Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1921)

"First off. this house o mine wan t nothin out a bungalow settin on a hill. "But by trie time my wife got through re-writin' the thing, it was an eightreel feature." The House That Jokes Built As described by WILL ROGERS Will Rogers is one of the few comic men who have really succeeded in transferring a personal appeal from ears to eyes. Half a dozen, even more famous, tried it and failed. Their mirth disappeared with their voices. Yet Rogers not only found his humor again on the screen, hut added a quality the footlights never saw pathos. s PEAKIX' about houses," said Will Rogers — (We weren't.) " I got a pretty nice place now myself, out in Beverly Hills, where all the prize winners live." "The House that Bill built," I murmured. " Xope. I call it the House that Jokes Built, 'cause I done it with money I made off the gags I used to pull at the Ziegfeld shows." "Did you build the house yourself?" I asked, as Bill paused apparently remembering his red tights for the first time with some embarrassment, "or did you buy it?" "Well," said Bill, ducking his head with that famous grin. " 'bout 50-50. Somebody else had the idea, but my wife tore up the script and wrote a whole doggone new scenario." He was perched on the end of a wooden horse. He had no rope to twirl, but he managed fairly well with the cord of his silken doublet as a substitute. His red tights, worn with the Romeo costume which he had donned to make the " Romeo and Juliet " dream scenes in his new production, distressed him a bit. But his conversation had the same slow, unemphasized, biting drawl that used to come over the footlights of the Follies. He looked down at the tights a moment — then at me. "Elinor Glyn ought t' see me now." he said soberly, with a twinkle far back in his blue eyes. "I heah she's lookin' for the perfect man. If she got a real good look at me in this harness, she wouldn't have to waste no more time, I reckon." He paused to enjoy this thought, rambled en genially — "We were speakin' about that house of mine. It was this-a way. First off, 'twas nothin' but a bungalow settin' on a hill. Not meanin' much one way or 'tother. But by the time my wife 36 then ■wCt got through re-writin' that thing, it was an eight-reel feature production. "What I told her was, the house oughta been made of rubber in the first place. The way she went 'round there, pushin' out this wall and then pushing out another wall, 'til some nights I'd just as leave slept in a good corral, was something scandalous to behold. "My gracious, just yesterday when I thought the whole thing was cut and titled, I come home to find she's shoved the whole end plum]) out of one end. Nobody but Alice in Wonderland could have thought up so many funny things to do to that house. "It's been expensive, but gee I've got a swell lot of laughs out of it. "First of all, Mrs. Rogers 'ud take and push a coupla walls out of the way, just like a kid playin' with blocks. Then when she'd got it down all right, she gets one of these plush architects and he looks it over and says, 'That's very nice indeed, Mrs. Rogers, but the trouble is when you did that you uncinched the girt round that staircase, and now you've got to move the staircase or it won't he no more good to you than the White Sox Ball Club.' Or he'd say, ' It was a wonderful idea to pull that wall in, Mrs. Rogers, but I reckon now you'll have to move the first line trenches out about fifteen or twenty feet.' "Architects an' diplomats must a ben cut out of the same piece. They can get you into more trouble than the army an' the carpenters can get you out of. "Put a woman and an architect together and the Big War'll look like an Iowa State picnic. "But I didn't mind. I says to myself, let 'em go ahead with the house. Houses is women's business, anyway. A man don't have much to do with a house but eat and sleep and pay for it. I ain't really interested in anything hut the "Elinor Glyn ought to see me in my Romeo costume — I heah she s lookin' for the perfect man ! ,1'