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That's our own Child Roland — who dotes on canes, and doodles the dippiest drawings in Cinema City
BY SARA HAMILTON
THERE is a saying in Hollywood to the effect that when very very bad little writers die, they go to Roland Young — for an interview; the obvious implication being that they must pay for their sins on earth and, therefore, deserve the punishment of trying to probe from Mr. Young a few plain statements of fact. Or even fiction; they'll settle for anything. It isn't that Mr. Young is annoyed or even surprised at the shades in action, for as Topper he's been haunted by the loveliest, and is quite used to it. Nor is it that Mr. Young is exactly unwilling to impart information. The truth is he is most cooperative, even eager to aid in every way. Only nothing concrete ever materializes.
That, you see, is the HELL of it.
His inborn English reticence (he'll scoff) is constantly at war with his willingness to be noised about (if he must be) and the result is plain fantastic. The writer, pad in hand, begins:
"Mr. Young, I believe, you were born — "
"Yes, but I wouldn't bring that in. I mean — ■ couldn't we just sort of work around that?" interrupts the actor.
Instantly, the writer senses that something special in the way of whimsey-pooh has just blown her way and she had better take a firm hand in the beginning.
"Mr. Young, I am not going to work around your birth anything of the sort," she says. "Either you were born or you weren't. It's your duty to tell the public which."
Mr. Young quietly picks up a pad and pencil and draws the picture of a bee — in profile.
This strange interruption over, the writer proceeds. "Mr. Young," she begins, hoping to spur him into action of some sort, "you are supposed to be a very funny man. Say something witty, please."
Mr. Young turns the paper over and draws a picture of a bee — full face. It's the image of Marie Wilson in a Dutch cap.
Then Mr. Young smiles that smile of bland innocence for all the world like the White Knight in "Alice in Wonderland." In fact, the idea that maybe Mr. Young is somebody from the "Alice" world grips one's fancy. He's as dressy as the White Rabbit, as smugly resigned to his fate as the Frog footman and as tea-time struck as the Mad Hatter. Finally, we decide that with a pair of tusks Mr. Young would make as pretty and as cute a Walrus as ever walked
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hand in hand with a Carpenter and ate up little oysters. But all this time, mind you, we're afraid to say a word, a single word, for fear he'll begin his drawing.
He does anyhow. This time, it's an elephant with an extended rear leg upon which is perched a canary.
"A female," Mr. Young explains, admiring the bird on its peculiar perch. Which reminds us of his never-to-be-forgotten verse in his own book, "Not for Children":
Here comes the happy bounding flea You cannot tell the HE from SHE The sexes look alike you see, But SHE can tell and so can HE.
IN an attempt to get the interview on a working
basis, we make a list of every fact he thinks (and
(Continued on page 72)
Not fugitives from a hangover, these droll little beasties — just examples of what the nnocent Young interviewer is up against!