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At Five O'clock
You Don t Catch Wallace Beery Working Overtime
By
ELISABETH GOLDBECK
WALLACE BEERY, in the guise of P. T. Barnum, ambled into the lunchroom. With the utmost courtliness, he shook hands. Then he carefully removed his coat. With qua! deliberation, he removed his vest, and hung them >oth on a nail.
IThen he sat down, and carefully lowered his suspenders. Perfect comfort having been achieved, he ordered lots )f potatoes and started to talk.
The most you can get from Wally is rambling comment >n the things that happen to be passing through his nind — delivered in a deep and rambling voice. There's a rery pleasant, seasoned quality about him and about his roice.
His favorite salutation, for everyone, is, "Hello, Keed!" He devotes a lot of time to practical jokes. When he md Raymond Hatton were makmg comedies together, hev had one set on the deck of a big ship, which was cached by a long, hard climb up a ladder. It was their dea of great fun to keep asking the property man for a !rink of water, all day long, and when he had toiled way p to the top with it, to take a tiny sip and throw it, cup ind all, over the side of the boat. They split their sides jver that one.
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He Likes to Shock Them
IRING a chair and giving unsuspecting sitters a nasty jolt of electricity is another of Wally's avorites. And hitting people on the side of the leg with lis fist was another pet. He went to great trouble to jevelop that gag. He hit the rest of the cast in the leg jntil, black and blue, they caught on to the idea and were about ready to hit him back. Then he put a long board nside his trouser leg, and wore it all day, so when his victims hit him in the leg, they'd take the punishment.
All these little jokes he perpetrates with that wide baby 5mile, which is very disarming, unless you happen to be he one who sat in the electric chair. I suppose after his 'riends have broken a few knuckles, he explains that he was only kiddmg.
He hates to have his lines of dialogue changed. If they ntroduce so much as an "and," or tell him to say, "Oh, nello," instead of "Hello, there," he grumbles and says, 'How do you expect me to learn these lines if you keep rhanging them ?"
He arrives on the set with exact promptness, and when ive o'clock comes he quits, even if it's in the middle of a scene — a prerogative which only very big stars have the enrage to claim, as a rule.
He drives his car like a madman; he used to be a racing driver. The reason people ride with him in his airplane is that they feel it's safer than riding with him in his car.
The Elephants' Influence
AMONG other things that he used to be are: an elephant trainer, a chorus boy, a leading man, a female impersonator, a hard-breathing villain, and an arch-nitwit in comedies. He trained the largest herd of elephants in the United States, and let them lie down on him and do all the other tricks. He thought that was great — and explains it with the theory that where there are no brains, there is no fear.
Nevertheless, the elephants left their mark. Wally seems to have taken on many of their qualities. He's big, playful, and pachydermic. He has their gentleness of spirit and movement, but with that slow sense of strength — that wallop behind the elephant's smile.
He immediately calls a woman "dear," in the Hollywood manner.
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