Employees' Entrance (Warner Bros.) (1933)

PLANT THIS FIRST AUTHENTIC Note to Exhibitor:— Here is the first authentic, comprehensive life story of Warren William, who is today a great favorite with the fans. We suggest you plant this either as a two day story, or a Sunday page feature. As the newspaper_undoubtedly will want to run some art with the story, we suggest that you use some of the scene cuts fur nished for ‘Employees’ Entrance.” available in mat form. Warren Krech’s Bad Boy The Life Story of By Carlisle Jones. The story is NOT William EDITOR’S NOTE :— This is the first authentic story of the romantic life of Warren William, Warner Bros. star who has made such strides in popularity in the last year. at the William will appear on the screen Phegire: newts in the First National picture, “Employees” Entrance.” Loretta Young, Wallace Ford, Alice White and Allen Jenkins are other leading players in this story by David Boehm of life behind the scenes in a great department store. The screen play is by Robert Presnell and the direction by Roy Del Ruth. a Chapter I the night, and plans mechanical improvements for W “tes WILLIAM often wakes up in the middle of the motion picture machines before which he works all day. It is a hangover from a boyhood spent inventing things. He has always been that way, and he hopes he will never entirely outgrow it. His other dream was to become a sea captain, and his love of ships and the sea have never left him. He was bor iam a six years ago with the Teeeretent golden spoon in his mouth. There were — and still are — two sisters, one older and one younger than Warren William and an older brother who died before the second son was born. The family was prosperous. The father, Freeman E. Krech, who published a newspaper, was also interested in many of the local activities, such as lumbering, milling and railroading. An unele, Alvin William Krech, was, even then, assuming a commanding place in American finance. Aitkin was a small county seat town on the Mississippi river a hundred miles above Minneapolis and Warren William Krech may very possibly have labored under the handicap of being known as the richest boy in town. Two things stand out now in Warren William’s memory as events of importance in his early childhood. One, was when a gmall boy, only a little older than himself, was brought to the Krech home and “spoke a piece” and played his drum for an audience. Warren was both amazed and disgusted. He doesn’t remember the boy’s name but he has never forgotten the impression he made. He didn’t outgrow his dislike of people who “spoke pieces” for audiences until he was taken on his first visit to New York, to see those popular comedians, Montgomery and Stone. He came away from the theatre with his ideas totally changed. He suddenly decided to become an actor instead of a “sea captain.” The other high-light in William’s memory of those early years is the building of the Krech home. His grandfather had come to America from Germany a generation before to establish a school of languages in St. Paul. Due to this ancestry the Norse legends served as nursery rhymes for the Krech children. Thor, in particular, was little Warren William Krech’s favorite hero and somebody told him that the plumber who installed the heating plant and plumbing in the new Krech home, was Thor. It was a big house which the elder Krech was building and “Thor’ worked all summer long with the boilers and the pipes in the base Page Ten WARREN WILLIAM, whose sensational rise to cinematic fame has few equals, as he appears in “Em ployees’ Entrance,” new Warner Bros. drama opening at the Strand on Friday. Cut No.2 Cutx15¢ Mat 5c ment. It was also a summer punctuated by heavy electrical storms— for all of which Warren, consistently enough, blamed the plumber. It was a thrillng year for a six or seven year old boy who was, even then, addicted to “inventing” things. Given Own Workshop Once the big house was finished, the son was given a room on the third floor and allowed to build a tinkering shop in the barn. His mechanical instinet first came to light when he took the family car to pieces and scattered the parts all over the barn floor. Like the boy who took the kitehen clock apart and had so many parts he didn’t know where to put them in reassembling, Warren was similarly stumped. As he grew tall and lank, his family watched more and more strictly over him, a kindly discipline which he resented the more because most boys in Aitkin were allowed almost unlimited freedom. Suggested Announcement STARTING TOMORROW! The First Authentic Complete Life Story of WARREN Famous Warner Was Born With His Mouth and WILLIAM Bros. Star Who a Gold Spoon in Threw It Away for a Stage Career e A Newspaperman—Lumberjack— A. E. F. Veteran—Farm Hand and Now The Idol of the Movie Fans. “Krech’s Bad Boy” or The Life WARREN Story of WILLIAM in Two Instalments Starting Tomerrow, Exclusively in the Order your copy now. There were swimming parties in Keasley or the Meadow “swimming holes,” or in the Willow, better known to his cronies as “Mud” river, or in the young Mississippi. Skating parties on winter. nights, and sliding on “rubber” ice in the early winters and late springs. Many of these forms of recreation he did against orders, making elaborate efforts to conceal the facts from a family too wise in the ways of a boy to be fooled. With playmates he built log rafts — or ran the log jams in the Willow or Mississippi rivers. This was a dangerous game, strictly forbidden him, and all the more exciting because it was. “The ‘river-rats’ had spiked shoes so they didn’t slip,”? Warren recalls. “So I put long screws through the soles of a pair of my shoes and went leaping along with them. They weren’t as good as the spikes but they must have worked. I’m still here. “If we fell in we would build a fire and dry our clothes and go home as though nothing had happened.. Then I’d get a whaling.” Traveling show troupes occasionally visited Aitkin to play in the local “opera house.” Warren remembers particularly the presentation of “The Flaming Arrow.” What impressed the boy most in “The Flaming Arrow” was the “arrow” itself, which was actually shot over a scenic wall during the action of the play. He thought he might like to do that himself on a real stage sometime. | Disliked Newspaper Work | He began thinking