Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1953)

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Send 10c (stamps or coin) for generous trial bottle to make our famous “One Spot Test.” Test it yourself. Results may surprise you. Write today for your test bottle. Caution: Use only as directed. Print nameplainly. Don’t delay. Sold bV Liqgettand Walgr^n Drug Stores and other leading druggists. LAKE LABORATORIES, Box 3925. Strathmoor Station, Dept. 7004. Detroit 27. MiCh. Second (Continued from page 69) play any part at all — just keep working, Cornel Wilde is not made that way. He’s an actor’s actor, and behind him are not only years of experience in radio and in stock, but an enviable record on Broadway, including the role of Tybalt in Laurence Olivier’s production of “Romeo and Juliet.” In 1948, while his career was still skimming the top, he asked to be released from his full contract at Twentieth, and to be given, instead, a contract for just one picture a year. He thought that would give him a chance to pick the cream of the scripts around town. But it just didn’t work out that way. And, as though having his career go shaky wasn’t enough, his marriage to Patricia Knight began to falter at just about the same time. There was a pathetic irony to the collapse of this marriage. For in Cornel’s earliest days in Hollywood, when the going was really tough, he and Pat were one of the colony’s most devoted couples. But, strangely, after Cornel’s success. things at home never seemed to be the same. There are some who say that it was ambition — not only Cornel’s tremendous ambition for himself, but for Pat, as well — that shattered the marriage. He insisted on having her in every shot and every interview. To get her into pictures, he wrote her screen test himself — and rehearsed her in it for three days. And when she was cast in a film. Cornel was at her side constantly — coaching her, giving advice to her director, to the camera men. After their breakup, he said, “That was the trouble. I interfered too much.” They spatted and reconciled and spatted again during those last few shaky months, and through it all. Cornel adored Pat. All he did, he did out of devotion. When he and Pat finally separated, it seemed that his world was at an end. Cornel considered himself a failure — as an actor, as a husband, and as a father to his daughter Wendy. Distraught and unhappy, he set off for Europe to make a picture. But the Fate that was pommeling Cornel Wilde still had a blow or two left. The picture, which was scheduled to be made in London, never even got started. And Cornel spent six frustrating months working on the script — cutting, revising — while the producer and the backers bickered. It was a wasted six months, except for the nostalgic pleasure Cornel found just in being in Europe, where he had spent so much time as a boy. He avoided the brighter spots in Paris, and instead, wandered alone along the banks of the Seine, pondering the weighty questions of both his marriage and his career. There was his daughter Wendy to think about, and there was that huge question mark as to whether he was right in refusing those offers of mediocre pictures. Discouraged, he went back to New York, where he saw Pat a few times. They agreed then to divorce, and Cornel returned to Hollywood. The doldrums continued. But even though he wasn’t working in front of the cameras. Cornel wasn’t wasting his time. “I’m not the kind of guy who sits around,” he says. He kept his eyes open for good scripts, and he spent a lot of time writing plays of his own. He went on with his painting (he is a highly skilled amateur — not just a Sunday dabbler) and he kept his fencing sharpened up. He continued to turn down poor scripts, and he kept reminding himself, over and over again, that he had to learn patience. Chance He tried to pretend that he didn’t mind the fact that the columnists never mentioned his name anymore. For consolation through it all, he had one thing he knew would never fail him: his talent. He was certain that his day would come again. It did — with the offer of the role of Sebastian in “The Greatest Show on Earth.” But even that wasn’t all smooth sailing. Cecil B. DeMille had interviewed Cornel, questioned him and studied him, and — signed a French actor for the part. Then one day Milton Pickman (now with Jerry Wald productions at Columbia), who had originally suggested Cornel for Sebastian, telephoned him. It seemed the French actor had been devoting so much time to learning the trapeze work that he had neglected his study of English. DeMille wanted to see Cornel again. Mr. Wilde was skeptical. Here was a movie with Betty Hutton, Jimmy Stewart, Dorothy Lamour, Charlton Heston, and on top of all these star names, a full-blown circus. What could possibly be left in the way of a role for him? But when DeMille told him about the part of Sebastian, Cornel could feel the excitement welling up inside him. It sounded like a great challenge. DeMille said he thought Cornel should play the role straight, rather than as a Frenchman. “But I can do a French accent,” said Cornel. DeMille waved aside the suggestion. “I’ve yet to hear an actor do a convincing accent,” he said. “I think it’s better not to try.” “Would you do me a favor?” said Cornel, “and see a picture called ‘Centennial Summer’? I played a Frenchman in that, and you can judge for yourself.” The next day DeMille called him up. “Great,” he said. “You’ll play it as a Frenchman.” Then began the grueling work on the trapeze. Cornel was the last major member of the cast to be signed, and already Betty Hutton had three months of practice behind her. Cornel had only two weeks before the troupe left for Sarasota, Florida, where shooting would begin in the midst of the Ringling Brothers Circus. After four days of it, he was tempted to throw in the towel. Just looking down from the thirty-two-foot platform made Cornel dizzy. The platform itself was rickety, and so small that his heels and toes hung over the edge. Physically speaking, his most difficult scene was the one where he hung by his knees, caught Betty Hutton in mid-air and then pulled her face up to his for a love scene that lasted three minutes. Professional circus catchers tried it first, and though Betty is no heavy-weight, they could not hold her, with their arms bent, for longer than forty seconds. DeMille decided to throw out the scene, and then Billy Schneider, the trapeze artist who had been coaching Cornel, spoke up. “I think Cornel can hold her,” he said. DeMille snorted. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “If regular catchers can’t do it, how can I expect it of Cornel?” But Cornel did it — and he did it five times for that many takes. All that morning he had been practicing, holding the one hundred and sixty-five pound Billy Schneider. So that, much as his shoulders and knees ached, Betty’s weight was almost a relief after Billy’s. By that time, rushes were being seen in Hollywood, and the word was getting around that Cornel’s performance v/as great. When he got back to the coast to finish filming the picture, he found that