Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1939)

"Leaving school was no great blow to me," Mr. Colman told me, '"although I liked school well enough. I liked it because I felt a certain self-confidence when I was in the schoolroom. It is the same kind of confidence I feel now when I am on a sound stage in a studio. On the sound stage I am not Ronald Colman, I am an actor with a job to do. In the schoolroom I was not Ronnie Colman, either, I was a scholar with a job to do. When I can sink my personal identity in work, I am always well content. But I had made no close friends at Hadleieh — in fact, up to this point in my life, Frieda and I were 'all the friends' either of us had — there was no Damon to my Pythias at an age when cuch friendships are most often formed — and so I left the school without an emotional wrench, since the ties of the mind break less painfully than those of the heart. 'Soon after my father's death, we removed to the outskirts of London and I began the job of job-hunting in the city. I was completely lacking in aggression. I was one of those unfortunate people born without a conspicuous vocation. I didn't know what I wanted to do or to be. I was willing to do the first thing that turned up. In fact, that is what I did do. For, while I was waiting for one of my applications for a clerkship to be answered, I ran into a chap I knew who asked me how I'd like to do some amateur acting. He explained that I might get a chance in some of the plays being produced by the Bancroft Professional Club or the Wyndham Stage Society. These clubs were the vogue in London at that time. A group of would-be actors engaged the services of a professional director, the director coached the amateur actors and the plays were put in for short runs at such theaters as were available. "I thought it might be 'fun' to act. So I played juvenile roles, atrociously, I am sure, in such pieces as "Charley's Aunt," 'The Admirable Crichton," '"The Private Secretary" and others. It was amusing. But I had not the slightest idea of becoming an actor. There was in my mind an instinctive barrier against such an idea. I think my father would have hated it had he known. "I went to the theater quite often in those days, too. And I suppose that the great personalities of the London stage then, Mr. Lewis Waller, Charles Wyndham, Forbes-Robertson especially, influenced me more than I realized. But it never occurred to my conscious mind that I had anything in common with their world. Any more than, looking through a telescope, I thought I had anything in common with the workings of the zodiac." IN course of time, one of Ronald's applications was accepted and he became an office boy for the Britain Steamship Company at a salary of half a pound a week, some two dollars and fifty cents in our money. He was then seventeen years old. There followed three "inexpressibly dreary years" during which time he worked his way up to the post of junior accountant. This rise in the world was made manifest by his enthronement upon an ancient threelegged stool placed before an old black desk. And by raises in salary which, after three years, gave him twelve and one-half dollars a week. He says now, ''My demands on life must have been very modest, for I remember thinking that it was all deadly monotonous work but that otherwise I was doing very well." llURING this time the young man continued to play in amateur theatricals for the Bancroft Dramatic Club and undoubtedly his escape into the world of make-believing made his office work endurable. He found other escapes, too. He began to read in real earnest, and hungrily. He read Shakespeare and the vigor and vitality of the bard came through to him, quickening his blood, giving him an awareness he had not had before. He read Scott, Bulwer Lytton, novels, biographies, the odes of Keats, the sonnets of Shelley and discovered a rich, abundant life. He extended his interests and activities in other ways, too. He enlisted in the London Scottish Regiment, an organization similar to the National Guard in the United States. And in the regiment, for the first time in his life, he made friends of his own age. "I was shy with girls until I was past sixteen," the man whom Hollywood has called a "woman-hater" will tell you. "But when I became an office boy, I discovered that it was more comfortable to do as the Romans did, to be one of the fellows. And, to be one of the fellows, a chap had to talk about girls and dates and necking parties. To this end I went to a few subscription dances given in and around London, accepted a few invitations to dances in the homes of girls I met. Now and again I took a girl to dinner and the theater. The chief profit and pleasure I derived from these excursions, I must ungallantly admit, is that it