Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1939)

Young in Heart (Continued from page 20) don't ask me why) should be withheld from the public — as follows: He was born in London, England on November 11th. He's fifty-one years old (isn't that awful?). He was educated at Sherborne in Dorset, and where Alfred the Great went to school, University College, London. He had nothing in common with Alf the G. except a 13th Century monk's cell below ground level. He's tried to keep upstairs (with many amazing results) ever since. He was only eight when he left for school. His health seemed to demand the change. He hated and loathed every minute of it and was probably the meanest snip of a snipe ever to enter a classroom. He earned his very first money, threepence, for singing in the school choir and sixpence for singing in the chapel choir. And was overpaid on all counts, if you ask me. His father was a well-to-do and wellknown architect, who had hopes that Roland would follow him in his profession. But when Roland kept flunking out on his examinations, his parents suspected something was amiss. They decided to probe the thing to the bottom and, walking into his bedroom (Roland was in bed with tonsillitis) , they put it to him. Before Roland could bring himself to murmur the dreadful word "actor" his mother, who had been regarding her progeny quizzically, exploded a bombshell. "I think," she said, "he wants to be a cowboy." Hi Ho, Rollo! After that, becoming an actor was such a relief, his father sent him off to Tree Dramatic School for a try at it. After a tour of the provinces in a stock company (how those English provinces must suffer) , he landed on the London stage and has been fascinating audiences on both sides of the Atlantic ever since. He's a naturalized American and makes a swell pot of tea. He doesn't want to talk about his penguin collection any more. Feels it's been overdone, but has a grand assortment of canes. Get him to tell you about the one from Spain, sometime. It will kill you. HE never intrudes his whimsicalities on other people. One has to stumble over them before they're discovered. Like his three-foot key chain. If you ask about it, he'll be only too delighted to drag from the depths of his pocket (it must be specially made) this yard-long key chain upon one end of which is fastened a tiny nest of keys. Spread along the floor it looks like an anemic rattler too relaxed to spring. Mr. Young explains he never likes to open a door while practically on top of it. The long chain gives him plenty of room to avoid crowding. Provided he doesn't trip over it. He usually trips over it. There's something funny about him and watches, too. He wears a watch on each wrist and one somewhere in the middle. He likes to know what time it is all over. He carries green ink in a green fountain pen which are the only two things about him that ever match. Simply because we encountered him one day in a pearl-grey suit, a burgundy shirt, blue tie and white flower, we demanded (whatever got into us) his views on sex. "Sex, like the poor, is always with us," he shrugged. "Besides, I was born during Queen Victoria's reign, so I'm allergic to sex." As the radio comic says, "That ain't the way I heerd it." He isn't a bachelor or an Elk or a Deputy Sheriff. And yet there's something faintly (oh, very faintly) reminiscent of all three about the man. I can't explain it, really. He has twinkles in both eyes (both, mind you) that are magnified by his spectacles. He wears them off screen, both the twinkles and spectacles, with the strangest consequences. lOU'VE heard about the upper lip? Mr. Young's, I mean? That's the feature that puts the H in Hades for all little writers, for you see, even if Mr. Young were inclined to be loquacious (which he isn't) , it's next to impossible to understand all he says, simply because he so seldom moves his upper lip when talking. It has a mustache on it, too, but this has nothing to do with its immovability. I asked both a doctor and a barber (and once I said something about it to a brush salesman) and they all agreed that the mustache was incidental. Probably (it's only a guess, of course) in his youth some kindly soul admonished Mr. Young to keep a stiff upper lip and he has taken the advice literally. It has paid him well, for radio comics, so called, make much of it when Mr. Young makes a guest appearance on their programs. Its effects on writers are far reaching. "I like Gosomoso better than Dickens." he informs the interviewer. "I beg your pardon?" says the writer, believing this to be the most eloquent form of inquiry. "I like (this time it sounds like UncleSammadeaslam) better than Dickens," repeats Mr. Young. The writer makes no comment. Naturally. She's left higher and dryer than two kites. Too, it hardly seems quite polite or even ladylike to suggest that one's dainty ears cannot make a gawddam bit of sense out of the remark and that, years and years hence, she may wake up in the night faced with the knowledge that undoubtedly she will enter Eternity, never knowing whom Mr. Young preferred to Dickens. That's a pretty devastating thought in any woman's life and can, as she reaches the middle years, seriously affect her whole mechanism. Throwing glands and things off balance, as it were. On the other hand, the thought may arise that