Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1930)

He's Oakie! New ¥brk. He was sort of drafted into it by Mae Leslie, who has staged innumerable benefits. After that, under the same sponsorship, he took part in the Junior League Frolic, where he met all the best blue-bloods. "TOOT real chummy with Henry Bishop •Muring the rehearsals at the Plaza Hotel. I thought he was just a mug like I was. One day Gloria Gould asked me to come to her dinner party at Sherry's. I asked if I had to wear dinner clothes, and she said, sure. I rented a tux down on Third Avenue. I had a swell time. I met all the Goulds, and had a dance with Constance Banks, the most popular deb of the season. After dinner Kingdon Gould announced the engagement of Gloria to Bishop. I felt like a sap, and all the time I thought he was some poor punk like myself." He's never forgotten what Gloria Gould told him. "A woman has to have a name and money to go into society, but as long as a man is a gentleman he is welcome, any place." He gave up the stock exchange and went on the stage after these preliminary successes. Sometimes he regrets the move. He might have been worth a million or two if he had stayed. The new career began as a grinning, fresh chorus boy in the Shubert musical shows. "It's the best experience in the world, boy," he said. '"There are plenty of people who began in the chorus, only they won't admit it. Well, I do. You have a chance to see what makes the wheels go 'round, and why some gags click and others die." From the chorus Jack graduated into the revues and vaudeville. Those were the days. Two shows a day in vaudeville. Time to have fun, and sleep until noon. Vaudeville was a cinch compared to pictures. Now he never gets a chance to rest, or have a good time. Of course Jack always enjoys himself, but there's no definite time off for serious-minded whoopee. [ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 45 1 It's — "Jack, we want you to do a number over the radio tonight, and be funny." "Jack, we want you to appear at the benefit for Pekinese orphans, and be funny." "Jack, on the set tomorrow at eight, and you'd better be funny." And Jack, who had expected to go out that night and be merry, has to go home and go to bed. He's always ready on the set, and no temperament about him. He says he's just a hired hand, and glad to be. Once in a while he admits that they have to send the bloodhounds and blacksnake whips after him, but he likes to let them think that he has an inferiority complex. "That temperament business is the bunk. Every time a star gets temperamental he's that much nearer the gate, and out. And it doesn't pay to be upstage. Me, I'm friendly with everybody. A camera man, if he doesn't like you, can make you photograph like Lon Chancy in character. "Anyway, it's all hooey about 'acting' in pictures. There's no such thing as acting on the screen. Be natural. If you get over it's because you have a personality to sell. This is a manufacturing business. Say, I do what I'm told, and no back chat. I'm like that mug down there digging ditches. We both work for the same boss, and I'm no better than he is. Maybe not as good. He probably goes home to a wife and family, eats a hot dinner and goes to bed. I'm out having a gay time. "T'M not afraid of anybody on the screen, -'■though. When I did a number with Zelma O'Neal in the 'Paramount Revue,' they told me I'd better be good. Well, so had she better be good. There's nobody making the same faces I do on the screen. Say, I could sing the same songs as Dennis King in 'The Vagabond King,' and do 'em without blood on my face, too. Harold Lloyd, Chaplin, Chevalier — they're 'straight men' to me." Sure, Oakie is O.K. and maybe he's right. He "wowed" them in all of his pictures, "The Fleet's In," "Fast Company," "Hard to Get," and "Hit the Deck." The bump of ego isn't so exaggerated — considering. Jack was a Broadway hoofer, and those boys are not shrinking violets when it comes to talking about themselves. He's very likeable, and as friendly as a politician at election time, only he's.sincere about it. TNTERVIEWTNG him isn't an assignment; -Mt'sa life work. You try to lunch alone with him , and everybody within a radius of sixty feet is either at the table, or joining in on the conversation. If you go to his dressing room, he's visiting six other dressing rooms, or his entire wardrobe is on the floor and you can't get in anyway. Jack's own conversation is amusing, at least he makes it seem so, but his wisecracks aren't nearly so funny as Bill Haines', for instance. But give the boy snappy lines in a picture, and he'll do them up broun and toasted. His greatest charm is his complete lack of the grand manner. He lives in a boarding house, bed, dresser and shaving mug, and he still drives the "ole tin can," his original, nondescript car, or maybe it's cur. His mother has been installed in a comfortable house, where Jack has his home portraits made. Mrs. Oakie is a "good scout," says Jack, and she's making him one of the finest scrap books of any player in the business. She sees everything that is published about Jack, and that is considerable right now. No serious romances for him yet. He beaued around Dorothy Mackaill for awhile, but Dorothy is fickle and so is Jack. Lately the girl friend has been Gwen Lee. Jack and Gwen celebrate the same birthday, November twelfth. He couldn't attend Gwen's celebration on that date, because he had to work. He's only twenty-six, but there has been a lot of theatrical experience crowded into the last six or seven years. If he has such a thing as a favorite flower, it's ham and eggs. 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