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Laughs
on the
Cobb
Meet the screens homeliest — and \indliest — and best'loved star who complains about his Thespian estate and loves it
by Harry Lang
ONCE upon a time, in New York's Central Park Zoo, I saw a hippopotamus with a toothache. They were going to pull the aching tooth next day, the keeper told me. But in the meantime, the hippopotamus was feeling bad — very, very bad. And as I beheld the shuddersome depths of misery in that hippopotamus' countenance, I believed that never, never again in this world or any other, would I see as doleful a puss . . . !
But wrong was I. Ah, how wrong. For I had not reckoned with Irvin Cobb. I have just lunched with Irvin Cobb — America's best humorist (and by his own boast, America's worst movie actor!) — and I want to go on record right here as saying that compared with Cobb's lugubrious physiognomy, that hippopotamus1' pan was as joyful as Shirley Temple's.
On what Mr. Cobb affectionately terms his face, there was an expression of profound woe. At any moment, I expected to see a tear roll down that cheek of his and plop into the middle of the mountain of ravioli before him. It didn't. It fell with a lovely splash into his glass of beer, instead.
"Oh," he moaned, at last, "I am so low. I have sunk to my lowest estate. T have reached the bottom of the ladder ! I
Irvin S. Cobb, famous humorist, came to Hollywood to write
for the screen and — thanks to his pal Will Rogers — stayed
to act. He will be starred in a series of comedy-dramas by
Twentieth Century-Fox
have become, after a blameless life in every other respect, a movie actor. Ah, woe is me . . . !
"But what," I asked, "would you rather be?"
He turned ponderously around on the bench of the cafe where we were lunching, and pointed at little Jane Withers. lunching with her ma in the next booth. "See her?" he asked me. I said I did. "I'd rather," he pronounced, "be Jane Withers' tapeworm !"
Then he fell upon the ravioli. If there's anything Mr. Cobb apparently likes very much, it's eating. In the zest of crunching each little ravioli, he brightened considerably. I pried into the depths of his ache, seeking the reason for his woe. Finally, between ravioli, he gave out the truth.
"Today," he confessed, "Jane Withers will throw tomatoes into my eye !" It appeared the afternoon's takes were to show him being socked in the optic with a moribund tomato, flung by Jane. As a matter of fact, a baseball pitcher with excellent aim and magnificent speed had been retained to throw the tomato from out of camera range so it would properly impinge upon the Cobbean organ.
"And when I came to Hollywood," he moaned, bathing a ravioli in beer, "they told me acting was quite dignified, now. Bah — seven more bahs ! A custard pie in the face is still the highest form of Art in movies !"
By now, the ravioli was gone, and Mr. Cobb was attacking a cantaloupe half. He washed that down with beer, too. "When this picture is over," he went on, "I'm going away. I'm going off to the desert, where no producers can ever find me, and I'm going to fight back for my self-respect. I'm going to finish a couple of books I'm writing. [Continued on page 80]
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