gave me the right to talk like the other fellows." But the adolescent heart of the young Colman was, save for the brief brushing of a dream, left untouched. He did become enamoured of a girl who lived in his flat building. She was blond and blue-eyed and not much more than a child. And he never got past the stage of silent adoration so that she is no more than a picture framed in his mind. But, as a picture, she remains unfaded. At the age when he might have been romancing, going about socially, he was at first too shy. then too short of funds; then, just as he had begun to overcome these drawbacks — the War came. Ronald Colman teas one of the first to enlist. War strengthened a conviction this sensitive man had held from early childhood: launched him. on a career that changed his whole Hie. The fascinating story of his early theatrical days, his first efforts in pictures, his marriage — February Photoplay Howard Sharpe, who has created for Photoplay its magnificent biographies of Sonja Henie, Claudette Colbert, Loretta Young, Don Ameche, Tyrone Power and Margaret Sullavan, now tackles one of the most unusual men in Hollywood — Melvyn Douglas — whose life story in complete detail, with exclusive pictures, begins next month Lindbergh's Movie Contract close friends. We flew together, he stayed overnight at my army quarters and, later, we were to plan, with the help of a map spread on the floor of my living room, the first transcontinental air passenger line across the United States. "Slim's" advisors knew of our friendship; knew, too, that at that time he had more confidence in the judgment of a fellow flier than in that of anyone else. Accordingly, they summoned me to New York from Montgomery, Alabama, where I was on maneuvers with the First Pursuit Group. They wanted me to try to talk him out of "this movie idea." I flew to New York and talked with ''Slim." But his advisors had overestimated my influence; underestimated Lindbergh's tenacity. He was not to be dissuaded. He did permit me to accompany him on his visits to Mr. Hearst's apartments on Riverside Drive, where he was holding conferences with Mr. Hearst and members of M-G-M who were submitting the plans of the forthcoming pic (Continued from page 61) ture for flyer Lindbergh's approval. Before this, he had allowed no one to go with him to these conferences. I was asked by Colonel Breckinridge and Harry Guggenheim. Lindbergh's two closest friends, to note what occurred at these meetings and to dictate a report to a stenographer in Colonel Breckinridge's office as soon as they were over. This went on for a fortnight. During all that time, we were trying to persuade Lindbergh to give up the contract. He refused. Ill ANY prominent men in New York brought their influence to bear. Among them were Daniel Guggenheim, father of Harry Guggenheim, and Herbert Bayard Swope, then managing editor of the New York World. I think "Slim" was most swayed by the arguments of Daniel Guggenheim. In any event, at one of the conferences. Mr. Hearst seemed to sense a change of heart on Lindbergh's part. He was not unaware of the objections of "Slim's" friends. He asked Lindbergh, plainly, if he still wished to go through with the contract. Lindbergh's hesitation revealed that he was no longer sure he wanted to make a picture. Mr. Hearst asked no more questions. He did something, then, for which I have always admired him. He brought out the contract and tore it up in Lindbergh's presence. "You are as much of a hero to me," he told "Slim," "as to anyone else in the world. If you and your friends feel that making a picture will interfere with your career in aviation, then I want you to know that I will be the last man to stand i:; your way." Had that picture been made. . . . Well, speculation is intriguing. Many things that lay ahead of Lindbergh might have happened differently. And. undoubtedly, Hollywood would have produced one of the greatest pictures of all times. About those things, I don't know. This is, after all, the story of how one of the most ambitious movies of all times, starring America's hero, Charles Lindbergh, was not made. SATISFYING G A\l E T Y IN MEXICAN STRIPES W lui could be more flatten!.:, than the ilimmins effect of these Mexican stripes? Beneath its gay exterior the 'Sicita' conceals a "urld of du»nrishl usefulness, grateful warmth and relaxation fur tired, cramped nuclei, fade-proof nonliability, compactness in the overstuffed weekend bag. "Siesla' makes a sureloplease, sure-to-fit gift Only two sizes that s-l-r-el-c-h lo fit the foot. Fir salt by lit 6rUtr sraaruMit flans. 11 SIIPPE8ETTE 5 2 1 6 I h \ I N G PARK ROAD CHICAGO. ILLINOIS £ 1939 GOVERNMENT JOBS Start 512G0 to 52100 year FRANKLIN INSTITUTE Dept. F171 Rochester. N. 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