Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Jun 1929)

@ne Slack Q row By HELEN LOUISE WALKER Ir was rhe morning after the evening when I had had an appointment with Charles Mack, the tired memher of the Two Black Crows. I had kept the appomtment. Mr. Mack hadn't. I had missed my dinner and had a fruitless, chilly ride. I was annoyed. "There isn't going to he any Two Black Crows story for this magazine," I told myself, tniciiirntly. The telephone rang. I was still in hed and had every intention of staving there for hours and hours. I struggled to one elhow and managed to mutter, "[{ello!" "This is Charley Mack." "Oh-yes?" I tried to sound chilly and dignified terrihlv, terrihly hurt, in fact. F^ut that tired voice, so familiar in vaudeville, on the victrola, over the radio, startled me, coming over mv 'phone at some perfectly riaiculoiis early hour of the day. "I don' know what I kin say to vou. " the voice was apologizmg. "You see, I jus' couldn' make it las' night. You see, it was like this I felt a giggle welling in me and tried to suppress it, rememhering my hurt dignity. The explanation, it seemed, was going to he elahorate. " I forgot ahout you." The languid voice died away. F struggled for haughtv silence. This Time, Dinner IFIF*! giggle got the hest of me. Suddenly, in the light of that remark, the fruitless cold ride, and the sniffles h resulted from it, the helated and unpleasant dinner, my annoyance, all seemed funny. Quite a good joke on me. "1 cer'nly am imder an ohiigation to you." The ingratiating murmur continued. ' An' F cer'nly will he here this evenin'." 1 repeated the chilly ride. But this time there was dmner in the Mack himgalow at the Amhassador with Charles .Mack and his startlingly heautiful hlonde wife— to the accompaniment of that same tired voice, coming, mcongruoiislv, from a rather plump and dapper, pinkfaced host. Not, von understand, tliat Charles Mack talks like that naturally But there is a tendency to lapse into it at odd moments. You l-irgm to feel like a vaudeville feeder. Charles Mack Continues To Get Tireder And Richer Blackface, he opines, has come into its own. He pointed out what happened to Warner Brothers when Al Jolson signed with them, giving all the credit for their enormous rise to that warhler of "Sonny Boy" and rather neglecting to acknowledge rhe Vitaphone, without which there would have heen no warhling. However, he also pointed out that the husiness of the Columhia Record company jumped from six to twentytwo millions the yeai" that he and Mr. Moran signed to record their little chats for them. Assuring me that there really was that much money. And that Majestic l^adio stock jumped from 176 to 400 on the market when they contracted to hroadcast for them for twenty weeks. Paramount stock also rose a number of points, he declared, when it was announced that the Two Filack Crows were to gambol in talking pictures for a time. Ihese are Mr. Mack's figures, we submit them gratis. The Fruits of Fatigue AS for him — well, he has just bought a house in F^everly ^ji Hills which is costing him )? 150,000. All on account of that tired voice. Weariness, in its place, has its advantages. Life doesn't seem to be fair, somehow. I've been so tired for so long. So I asked him what it was about this simple, naive character which made people love him so much that he could cause flurries in the stock market — and be responsible for palaces in Beverly Hills, to say nothing of inspiring a thousand or so imitators, many (if whom, strangely enough, are negroes. " ' Why bring that up .' ' " he quoted himself, with a smile and then admitted, "Vou have me there. I don't know. Some combination of humor and pathos. I try always to keep my character mentallv between the ages of six and eleven." 1 recalled that when F was somewhere between those 5^ The only thing Charles Mack, in the photograph and at the right in the sketch, seems able to find energy for is making money. More money than he did raising hogs