Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Jun 1929)

*^he Heart History of MARTIN 1 For Pretty Betty Bradford He Sacrificed His Career As A MonkeyBusiness Man By H TfllS is the story of Joe Mar tin, orang-outang, whose movie career ended sud denly at the peak of his popularity, who mysteriously disappeared under the mighty mountain of his fan mail, who vanished into the thin air that bore the echoing laughter of thousands of delighted women and children. The world was Joe's banana, but he left it unpeeled. Love is like that. Love has always been like \^ that. "Love," says the poet, "that will aye endure, though the rewards be few, that is the love that's pure, that is the love that's true." So Joe Martin loved, not as John Gilbert or Adolphe Menjou, but as Lon Chaney or Louis Wolheim. When the time came for him to make his sacrifice, he made it. Love was a real thing to Martin, the whole thing. Love offered no modern compromises with loose libidos seeking release in self-expression, no weakkneed adjustment of "you-go-to-your-church-and-I'll-goto-the-movies." Alas, the apposite pathos of that jejune phrase! Joe Martin was born in Africa of parents in circumstances that were both meagre and uncomfortable. So uncomfortable were the circumstances, that after a sharp disagreement with their landlord, the parents moved to Singapore, taking the baby with them. Here Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson were chosen as Joe's godparents and he joined the Boy Scouts. "Little Joe," so called because he was the fourth child, prospered and became an Eagle Scout. Due to his prowess as an Eagle Scout, Joe was given the opportunity in 191 1 to accompany the Ramchanda Das Good-Will Expedition. There was need of a 42 Bookish in his own way was Joe Martin, in his formative years. He was obviously too intelligent to become an assistant director. Placing him was at first a puzzle scout on the expedition to carry a letter from the Mayor of Singapore to the Mayor of San Francisco. From Mayor to Mayor AFTER delivering the letter from the Mayor of Singapore to the Mayor of San Francisco, there was some talk of what to do with Joe next and the Mayor of San Francisco gave Joe a letter to the Mayor of Universal City. Joe hiked to Universal City and presented the letter from the Mayor of San Francisco to the Mayor of Universal City. The Mayor of Universal City was about to give Joe a letter to the Mayor of somewhere else when Joe indicated •, that he could do with a better '^ job. He was an Eagle Scout, not a mailman. This was a puzzler. Joe was obviously too intelligent to be made an assistant director and the problem was to find some occupation which could make use of what intelligence he displayed without overtaxing it. So Joe became a movie actor. Success was instantaneous. In no time, Joe had his dresser, his make-up box, his fan mail, his imported car, his chalet in Beverly Hills and his lunch with Beverly Bayne. My reader's memory is sufficiently vivid, I trust, to recall the pictures in which Joe Martin appeared, the furore he created and the popularity he enjoyed, even to the extent of having a cocktail — the Martini — named after him. Some people, making that ludicrous mistake which the laity so often makes about movie stars, even thought he was human. And it seemed that Fate was speculating just how human, or more than human, Joe Martin was. For as he basked in his celebrity and the sunshine of the Golden State, a comely young chimpanzee, Elizabeth B. Bradford by name, was working in a psychological laboratory back East. A college graduate (Welleslev '19), Miss Bradford was devoting her life to science. Already, by placing {Continued on page 84)