Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

[ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 80 ] His own paper, knowing his tender years, would hear nothing of it. So he went to the Evening Pu'lic Ledger. He looked eighteen and swore he was; and those were better days for embryo scribblers. The Ledger, said its city editor, could afford to take a chance. But the chance would be a meager and cautious one, as it turned out, because Nelson was handed pretty deadly assignments: lodge meeting notices, accounts of business gatherings, statistical reviews. They bored him and bis resuitant work reflected that boredom — so that when it came time to revise the staff Nelson was first among the ones to go. Philosophically he took his hat and walked over to the Evening Bulletin. THEN for the first time, life ceased to be a ' matter of work and eat and sleep, with hours spent walking the long-dead streets of long-dead cities through the medium of print. This young man who had seen so little of actual events and current affairs suddenly saw too much of these things. He covered murders, standing with quivering stomach at the nauseous scene of outrage. He went through the doors of hovels and noted on a sheet of folded copy how old the corpse was, and how ragged, and how drunk at the time of death. Then he went back to the office and wrote, "Murder is suspected in the death early today of Mrs. Mary O'Hallahan, fifty-three, whose body was found in her flat, a downtown tenement, under conditions — " and so forth. After a few months he ceased to mind very much. He covered big league baseball, sitting in covered and uncovered press boxes and keeping careful track of runs and strikes and innings. He covered political conventions. He covered business scandals. He covered public trials in noisy, crowded courtrooms. He covered, in its entirety, the seamy, rushing, shouting life of a great American city — and from it acquired the supreme sophistication, the beautiful tolerance, the casual cynicism of his journalistic brethren, to combat the naivete and ingenuous viewpoint of his earlier teens. An incongruity? Certainly. And again, if you possess the insistent need for analysis, you can find the result in the Nelson Eddy of 19,36. He has, now, all the various characteristics engendered by a hard-working hard-studying boyhood in direct opposition to the qualities he acquired during the years of metropolitan newspaper work. But the idealism, the serious outlook, the introspection of the Mott Iron Works period are uppermost still. They got there first. He joined an advertising agency, finally; and with more time of his own began to spend evenings at the homes of friends, relaying phonograph records and doing the vocals himself. "Those friends," he told me, "had good musical backgrounds and I learned to like the better type of music best. I bought records of Campanari and Scotti and Ruffo and Amato and sat listening until I had learned an aria and then I would bawl out the notes at the top of my lungs. Of course I recognized the difference in my handling of the song and the way Caruso would have done it Hut then I tried very hard to learn from the masters who sang from the little wax discs. I was used to teaching myself tilings, after so many years of studying without any outside help." He grinned, remembering. "I had a good range and plenty of volume — and I would sing to the phonograph accompaniment when guests would visit. And when I'd get to a part of the aria where the difference between my technique and Campanari's was too obvious, I'd merely stick out my chest and take a long breath and drown Campanari out. It was very effective." DCT not entirely satisfactory, you understand. Slowly from this amusing pastime came the beginning knowledge that perhaps his voice wasn't so bad after all. He'd almost forgotten the early days of Grace Church when, combed and scrubbed, he would stand in the choir stall and lift his clear boy-soprano voice in reverent melody; then white-gloved ladies would approach his mother after the service and murmur polite congratulations: "Just too wonderful, Mrs. Eddy. Such a sturdy little fellow — and he does sing so sweetly!" Now, after he had finished the Drinking Song, from Hamlet, in a voice just as clear but not as sweet, his mother's guests would crow, " But my goodness,, that's manelous! You really ought to do something with that voice." And they spoke less from courtesy, more from genuine delight. In Philadelphia lived David Bispham, the IT WAS HATE AT FIRST SIGHT Ida Lupino's love story — the romantic facts about the two men who have done so much to mould her career — will appear in full for the first time in the next issue. Don't miss this thrilling insight into the emotional life of this vivid and growing star. Read, "It Was Hate at. First Sight," in — October PHOTOPLAY Out September 10th Nelson Eddy of his day, the