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From Camera Man to Leads
Richard Walling, without any previous dramatic training, was converted overnight from assistant camera man to leading man.
By Myrtle Gebhart
"Interview him?" I scoffed at a press agent's suggestion of such a solemn event — right before Dick, whose face was brightened by a wide and teasing grin. "I'll be switched if I will! If you encourage him, hemight get thenotion he's an actor."
"I've drawn an actor's salary for only four weeks, but some day I'll drive up to your house in a RollsRoyce," Dick replied witheringly, "and then you won't be so sassy."
I was merely putting on, of course, so that the young man, fortunately still humble, wouldn't get any cocky ideas in his head. I knew that eventually we would find ourselves ensconced in a chummy tea room for luncheon, blue-eyed Dick and I, to wonder at the luckv break that had shifted an inconspicuous camera lad into the spotlight.
The hero of "A Kiss at Midnight," the film which was originally called "Pigs," is an unsophisticated, enterprising youth who aims to be a doctor. Meantime, he practices on pigs. The plot involves his scheme of buying a sty full of sick pigs for a dollar each, curing them, and selling them for enough to pay off the mortgage and win the girl. For this role, nearly evenavailable juvenile in Hollywood was tested. What was needed was something of a youthful dreamer, but a hustler as well.
One day Mr. Cummings, gloomy in his despair of finding a suitable hero among the actorish young men of Hollywood, noticed Dick fooling with his camera, Continued on page 96
Janet Gaynor and Richard, in a scene from "A Kiss at Midnight," which was originally called "Pigs."
Fhoto by Autrey
Richard hadn't even intended to be an actor, until he was suddenly picked for the lead in "A Kiss at Midnight."
IT rarely, if ever before, has happened, in the history of the movies, that a youngster has been picked right off the lot and shoved, without any preliminary training, into a leading role. But this honor befell Richard Walling, whom Director Irving Cummings discovered as a camera man and appointed to play the lead in Fox's "A Kiss at Midnight," and who now holds a five-year contract with the Fox organization.
"Apple sauce !" I ejaculated, when I heard the glad tidings, refusing to credit same. For, many times has Dick Walling delivered pictures to me from the Fox publicity department — an amiable, likable kid, one of that vast army of youngsters around the studios who are always ready to serve with more or less promptitude and whom you learn to take for granted.