss Carpenter as I ^^^s, when one tiny tot in the back put up her hand. "Mv mama says she used to go to school with you." she piped up. (lee. doesn't that make you feel queer, though.^ I be boys I grew up with, and played baseball and football with and went <;wimming and skating on the Railroad Lakes with, .ire all working for their fathers in Olathe stores. The girls I went with through High School, are married. I here was Nell Lorrimer and Guenita Stuart and Mary Hodge. Mary married a lawyer and moved out of town. And Ross Culpepper, the son of the Methodist minister who lived a block away from our house, IS an evangelist now. I guess I'm the onlv actor that f \ri came from Olathe Kicking Off Again EXCRPT for everybody growing up, things are about the same in the town. Ihe high school gang still hangs around Kelley's Drug Store, onlv it's mv seventeen-year-old brother that carves his initials in the booths instead of me. He's playing left end on the ff)otball team -my old place and they still have great battles with the State Deaf and Dumb Asylum team. Thanksgiving Day, when I was home, K. M. Hill, the same principal of the high school who has been there since I can remember, asked me to come ntit f)n the field and kick off the first ball. They told f \prybody 1 was going to do it and all the farmers came in from miles around. My studio had a news cameraman miles in their Fords and they charged twenty-five cents fberr from K. C. taking pictures of it. I felt sort of foolish. (it's usually ten cents admission) and ran it for four days, .ind sort of proud. Mr. S. C. Andrews, the owner of the Gem till a few The Ciem 1 heater on Park Street was the only movie months ago, made enough money running "Fascinating in town when us kids usrd to play hooky from school to Youth" to biiv a new car. srf the next chapter of Above is the Olathe Hotel, owned by Buddy's grandfather; a t right. Buddy's father, standing before the offices of h i s newspaper the "Olathe Mirror" Olathe, it had a longer run than "The Rig Parade." Yes, sir; the farmers drove in eight or ten .1 Ruth Rr)Iand serial, ind it's still the only movie theater. 1 hey get all the biggest pictures, 'inly sometimes they're :i yrar later than in Kansas City. Clara Bow, Hebe Daniels and Billie Dove are their favorite .Ktresses; and Harry l.angdon, Hamld Tloyd and I f)m Mix all draw big audiences. When mv first picture. "Fascinating N'/iifh." w:i^ shown in ■C^j^^H fl 'B'' PJ^^jBrrT'^^H^PII 'r^ y^vHI*^^ ml nua^ Fr^. I Main Street in the Kansas town from which Buddy fame is not a symbol; it is the nnmr of the prinripal thnroiighfore All That Money T was Mr. Andrews that started me ofF in pictures. He was talking to the Paramount Exchange people in iCansas City. "Why don't you get some young folks m vour pictures?" he asked them. "I know a boy in Olathe that's as good as any Hollywood star, the son of B. H. Rogers, editor of The Mirror.' The Paramount people were running a competition for pupils for their new school in Long Island City, so they sent for me to make a test. I didn't much want to be an actor then. I was earning good money directing a University band, playing foi d.incrs in Kansas City, but they told me I (Cnittivvi'd or. page So)