ranking baritone of America. Nelson, satisfied at last that he could learn nothing more from the phonographs, took himself and his voice to Bispham and asked for judgment. "I'm pretty sure I can sing," said Eddy forthrightly; "so will you teach me?" "Sing now, then," Bispham compromised. "And we'll see." So Nelson filled the great singer's music room with rich, resoundant song, and when he had finished, stood awkwardly silent for a moment, and then went away. Next afternoon the postman brought Bispham's answer — a photograph of himself inscribed (with the ponderous lightness of most great men) "To Nelson Eddy, the coming baritone — or I am much 'mistook.' " "Of course that was the beginning," Nelson said, sitting precariously on the card table in his playroom. " I kept my advertising job and had Bispham coach me for a little while, and then he died. But by then, I was convinced there might be a future for me in singing, so I looked up another teacher." YOU can, if you like, survey the rise to fame of Nelson Eddy by periods clearly divided and each distinctly separate in itself. As examples of his character and personality they're outstanding, because they follow each other in a progressive, inexorable fashion — each a step above the one before, each a solid hard-earned advancement; precisely the type of career you would expect this man to build for himself. Having made up his mind to become a good singer, he analyzed his chances and chose the surest, safest method of reaching his goal. Having found his star, he hitched his wagon to it with a new, strong rope. Interlude number one was concerned first with study, and then a valiant effort to get before the public on a genuine stage. It wasn't very difficult: he went to the Philadelphia Operatic Society, sang "Aida" for them in an audition, and was given the job on the spot. He went to the Savoy Company, and sang for them, and became a member of the cast of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. He heard about a snooty, social Little theater group called "The Plays and Players," and went to them. They looked up his ancestry and signed him for two plays. Finally he was cast in "The Marriage Tax." a musical for, and of the elite, produced magnificently at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia by Mrs. George Dallas Dixon. The papers next day spoke in superlatives of an anonymous young baritone who had stolen the show. " Who," demanded the critics in bold-faced type, "played The King of Greece last night?" That was first recognition — and a pleasant finale for the opening period in his upward progress: because one Alexander Smallens, conductor of the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company, chose this time to discover that among his more unexceptional artists was one with a Voice — full, golden, and in the finest tradition. He would, announced Mr. Smallens, develop this Voice, make of it a glorious gift to be offered the public. To his credit it must be admitted that he did. Under his tutelage, Nelson learned to be an opera singer, with all the careful technique and all the trimmings of that ilk. He sang, over a period of years, something like twenty-eight roles; each a separate problem, each a distinct milestone along his path to success. A MONG the group of costumed, gesturing '^people who gathered periodically on the stage of that opera house was a young man named Edouard Lippe — fine singer, incomparable friend to Nelson They met casually in dressing rooms and wings, stood beside each other while the auditorium shook with the rousing male trio from "Faust." Redouble ma force et mon courage! they would finish together; and Lippe would remark afterward that Nelson had held that final note pretty well. "Why don't you study under Vilonat?" Lippe suggested one night. "He taught me. and he's the greatest maestro in these parts. If anybody can turn that marvelous voice of yours into a real paying proposition, he can." He could, it turned out when Nelson went to see him. "Of course. A matter of hard work, of long hours of practice, of rigid routine, a year or two in Paris, Dresden." Nelson picked up his hat. "I just haven't that much money," he explained simply. "Paris, Dresden — good Lord, can you think how much it could cost?" Lippe talked to him again. "Listen to me — " began Lippe. Eddy did. For two hours. So that finally, convinced, he said, "I'll get the money if I can " There was a friend of his family's — a banker — of whom he might ask a favor as big as this. To the banker he went, and said. "When I've made something of myself, and when my voice is earning a salary for me, I'll pay you back." Ami the banker said, "Certainly." Ahead of Nelson Eddy lay the most exciting episodes of his life; triumph in the op< • ■world, his entrance into Hollywood. To understand Xelson Eddy you must read next month's installment of his colorful life story. 82