Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

CAREERS OF ADOLPHE MENJOU r He's living proof, this Hollywood so phisticate, that it's a wise man who knows when to take his own advice BY JESSIE HENDERSON B' |REAK the rules!" Adolphe Menjou said with emphasis. He waved those rules aside with a sweep of his perfectly tailored gray sleeve. "That's the way to get ahead, in the movies or anywhere." Quickly he added with a Menjou lift of the brows, "Not the laws of the land, for heaven's sake, but the rules people are always laying down for other people's success." Now, Menjou has had three careers since he entered the picture (literally, and figuratively!) in 1914; first, as an important bit player in the silents — a career that war interrupted; second, as a suave sophisticate in the late silents and early talkies (this was followed by near-oblivion) ; and today, as a deft comedian and character actor (for example, the film producer in "The Goldwyn Follies"), earning an unbe . . ' lievable salary. Each of the careers has been highly prosperous, the third promising to become the biggest success of the lot, and each he dragged up from failure through methods useful to any job, theatrical or otherwise. Today, past his youth, Menjou lives in one of the handsomest of English brick houses on one of the handsomest of the Hollywood hills; at his right elbow, a view to the Pacific some twenty-eight miles away; at his left, a telephone on which producers call up and ask him please, please to accept a role in their newest films. Shattered rules built the house, as well as the house next door, which he also owns; and shattered rules maintain it. Menjou's the living proof of the wisdom of taking his own advice. TOR instance, down Hollywood Boulevard, in the days when orange groves lined that thoroughfare, there would wobble a funny car which rattled in every joint, with a man all dressed up at the wheel. Many people recall that familiar and eye-arresting sight. Striped trousers, frock coat, correct tie, exactly the right "topper" at exactly the right slant — this was Menjou hunting for work! He lived in a succession of boardinghouses on side streets; wasn't, he says, exactly hungry "or exactly not"; and battered his way into engagements. Now the rules would have kept him dressed in mediocre clothes to go with his mediocre surroundings. But he had learned by observation. For weeks he had stood in a long line of extras round the casting office, a slim, energetic man, suffering from stomach trouble (it has but lately been cured) — not outwardly different from the rest except for the speculative look in his eyes. He studied his fellow extras, and himself. And he perceived the vital fact that he was not distinguishable from the crowd. Listening hard to the director, he heard him say more than once, "Pick that bird over there, his clothes look better." Menjou determined to have better clothes, too; in other words, to have the right equipment for his work. He went to the shop of the best tailor in town. "Stake me to some Grade A clothes," Menjou argued, "and I'm positive that I can pay you back and become a regular customer as well. I haven't any money, but I know my business. What I need is a chance, and clothes will give it to me." Caught at first by the fellow's nerve, and later by his logic, the tailor agreed to be a sport; a decision, by the way, which has since brought him a fortune from the patronage of those who want to look as well dressed as Menjou. A few days after his sales talk, Menjou, the extra, appeared in a hundred and fifty dollar suit. A hundred and fifty dollars! He didn't make that much in three months. But in a throng of extras Menjou then became the only one elegantly dressed. Directors invariably picked him out, and his acting ability did the rest. He progressed to bit parts. After three and a half meagre years he rose to the role of polished hero, at $7,000 a week. Their poise, their worldliness, their appreciation for the nicer things of life make Adolphe Menjou and Verree Teasdale a perfect couple "Of course, when I talk about disregarding rules I take it for granted that the individual who disregards them knows his job," Menjou warned. "You need self-confidence to get along, but first you need a firm grasp on your profession or trade or whatever your livelihood may be. You have to know your business well enough to chuck all the moss-grown advice or tradition connected with it and branch forth on your own." 00, today, he's the alternate hope and despair of producers. Like an architect who farsightedly refuses to enter any project which won't redound to his credit, Menjou declines to play in a picture unless he's sure it will be a hit. Before he put pen to paper, he had to know everything about the three films for which he is at present signed up with the Goldwyn studios. "Rather than make a fat salary in a thin role, I'll wait ten weeks for a part I prefer in a production I like," he says. Recently he stayed out of work for two months and a half, in preference to acting in second-class stuff. That's breaking the rules with a vengeance. But his motives spring not alone from art; they're rooted in business sense. He no more intends to offer an inferior brand of entertainment, such as a poor role might entail, than a reputable merchant intends to offer inferior merchandise. And for the same shrewd reasons. Reputation has a money value. "Success," Menjou said, his enthusiasm concentrated in a glance as direct as an arrow, "is just around the corner for practically all of us, practically all the time. It's not so much that we don't have luck as that we don't have the training or the gumption to grab success when it comes." TOR instance, Menjou didn't beat his brow when, as happened several times, his hopes went boom. Instead, he broke another rule; he tried another line. Before he achieved any true success he had tried many lines, for he didn't set out to be an actor. To begin with, he toiled as a farm hand. Actually. He'd gone from his home in Pittsburgh to Cornell University for a course in agriculture, and was headed for a future among the kale and kine. One summer vacation he got work on a violet farm at Rhinebeck, N. Y. You needn't laugh; they did raise violets. But they raised cows also, and wanted Menjpu to milk them. Menjou, milking a cow. . . . Well, he was teachable but inexpert, so very soon thereafter he moved along to the next farm, that of Vincent Astor, for the August haying season. Hot! He stuck to it doggedly till the hay was all in, and so was he. It shows that his lot wasn't exclusively cream and violets. Agriculture, so far as Menjou was concerned, proved a flop. Broke, discouraged, he tried the hotel business, which also flopped, and the steamship business, which flopped even faster, before he landed as an extra with the old Vitagraph Pictures in New York City. Just as he edged into prominence, America entered the War and thus was ended his first career. Three days later he enlisted with the Cornell unit of the Red Cross, and served till the Armistice. "I know what it (Continued on page 83) 19