Mr. Young is merely having fun and has resorted to a sort of double talk to confuse the not-so-well-read interviewer. Any psychiatrist will tell you this could easily result in a broody complex that could affect one's whole mental and social outlook on life. Personally, as I prefer to be glandularly rather than mentally upset, I shall attribute my inability to interpret Mr. Young's literary preference to his upper lip and let the whole thing rest with that. UlS design for working is the envy of every actor in the business. It's been going on for years and somewhere along the line, if it slips a cog, Mr. Young keeps right on rotating on schedule. A certain number of months each year are spent in Hollywood, making pictures. A certain period of time, usually during late spring through early summer, is spent in London, again making pictures or resting. Autumn finds him in New York, often starring in a stage play. His plays including, "Good Gracious, Annabelle," "Beggar on Horseback," "Rollo's Wild Oat," "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" and "The Queen's Husband," all riotously successful, are results of his New York end of the program. He seldom attends the movies and is frankly outspoken concerning his own pictures. "The Young in Heart" he thought was adult and amusing. "Yes, My Darling Daughter" offended his moral sense in that it merely implied indiscretion rather than decently asserting it. This beating behind the bush with sex on the screen Mr. Young declares "dirty" and, until one has heard Mr. Young's English inflection used on the word "dirty," one hasn't really lived. The Topper series he enjoys, as well he may, and he declares himself happy with "Heaven on a Shoe String," his latest. As the slimy Uriah Heep in "David Copperfield," the man proved himself an actor who would have warmed the heart of Dickens himself. No matter whom Mr. Young prefers. He's in constant demand on radio programs for interpretation of an English sport's announcer which convulses American listeners. He never listens High-jinks: Roland Young congratulates Dave Chasen (breaking ground for addition to his cafe), as Jean Rogers, Bob Benchley, David Niven, Bart Marshall and Virginia Pine kibitz to the radio, except to good music. Never, he insists, has he heard an American call himself an "Amurrican" (as our English cousins insist we do), nor has he ever heard an Englishman say "fawncy" (as we love to think they do). The funniest thing that ever happened to him happened in Philadelphia, which makes it all the funnier. Mr. Young was playing on the stage there, and during the run of the play was invited to a home for tea. Stepping into the living room, Mr. Young's foot came in contact with a polar bear which was quite dead, and zip went Mr. Young on the bear rug, tearing across the floor like sixty. En route he spied a tea wagon and clutching it like mad, the tea wagon joined in the disgraceful journey which terminated at the feet of the dumbfounded hostess, who stood gazing down at little Mr. Young, snug as a bug in his rug, with tea things scattered in all directions. I HE consensus of opinion among mere women and children is that Mr. Young is one of the funniest men alive. "I think," women say everywhere, "he's the cutest thing I've ever laid my eyes on. My, he must be a perfect scream to know." In the face of all this, I must in all honesty reveal that Mr. Young is not the cutest thing I ever laid my eyes on, nor is he, to me at least, a perfect scream. For be it known, Mr. Young is probably the wisest, the richest in thought, and most tolerant of men. He has my vote for Hollywood's greatest sophisticate, because of his knowledge of so many things and his wide circle of friends, in Hollywood, in New York, in London and Paris, among those who do things. And yet his sophistication bears roots that probe deep below the surface through great layers of wisdom and understanding to the greatest of all worth-while things: a keen knowledge of the value of simple things. He likes people who are genuine. From all walks and degrees of life they come his way to give him pleasure in thought and ideas and, likewise, they take away from him in heaped-up measure. W. C. Fields, Deems Taylor, Pat O'Brien and Rachel Field, writers, thinkers, just people, go into the construction of his inner plan for living intelligently. He is an amazing person, not just because his work is such a delight to behold, but that he goes inward and deep in even greater proportion to his tremendous outward cleverness. Of course, he brings the "perfect scream thing" on himself and can blame no one but himself. Not that he would have it otherwise, we believe. For example, ihe last time we saw Mr. Young, our interview over, heaven help us both, he was sitting quietly with pad and pencil. "We will ignore it," we said to ourselves. "We'll pay no attention. We'll just slip away without looking." We couldn't quite make it. We had to take one peep over his shoulder. As heaven is my judge, Mr. Young was drawing a polka-dotted elephant resting ecstatically on its neck, its four feet extending upward in the breeze. We got away from there in a hurry. As far as we know, he is still sitting there quietly drawing pictures of bees and elephants in the weirdest kind of poses. Or at least we wouldn't put it past him. 72 PHOTOPLAY