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44
TH E PICTU RE-GOE-R
JUNE 1922
i 0] * " v \
Wallace Reid and Elsie Ferguson in " Peter Ibbetson."
you've seen on his head in innumerable films.
There's a good deal of him, too. It gave me quite
a surprise to realise what a big chap he is. And
correspondingly broad-shouldered and athletic,
but quite unaffected and easy to talk to. Oh,
and exceedingly easy to look at, with his
faultless features and prepossessing
manner.
He looked longingly, I thought, at the big bathing pool ; but we went into his own especial sanctum, or " den," which looks out on it. " Diving in the pool there looks good to me," he said.
" Yes ; but diving into the past must come first," I insisted ; so we settled down to it. " An old man's reminiscences. Put that down," Wally commenced, laughing. " Having now entered the sere and yellow
thirties "
" I thought all masculine
•«*
As " Perry Danton "in" Always Audacious."
screen stars never passed 29," I interrupted.
" This one has, anyway. On the 15th of last April. Bill has a birthday coming soon "
" Tell me what brought you into screenland," was my next command. " Curiosity. And the chance of trying something new. I'm fond of variety, in some ways.
You get it all right in the movies. I'd done a few things already. I was one-and-twenty when I went to Selig's as assistant camera-man. It happened in Chicago, where I chanced to be filling a vaudeville engagement.
" What did I do ? Played in a sketch written by my dad, the late Hal Reid, called ' The Girl and the Ranger.' My part was so big you could hardly see it. I used to get out-of-doors as much as I could and see the country when there was any near enough."
Earlier . still, he told me, in his schooldays he liked sport better than Latin or algebra. And recalled his efforts at verse, drama, and shortstory writing, many of which appeared in the school magazine ; but others never at all in print. Wally went to the Freehold Academy, New Jersey, then to Perkiomen Seminary way up in Pennsylvania, and finally passed his exams, for Princetown.
" But a little Princetown went a long way with me," he confessed. " Three years there seemed beyond me, and I wanted to get out West. Finally, dad gave in, and I hit the trail for Wyoming. I was hotel clerk there for a while. Routine work, which I hated, but stuck to for the sake of the strange and interesting folk who came to the hotel. After a while they engineered a wonderful irrigation scheme, and I quitted my desk job to be one of the party.
" Some folks might call it engineering. Actually it was hard work with a pick and shovel gang. At first, that is. Afterwards, I learned to ride and shoot, and box a bit, too. I guess I finished growing out there. When