Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1930)

Ni eight "O, I won't keep the car . . . you guaranteed it to go one hundred miles an hour and it can't . get better than sixtyyou'll overhaul it? — say, I've been all through the thing and it couldn't make one hundred miles per on cocaine . . . come and get it!" This was what I heard when the maid took my hat and ushered me into the living room of Charles Bickford's home at Santa Monica. I had come to interview the stage actor who has so quickly launched into movie prominence in his first talking picture, "Dynamite." A big red head turned on a burly body, and a strongly built face broke into an Irish grin. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting," Bickford said, "but those garage men," etc., until I had the whole story. I considered myself very fortunate arriving at just this time, because Bickford's phone conversation sets the character of this man very pathv A fine actor, somewhat didactic and ultra-scholarly when he talks about plays and their construction, Bickford at the same time is a very human individual. He has always played outdoor men, because he really is one. Automobiles are a passion with him. He never grins more effectively than when behind the wheel of a car with the throttle pedal pressed down to the floor. I know, because when he took me back to town — I" SUPPOSE you want to know all about my past life," said •JL the big red-head. "Well, I was born in . . ." "Whoa!" I countered, "Don't tell me you were born in Timbuctoo. I heard you liked to cross up us interviewers with impossible biographical details, so I just fortified myself. You were born in Boston, you attended Massachusetts 'Tech,' you have taken many of your vacations from the stage actually working as an engineer on some construction job — I know all this — so start from there!" Bickford looked at me for a minute, then broke into a big laugh. Charles Bickford, above, as the Irish lad in 'Anna Christie," is telling Greta Garbo all about his white-hot feelings. "I bane lovin' you!" he mutters, while Swedish Anna Garbo replies, in pure Scandinavian, "Go on wid ye, ye spalpeen!" Right, the washed Mr. Bickford, as he came clean from Broadway "You're the first writer to catch me up," he said. "You know when I arrived in Hollywood I found that the films were quite a different land, and that film news writers knew very little about the folks of Broadway. So I began to have a little fun by telling the various interviewers that I was from Copenhagen, Paris, or any place else I happened to think of. But now you've caught me, so I guess I'll have to tell the sordid truth. "T'M sorry I can't tell you that I always yearned for the stage; J-practiced lines in private in my room, etc., because I didn't. It was entirely an accident that I am an actor today. I had just returned from a trip around the world as a very young fireman in Roosevelt's fleet. Sitting in a Boston cafe one night another sailor friend dared me to carry a spear in a burlesque show. I did, and here I am today!" "\H hy is it that a man who attained such a notable success on the stage as yourself should have kept so severely away from the screen?" I asked him. "Frankly, I didn't like the silent movie," he replied. "For the last four or five years I have had movie contracts offered to me with flattering regularity, but I refused them all until this talkie part came along from Cecil B. De Mille." "And how do you like them now?" He grinned at me. "Go on with you, you and your leading questions. You must have heard that is a sure way to get me into an argument. Of course I know this talkie thing is new, and so far I really like the stage best. I know vocal pictures have just started and I am more or less reserving my judgment. But don't let that bother you ! I am probably one of [ please turn to page 102 ] 65