Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

71 An Everyday Comedian Edward Everett Horton has been everything from a chorus boy who couldn't sing, to a movie-comedy star who doesn't have to. By Margaret Reid PARENTS wha wish to keep their offspring away from tlie stage or studio would do well to organize a "down-withschool-theatricals" movement. It is common knowledge that school and college theatricals are dangerously infested with curious insects called "theatrical bugs" or "bug du theatre." Daily, our youth all over the country is exposed to this insidious scourge. Boys and girls who would otherwise probably go quietly through their stttdies and out into the comfortable world of home and business, suffer mortal wounds from its sharp sting. Once bitten, the unfortunate young victim can no longer endure the formerly alluring algebra and lovely Latin. There is no turning back. He or she develops, instead, a strange desire for grease paint, for costumes, for Kleig — or maybe footlights. Hall bedrooms, occasional hunger, and vicissitudes of all kinds are greeted with unnatural relish. The final, fatal period of this disease is "making good." Then the former hardships are indeed gone. Exhibit A — table on the left — Edward Everett Horton. Back in Brooklyn, vi^here he was born, Edward Everett used to be such a nice boy. Of conservative Scotch parents, one of a quiet, devoted famih', his childhood was uneventful. He was obedient, tidy, attentive to his lessons. His parents entertained rather high hopes for him as a credit to the community, little dreaming that he would turn out to be an actor. Through grammar school he went, through high school and halfway through Columbia University — still the happy, carefree bov. And then, in a short week, it got him. He played a part in the annual university show. This one was called "In Newport," and it ran a week. When it closed, custom demanded that the participants return with renewed enthusiasm to their studies. But Edward Everett, illustrating with what horrid swiftness the virus w^orks, was irrevocably sunk. The man who had directed the show was a professional, and from him young Horton obtained a letter of introduction to a man who was organizing an opera company. He was given a tryout, after having assured the manager of his quite exceptional tenor voice. He was given an air to sing. He began — and the manager looked puzzled. "A cold," Horton explained, tapping his chest and coughing dismally, "bad cold." The manager hesitated, and Horton quickly gave him another rapid sales-talk. And so he talked, rather than sang, himself into the chorus of "The Mikado" — third from the end — twelve dollars a week. His employer waited patiently for the bad cold to clear up. When he realized that it was, instead, a bad voice, he promptly fired the ambitious young chorister. Edward Everett, flaunting his previous experience in "The Mikado," got himself a small part in a musical Photo by G Horton played a part in a college play and fell a victim to the lure of things theatrical. comedy called "The Newlyweds and Their Baby." Being fired again rather soon, he decided that the drama must be his forte, and joined a stock company that was about to depart for Newfoundland. During the engagements in "The Mikado" and the musical comedy, his career had been a secret one, his parents blissfully believing him to be continuing his studies. Confession of the truth came as a shock, but they received it gamely and wished him luck. The stock company arrived in Newfoundland. It was the dead of winter— they changed shows twice a week — the salary was infinitesimal. But Edward Everett loved it. Then came Lent, and after struggling bravely for a while to a few "paper patrons," the company breathed faintly and died. So, very nearly, did the players. Horton wired home for money to pa_\' his passage back to New York. "He's had his fling," the family whispered among themselves, "and his lesson. The comforts of home and the saner pleasures of school will look pretty good to him after all this." But they reckoned without the "theatrical bug" with which Everett had been so incurably inoculated. He returned to New York and insisted on partially starving to death while he searched and waited for another engagement. He finally landed one in another stock company, which proceeded to go on the rocks down in Easton, Pa. And still he stuck. Back in New York once more, the long lane turned at last. He was given the job of stage manager with Louis Mann, then at the height of his success. Here Continued on pnge 105