Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1935)

The Chester Morris Plan [ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 75 OS E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe were gorgeous, romantic figures he never forgot. Chester and Adrian and Gordon and WilheLma pulled down the plush curtains and borrowed the plumes from their mother's new bonnet for a homemade version of "Romeo and Juliet." Any part with a sword and a duel was heaven for Chester. Jane Cowl, the lovely Jane Cowl, was the most beautiful woman in the world in the Morris children's eyes. Chester fell in love with her when she played with his dad. William Morris thought it would be a nice gesture if Chester and Gordon took her to dinner one night. Placing the money in their hands he instructed them how to knock atthe door, bow and ask Miss Cowl to dine. (It was all pre-arranged of course, although Miss Cowl was to be taken by surprise and delighted no end.) They marched to the Hermitage Hotel. Chester and Gordon, seven and nine, with their dream lady to dine. But when the check came around Chester managed to forget the money. Love was one thing, and money was another. Jane Cowl paid the check. " I'm going to be an actor!" How many times father William Morris heard that statement from his offspring, especially Chester, would be hard to estimate. "No you're not," he invariably informed Chester, "you're going to have a college education, then you'll know what you want to be." But there was that matter of acting blood. At sixteen the issue reached a climax. Something had to be done. William Morris stuck to his guns. It was his duty, he thought, to discourage his children from sampling the fatal lure of the footlights. Chester vetoed college, but having a talent for drawing, consented to go to art school and learn magazine illustration. He went one month. Most of that was spent in theaters across from the school. One day he couldn't stand it any longer. Secretly he stole into an agent's office. "I'm William Morris' son," he said, "and I want a part in Augustus Thomas' play." ' 'The Copperhead'?" said the agent. "Sure, Mr. Thomas will give you a little part, I know, for your dad's sake." Chester was afraid to explain it wasn't for his dad's sake, by any remote interpretation. But he put blue on his face for a beard and donned a sergeant's uniform and stumbled around in a few scenes behind Lionel Barrymore. When William Morris found it out, he boiled indignantly. Chester came on the carpet, for the rebuke of his life. But somehow he knew that the old man was secretly pleased. He knew it because his father started giving advice. "If you're going to act," he said, "play good parts. You'll never be good in poor ones. "Another thing," he said, "always keep your credit good at your tailors. You might be out of work for six months and then have a chance at a part. When you need a wardrobe, you want to be able to get one. "Make acting a business — keep your salary up." Years later, after William Morris had bowed to the inevitable with subconscious pleasure and written "All the Horrors of Home" to take DAILY ARGUS, WEDNESDAY, QCTOBKK 15. 1924 =8 ROCTOKS L die haskS&rd. bs~. ^, . Vaudeville &^hixaePichxB^> Thursday Friday Saturday 'Almost an All Mount Vernon Bill of Stars Who j Formerly Resided In This City WILLIAM MORRIS & FAMILY FORMERLY (IF MOUNT ^ CRN OX II MR. AND MRS. WM. MORRIS WILHELMA MORRIS CHESTER MORRIS ADRIAN MORRIS IN A NEW COMET) Y "ALL THE HORRORS OF HOME" WILLI VM MuRfcb FORMERLY OF MOCNT VERNON GRACE LARUE The Irit«rnati<Hif>» Star at flong FORMERLY OF MOI NT VERNON NOVELTY CLINTONS A KesKfenl of I'ertuua Who la HARRY ROSE THE BROADWAY JESTER VU?GJM\ and WATSON YOl'TH TIME" [RENE k MARTIN and FRANCIS tn -VOrTHFLL IDEAS" "WINE" Clara Bow Forrest Stanley Myrtle Stedman WITH A CAST OF I.IVE.Wir.E STARS Huntley Gordon The Morrises, naturally, were the sensation in Mt. Vernon, N. Y.. their old home town, in 1924. Top billing, no less the whole family on the road together, he would stop Chester when he came home after seeing a producer. "How does it look?" he would ask. "Good." "Talk money?" "No." "Then you won't play it," William Morris would say. "Oh yes, they said they wanted me. It's all set." "You won't play it," Father William would repeat. "Unless they talk money, they aren't interested." Too many times Chester found this all too true. While he was playing on Broadway in "Yellow," and after he had attained a measure of success which seemed to predict a reasonably successful future, Chester Morris met a girl named Sue Kilborn. She was in stock with Paramount in New Y'ork. He met her at a dress rehearsal, and whether that theatrical setting, or the fact that her father was a theatrical man, and her mother an actress hud anything to do with it, they fell in love. The precarious warnings of his father had seeped into Chester by now. He and Sue agreed to wait until "Yellow" looked like a hit before they said it to the preacher. But Harry Bannister, who was in the cast, married a girl named Ann Harding, and Chester and Sue talked themselves into believing that "Yellow" was going to be a hit. They got married. On their way back, they passed the theater and popped in to break the news. On the bulletin board a notice glared mockingly: The show closed in two weeks. And to make matters worse Sue's Paramount contract had been automatically cancelled when she said "I do"! Perhaps it is the "strictly business" teachings of William Morris which Chester Morris and the other Morrises have adopted after a few slaps by the world that have kept them out of the public awareness as an acting clan. Whenever you mention theatrical families, there is prone to rise in the vision of the ordinary mortal the somewhat terrifying picture of an esoteric breed, apart from the normal, whose apparently innate exhibitionism plants them consistently on front pages. The whole Morris family dwells out in spotlighted Hollywood. But you never hear anything sensational about any of them. Gordon Morris writes for the movies. His last scenario was "Under the Pampas Moon." Adrian Morris is a free-lance actor around the studios. Wilhelma Morris acts over the radio. William Morris couldn't stand the confusion of making pictures after his years on the stage. After a few tries he gave it up. Now he writes plays. The last acting he did was with Billie Burke in the Los Angeles stage production of "The Vinegar Tree." Apart from the screen no one is more of a plain, ordinary unexciting Mr. Citizen than Chester. Let him alone by the swimming pool, in his backyard gym or workshop and all's right with the world. Sue played in one picture, " She Had to Say Yes," and then had to say no. Now she's just a housewife, and prefers it to practically everything. But three concessions to theatrical standing 104