about the stage. Work in his father’s newspaper office not appealing to him, he usually developed a headache when there was work to be done in the newspaper shop. Then came the school play in the local theatre, “The Moveum.” Warren simply had to have something to do with that play. He did. And it was then that he made his first appearance on any stage. Perhaps it was the flaming “arrow” shot over the wall, perhaps it was his first appearance on the stage at “The Moveum,” and perhaps it was his early glimpse of Montgomery and Stone in a big Broadway show. Anyway, Warren made a final decision EA Sa A Seles ns: a to take up acting as his life work. But that was a long way off. — Some summers the Krech family spent at Bay Lake where they had a cottage. Once, along the finish of his high schooling, Warren persuaded his family to let him try being on his own for the summer. He went with other young Minnesota blades, to work in the Dakota wheat fields. He doesn’t recall that it was particularly hard work but he does remember one incident of the summer. Most of the rivermen and lumberjacks he had known as a boy chewed snuff. William essayed his first attempt at the art one day during the wheat harvest in Dakota. He was driving a hay rick filled with bundles tothe separator and back to the field. He started the snuff business as he pulled away with an empty rick, on the way for a new load. The springless wagon hit a rough spot in the road jolting William into the realization that he had swallowed the snuff. A rescue party found him an hour later — not much the worse for wear. The Dakota trip was the only chance he had to be “on his own” before he left Aitkin for New York. He doesn’t understand yet how his family allowed him that one absolutely free summer. Meanwhile, he had grown up. He was tall and dark and cadaverous; a likeable, carefree chap, and daring — when the class colors were to be planted on a high steeple, he was the one who did the high climbing. For this deed of boyish bravery he became the hero of his classmates. And as for the girls — Warren declares that at this time he was almost constantly in love. He particularly recalls his crush on a local telephone operator, carried on clandestinely on his part. But, oh, the difficult time this youthful Romeo had in meeting his lady love! At night, after the family believed him safely at. work in his room on his “inventions”, Warren would. reach under the bed for a rope ladder (one of his most important “inventions”), tiptoe out of his door to a third floor balcony, hook the ladder on the ledge and slide down to the ground. He would return later by the same route. All in all, Aitkin’s “little rich boy” managed to make himself a lot of fun, despite strict paternal supervision. | Decided on Stage | It is not true that Warren William intended to be a marine engineer or a newspaper editor. After that memorable trip to New York his mind was made up. He was going to be an actor. When his family were finally reconciled to his determination, they sent him to the best school they knew about, the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York, whence come such distinguished coworkers with William at the Warner Studio as William Powell and Edward G. Robinson. He was there two years, two comparatively uneventful but happy years, graduating in the spring of 1917, just as the United States declared war on Germany. Warren William Krech, as he was still known then, applied at once for a place in the newly-forming Lafayette Air squadron. He was told first he was underweight and then given one excuse or another until the unit sailed for France. Meanwhile, during the wait, he had joined the Brooklyn Repertoire company, playing character and straight parts in a vast assortment of roles which had to be perfected in short order. He learned eventually that he had been refused a place with the air squadron because France was objecting to aviators with German names and “Krech” was unmistakeably German. So William registered for the draft as from Minnesota and in September returned home to go with his unit to Camp Deming, New Mexico, for a year’s training. He had believed that with his mechanical leanings he might be found useful in the aviation service or the artillery. So he was put in the infantry and given a rifle and pack to carry. Eventually, after many delays, | the thirty-fourth division, of which e was a part, moved to New York ~~ and sailed for France. It sailed, William recalls, in thirteen convoys, on October 13th, and was thirteen days reaching Liverpool. Naturally superstitious, William now regards thirteen as his lucky number. | In the Army Now | They landed in a “pea-soup” fog and entrained for the Salisbury plains where they were encamped a week. They made the dangerous channel crossing at night, landing at Le Havre, and entrained again for southern France. They stayed at Bordeaux for a few days and then moved up toward action. Half way to the front, in a little French town, they had news of the armistice, By that time the lean young Minnesotoan was a sergeant in his company and tired of training for war without ever finding it. The government had paid scant attention to his ingenuous schemes to win the war and Warren Krech determined to turn his abilities toward inventing a way to get out of the army and back to his interrupted career in America. He dropped in at a Y.M.C.A. to think it over. There he saw an announcement that enlisted men were wanted as members of the chorus of “Corey’s Singers” to tour the various army camps. He decided, suddenly, to apply. He told the secretary his wishes and his qualifications. He said as little as possible about his singing voice. In the back of his mind was the fear of a rumor he had heard that his company might be transferred to the military police service in Europe might be true. He wanted to make sure he would not be a part of any such scheme. He had had a brush or two with the M.P.s himself and didn’t like them. He didn’t get the chance to sing, but he did get a chance to try out for a place with a theatrical troupe which was also to make the tour of the American area. He won the leading role in “Under Cover,” and so, after a year and a half’s interruption, he resumed his theatrical career. France was where he really learned to be a trouper! (To Be Concluded Tomorrow)