Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1947)

p 10 1 1 * shades cost so little you won’t believe your eyes. Made of cellulose fibre, and specially processed for that cloth-like look, they lend an air of graciousness to every room. At 5 and 10c stores, Variety, Department and other stores. "Some items a few cents higher Denver and West.” Clopay *Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. FREE BOOKLET: "Beautiful Windows at Low Cost" Write to: Clopay Corp., 1268 Clopay Square, Cincinnati 14, O. ON a mild September day in 1877 in the city of London, England, Santa Claus was born. At the time no one who saw little Edmund Gwenn dreamed that he would turn out to be Kris Kringle. For who could have guessed that seventy years later a new-fangled entertainment known as motion pictures would produce a story called “The Miracle on 34th Street” in which Teddy, a seasoned actor by this time, would play Santa? The Gwenn trek toward that goal began when Edmund was seventeen. In a stormy session with his father, who expected his son to follow in his British Civil Service career, Edmund made it clear he preferred the stage. Whereupon, disowned, he set out on his own. For ten years he struggled. Then George Bernard Shaw, who had admired him in an obscure one-act play in London, offered him the role of a chauffeur in his play, “Man and Superman.” Roles in five more Shaw plays followed, and suddenly he was a celebrity and a mighty fine actor to boot. During World War I, in which he ranked as a Captain, he returned to London where he aided a young juvenile called Ronald Colman in his first play. British movies, twenty-one in all, came next. And when he returned to the theater in “Laburnum Grove” Hollywood grabbed him right off the stage for a role in “The Bishop Misbehaves.” Since then, except for a return trip to his native England for “A Yank at Oxford,” his professional efforts have been concerned with Hollywood movies and the Broadway stage. To all Hollywood Teddy Gwenn is a beloved and respected figure. His life begins and ends with his work and, since he has no family ties, his heart belongs, rightly, to acting. When the role of Kris Kringle was offered to Teddy, he went first to his M-G-M bosses for permission. They had nothing on immediate schedule for him so after “Green Dolphin Street” he went over to Twentieth Century-Fox to make picture history in “The Miracle on 34th Street.” During the shooting of “Green Dolphin Street” Teddy had not been feeling well but, like the good trouper he is, insisted on going straight into “The Miracle . . .” rather than hold up production. He held on until the picture was finished, then went into the hospital where experimental injections were administered every three hours. It was during this time' that the studio discovered a few additional lines were needed from Santa. They rigged up the sound equipment outside Teddy’s window and between injections he spoke the additional lines. “Thunder in the Valley” was next on his schedule. It went into production before he had his operation. However, he thrived so in the rugged atmosphere that the nurse assigned to go on location with him returned to Hollywood. And when this picture was completed, alone with his chauffeur, he drove to Ann Arbor for an operation that soon had him spryly flitting about the M-G-M studios in his role of the Scottish doctor in “Hills of Home.” For eleven years Teddy made his home at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, but when he returned from the run of a New York stage play to find himself homeless, he and a friend moved into a house in Beverly Hills. Kindness and good humor, gentleness, a deep sincerity — these are the attributes that make Teddy Gwenn beloved in Hollywood. Like Santa Claus he carries the spirit of Christmas in his heart all year ’round.