Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1935)

All the World's His Stooge CONTINUED FROM PAGE 77 ] eventually substituting rubber balls for the stones. Rapidly he became more adept, and finally was urged to present his "act" on amateur night at the neighborhood theater in the Bronx. Jimmy won first prize, and the manager offered the youngster a two-a-day contract. As the years went on, Savo developed the most complicated of juggling routines. One intricate trick took him two years to perfect. ( )nce, while presenting it in a vaudeville house, he missed and the audience laughed. Savo decided that he would never be laughed at again while trying to perform a difficult and serious act. So he went back to simple tricks, doing them with comedy pantomime. His comedy was so successful that gradually he dropped the juggling and emphasized the pantomime. Almost at once he became a headliner in vaudeville, featured comedian in Broadway shows, and a popular entertainer in New York's most famous night clubs. It is surprising that until now movies paid little attention to him. For his forte is pantomime— always more effective on the screen than on the stage. He made some Sunshine comedy shorts for Fox back in the silent days, and they attracted no particular attention. Last Spring he made a movie, "The Girl in the Case," for Dr. Eugene Frenke. husband of Anna Sten. A private production, the picture was never released. However, picture men and critics who saw the movie by invitation, sang Savo's praises. And a few months later Hecht and MacArthur asked him to play the lead in their picture. Maybe Hollywood shunned him because he once told a movie director that he would like to see his favorite book brought to the screen. It's "The Dishonest Conductor," by Rob Nickels. He makes everybody stooge for him. And they like it! He'll say to you merrily, "Come and go to the fair with me this afternoon." You answer, "But, Jimmy, I didn't know there was a fair in town." "Must be. I read it in the paper last night, ' Fair today and tomorrow.' " He's the only comedian I've ever known who even makes stooges out of the writers who are interviewing him. Ask him about his education and he'll say, " Sure I went to school. What did I take up? Space. No, seriously, I studied geography. I learned that the most important animal in Russia is a Mouse-cow." A SK him about his film plans for the future — if he may go to Hollywood — and he answers, "Well, I bought an elephant so I'll have a trunk handy, just in case. And that reminds me, do you know whose baby is being fed on elephant's milk? The elephant's baby, of course." You groan and try to bring him back to the subject of movies, his career, and ask him if he, like most comedians, wants some day to do dramatic roles. " No," he answers. "Once I wanted to write plays. But now I know I'd rather be Jimmy Savo than William Shakespeare. Because Shakespeare, you know, is dead." You groan again and ask him what he would like to do if he should go to Hollywood, and he says, " I'd like to become a rhinoceros, so I can horn in everywhere. You know, I hear Hollywood is a tricky place. They even have a trap set for Mickey Mouse." If Jimmy Savo does go to Hollywood it won't be soon. That is, unless Ben Hecht and Charlie MacArthur, now producing pictures for Paramount in New York, change their minds and agree to return to the Coast. For Jimmy is under contract to Hecht and MacArthur for six pictures to follow "Once in a Blue Moon." They are convinced that the Broadway comedian is going to be a screen sensation, a second Chaplin. They believe that his ill-fitting, patched-up clothes and his always handy bean-shooter will become as famous as Charlie's big shoes and cane. And if his two directors are silent when Jimmy tells a joke, it's probably because they're afraid to open their mouths for fear Savo will make stooges out of them. And he does, too. For example, they were ready to start work on the set when Savo rushed up to Hecht, saying, "Hey, do you know who is in the hospital?" Hecht cast an anxious eye about the set. "No, who?" "Sick people," Jimmy answered. " Well, you oughta be there! " Hecht snarled. "Oh, no. Not me, Ben. I just swallowed a mint and I feel like a million dollars! By the way, Ben. You're a great director, and I'm an actor, trying to learn how to speak lines. A guy last night told me it was possible to say 'What am I doing?' in five different ways, making five shades of meaning, just by accenting different words. But I don't believe that, do you?" "Certainly, it is," the director answered. " I'll show you. What am I doing? What am / doing? What am I doing? What I am doing? What am I doing?" "Making a sap of yourself, Ben! Well, call me when the camera's ready." Margaret Sullavan Wants None of It! she was not and never would be happy making pictures. It wasn't just Hollywood. Margaret had preconceived ideas about Hollywood — playtime Hollywood — and stunningly ignored it. All during her debut picture she was "regular" enough about doing the extra-set tasks demanded of a star. The publicity gags, pictures, smiles, introductions. No one called her a "prima donna." But she was terribly unhappy every minute of the time she spent within studio gates. And she still is. I happen to know that ever since "Only Yesterday," and its undreamed of result of lifting her to the small pinnacle of great screen stars, Margaret Sullavan has never been the same. "RVEN during the filming of "Little Man, What Now?" under the kindness and understanding of Frank Borzage, whom she liked, on a set where harmony and pleasantness ruled, Margaret suffered the same soultwisting tortures. Every picture has been a Hell for her to get through. Her attitude, which is genuine and uncontrollable, has not changed one iota 108 [ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29 ] from the first discouraging week of her screen career to the day we talked at luncheon. To completely understand it would be to completely understand Margaret Sullavan — and only the gods can dare boast such perception. For she is no ordinary person; on the contrary, she is one of the most intensely interesting and individual characters ever to visit Hollywood. However, here is an attempt at least to penetrate the shell of a psychology which has provided Hollywood with an enigma rapidly becoming as classic as Garbo. In the first place, all the rich rewards of movie stardom leave her as cold as a casting director's eye. Money, movie money, big money simply has no lure for her. She doesn't want mink coats and town cars. Making good in a show world doesn't lend her the slightest desire to make a show. Last year she drove a small, second-hand medium priced roadster; this year she doesn't even own a car, but rents a 1932 rattly, twoseater of one of the lowest priced makes. Living in style, wearing sensational, expen sive clothes, putting it on in the grand manner is actually distasteful to her. Last year, again, she took a house in Coldwater Canyon, not a big house, but a nice house. This year she lives right in the heart of Hollywood, in a small apartment. The address is good, but not ultraultra. Fame, publicity, glamour, ballyhoo, they make her shudder. I doubt if she has read one one-hundredth of the stories written about her. She keeps none of her countless still portraits. She wasn't enjoying having luncheon with me, although we are friends, because she knew I was going to write about her. Anything attempted in the nature of an interview is actually painful to her. Talking about herself makes her weak inside. She made me promise not to quote her. HTHE fact that millions of people all over the world are being entertained and made happy by her pictures, the fact that she is succeeding in what most people consider an immeasurably great career does not begin to compensate her for what she sincerely feels she is missing because of it. To her any career — even the stage, which