Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

48 The Strangest Interview After answering the fans' questions about the stars for years, The Picture Oracle himself is interviewed with unusual results. By Virginia Morris Illustrations by Lui Trugo THE first portent of fame in the movies is an interview. You've read many a one, no doubt. You've seen in print the cinematic reactions of everybody who's anybody, from Will H. Hays to the bootblack on the Paramount lot. That's what I can't understand — how this feverish interviewing could go on all these years, and yet no one think of lunching at the Algonquin with The Picture Oracle. Why, he's the most glamorous individual you ever met, and if he didn't love his work too much to give it up, he might easily win the hearts of the fans by his screen personality, rather than by his sympathetic interest in telling them the weight and height of the stars. Teamed with Trader Horn he'd be a riot any day. Personally, I prefer him to any player I've ever known. He has all their charm and none of their faults. That is, he knows every shred of the latest gossip, but refuses to talk about himself. No star was ever like that ! Indeed, this is a strange interview. The Oracle is modest to the point of being elusive. I've suddenly realized how few facts I know about him, although my pencil is worn to a useless stub, and all the rent and gas bills that happened to be in my purse are covered with scribblings. In fact, toward the last I was jotting down notes on the back of my hand with my lipstick. The Oracle always lunches at the Algonquin. No one in New York, he says, can prepare mush and milk like the chef there. And George, the head waiter, saves him a table where he can observe without being conspicuous, and sees that the old man's lunch is served neither too hot nor too cold. Yes ! The Picture Oracle in his vivid, plaid shirt is a familiar sight around the place, a quaint, old figure at his simgle fare in the midst of dazzling celebrities who diet on broccoli and tomato juice. As to the details of his appearance, Picture Play's artist has portrayed him quite accurately, although his hair is slightly thinner, I should say, than Mr. Trugo has estimated. He has never sat for a camera study, and he explains that it was he who gave Lon Chaney the idea of refusing for a long time to be photographed "as is." Every artist, you see, has illusions to keep up. "My name?" exclaimed the old man, wrinkling his high forehead to the very middle of his skull. "Please do not have the indelicacy to mention that again ! Would you be satisfied if I told you, instead, what H. B. Warner's initials stand for? The first is for Henry and the second is for Byron. And if you'll promise not to refer to mine again, I'll also explain the origin of Zasu Pitts' odd name. Zasu's father had two old-maid sisters who wanted the child named for them. When the stork reneged on bringing twins, Mr. Pitts took the last syllable from Eliza and the first from Susan, and kept peace in the family." While The Oracle was talking I studied his features. Then I ventured, "What nationality are you? Do you happen to be a Scot? If I were to guess, I'd say you were the son of a Scottish minister." "Well, I'm not !" snapped my quaint friend, with the irascibility of old age. "But if it means anything to you, Ian Keith's mother was an Indian. And for the minister part of it, Hedda Hopper's dad was a Baptist preacher, and so were six of his brothers." An interviewer won't be blocked like that. I determined that if The Oracle wouldn't tell me about his family connections, I'd get the information indirectly. If he had relatives in pictures, for instance, I'd ask them. So I queried him on the point. "There are enough relatives clanning around the studios already," he evaded. "I shouldn't be surprised if you knew that Norma and Constance Talmadge were sisters, but I'll wager nobody ever told you before that Ramon Novarro and Dolores del Rio are cousins. They were both born in Durango, Mexico, you know. Blanche Sweet and Gertrude Short are related in the same way. I could go on indefinitely. "I hope," he continued, "that you're up to date enough to have seen 'The Wedding March.' If you have, you probably noticed what a great actress Maude George is. It runs in the family. Her cousin is Grace George, the stage star who's married to the Broadway producer, Wil Harry Langdon started at the bottom of the ladder as assistant janitor in a theater.