Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1933)

Roland and the Ladies [ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47 Roland Young (with a sinister wink) : Roughly! Very roughly! Jamison: Do you think it has any connection with the Five Year Plan? Roland Young (with a startled grunt): I beg your pardon? Jamison: What do you think of our American skyscrapers? Roland Young: You mean, what do I think of their sex-appeal? Jamison: Do you think skirts will come down any longer? Roland Young: Longer than the skyscrapers? Jamison (laughing merrily): Oh, I'm sorry; I got my notes mixed. Those last three questions are the ones I asked Lady Wimberley when she got off the ship. Roland Young: I knew it all the time. Look carefully now. (He sits up and slowly turns his head to reveal his profile.) Don't you notice anything? Jamison (laughing) : It's pretty funny, all right. Roland Young (with dignity): That's not what I mean at all, young man. Don't you recognize me without my feather boa? / am Lady Wimberley! The doorbell rings. Robert goes to the front door and then appears in the den. Robert: Mr. Young, a man wants to know if you are aware that most actors die in the poor-house and can he have fifteen minutes of your time? Roland Young: Good heavens! Tell him to go out and call on me at the poor-house. I moved there last week. Robert disappears noiselessly. Jamison: Now, about your love letters, Mr. Young. For some reason or other, women find you fascinating. When you play in a picture with a handsome young hero, and you are a villain, you get more fan letters and mash notes than the hero does. Roland Young: I paper the walls of my bedroom with them. Wait a minute, please. Yes, Robert? Robert has come back. Robert: The man at the door wants to know, sir, if you are aware that forty thousand babies are crying because their fathers were thoughtless? Roland Young (firmly): They're not mine! I had nothing to do with it! Robert: No sir. I'll tell him, sir. Robert goes out again. Jamison: Let's see, what were we talking about? Roland Young: Skirts on skyscrapers. You may quote me as saying, young man, that I'm all for it. The Youngs are nothing if not moral. We put skirts on our piano, even, so its legs won't show. You know, that's a funny thing. The shorter the skirt, the more the leg is like a piano leg! Jamison: Sex-appeal! Now, Mr. Young, why have you got it? Garbo has it because she has eyelashes. Dietrich has it because she has legs. Have you eyelashes or legs? Roland Young (dropping his eyes modestly): Well, I have some eyelashes and I have legs. Jamison: About these letters you get. What is the most passionate letter you've ever received? Roland Young: One from the Gas Company saying, "Please remit, or you'll be cooking over a bonfire by tomorrow night. " Jamison: But thousands of letters are sent to you. Maybe the mailman doesn't give them to you. Have you ever done anything that might make him sore at you? Roland Young: No, except that I bit him on the leg once. We were playing dog. He was the little dog and I was the big dog. Jamison: 1 think I'm going crazy. I suppose you play mailman, too, when you're not playing dog? Roland Young: You mean, would I like to be a mailman? Jamison: What the— ? Well, all right. Would you like to be a mailman? Roland Young: How are you spelling it, m-a-i-1 or m-a-l-e? Jamison: How am I — ? Never mind, never mind. Maybe we'd better forget all about it. Now, to get back to the interview, Mr. Young, just give me an idea of how the letters you get from women usually read, will you? What do they usually say? Roland Young: I can remember exactly what they say. They say, "Dear Roland: I have seen you on the screen and fallen wildly in love with you. I am a married girl with nine children. Our ice-box leaks. We have no radio. I need new linoleum in the kitchen. There is a hole in the roof. Also, there is a hole in Willie's pants. My husband's car, a broken-down old 1933 Cadillac, needs new tires, a new motor, new fenders and a new top. I have added all these up carefully and they come to exactly $458.62. Please sit down right away, before you forget it, and send me a check for $917.24, because my sister-in-law's family is in a pretty bad way, too. " What are you making faces for? Jamison: Do they say "What are you making faces for?'' in the letters? Roland Young: No, I'm asking you that. Jamison: I'm not making a face. I'm just trying to think how to spell linoleum. Do you really get letters like that? Are you serious? Roland Young: You don't know how serious! Jamison: Don't you ever get any other kind of letters? Roland Young: Not from women. I get them from men offering to punch me in the eye, sometimes. Robert reappears in the den. Robert: Mr. Young, that man won't go away. (Brightly) But I know who he is, now. He's an insurance agent! Roland Young: Robert, you always were one to catch on to things in a hurry. Go up on the roof and pour a bucket of boiling tar on him. Robert: Yes sir. Robert goes out again, hunting for a bucket. Roland Young (holding out his hand): Well, Mr. Jamison, that was a very nice interview. You must come around sometime and we'll have another interview. I'm sorry you must be going. Jamison (who had no intention of going) : But why — ? Roland Young: Shh! I'm going to hide under the bed for awhile. Insurance agents! Brr My Sister, Ann Harding CONTINUED FROM PAGE 42 ] put us in great form for the Kentucky-Army horse show, which was given on the historic Churchill Downs track, and in spite of the fact that we rode army nags, we both managed to capture ribbons. "CATHER'S job of organizing Camp Knox was * finished; he was ordered to Washington. The city was still overrun with post-war activity and he found it impossible to stretch the always insufficient income to pay the prices asked for accommodation. Once more the family split. Mother, Dorothy and I went to New York, paid an enormous price for a dismal flat in the Nineties, and set out to tackle the biggest city of them all. I got a job as secretary in a brokerage office; Dody presented herself at the home offices of a life insurance company and was placed in their welfare division at $12.50 a week. She made a little extra money reading books for Famous-Players, typing her synopses at night and delivering them before reporting at the life insurance office in the morning. 108 About three months of this was all she could stand. For several days mother and I noticed that she was coming and going with a most detached air — she scarcely touched her food — lapsed into great silences — something was certainly brewing. At the end of a week it broke— she had braved Greenwich Village and tried out for a part in "Inheritors,'' the forthcoming Provincetown Players' production. When asked for her name at the door, she had gulped and blurted out the first syllables that came to mind. "Ann Harding " was written on the application. She walked into the theater and approached the lean-visaged, hawk-eyed director, Jasper Deeter. He took a quick glance at her, turned to Susan Glaspell, the author, and said, "She might do for one of the giggling girls, Susan." Smarting under that crack, Dody was told to come back the next day, and arrived before the other members of the cast. She felt a bit lost in the gloomy theater. Deeter loomed up in the darkness, peered at her under enormous eyebrows and, recognizing one of the giggling girls, sat down and lit a cigarette. He talked to her for about half an hour, then stopped short; his face suddenly lighted up with surprise as he said, "You seem able to listen — and understand. Read the last act of this play and in an hour or so we'll see what you can do with Madeline" (the leading role) . DEETER had been able to discern in this rather gauche "country "girl, raw material, sprung from nowhere, that to him showed promise — great promise. She got the part, and commenced her career with a stellar role. Not a word of the whole business had been mentioned at home until the thing was decided. Then, in more or less of a whisper, she announced: "I am going on the stage — I have a part and start rehearsal tomorrow." It was nothing less than a bombshell. Mother and I were tremendously proud and excited, but one word came simultaneously from three mouths: "Father!"