Radio Digest (May-Oct 1930)

66 RADIOGRAPHS Intimate Personality Notes Gleaned from the Radio Family of New York's Great Key Stations By JEAN CAMPBELL LUCILLE HUSTING is a little girl who pursued success into young womanhood, then felt it turn to ashes in her mouth. And yet she had the courage to carve a new career from the wreck of the old. Gene Mulholland, her close confidant, is responsible for this story, which shows the rare characteristics of Lucille Husting, NBC's dramatic actress, as she is known to a few long time intimates. * * * The tallow candles sputtered on the floor. They dripped grease on the rug. Some of it flowed to the polished floor. These candles separated a five-year-old girl from a critical . audience of dolls. There were rag dolls, china dolls, dolls with real hair and dolls that cried "mamma" and "papa," and two that closed their eyes and went to sleep even while they sat there arranged in that semicircle which was an imitation "parquet," of this little parlor theatre, the first to witness Lucille in performance of her "art." On the other side of the candles was an over-stuffed sofa. And on this sofa Lucille was "acting." Back and forth from it she pranced, and then she used it as her stage and pranced back and forth upon it. Her hands were clasped dramatically. She was reciting all that she could remember of a play that she had seen and heard the j week previous. The mud from her shoes slowly began to show itself in " great smears on the cherished and otherwise spotless couch. Lucille did not hear the front door open, she was too far lost in her dramatic playing. She did not see her mother's horrified expression as the latter took in the scene before her. She did, however, hear her mother's very dramatic gasp of dismay, and feel the grasp of the hand that caught her by the shoulders and, yanking her from the now damaged silken couch, did other things, only to be guessed. Poor Lucille! Half an hour later, after the grease from the candle "footlights" had been cleared away and the sofa brushed, the rug sponged and chairs dusted, she listened resentfully while her father was given an account of what had happened. "We'd best not take her to any more shows; our Lucille must not grow up to be an actress," the mother told R. M. Husting, circulation manager of a Mayville, N. D., daily. * * * Ten years later Mrs. Husting sat in the auditorium of the Fargo, N. D., high school and saw a committee of judges award Lucille first prize in an oratorical contest. No mother was ever more proud than she when the daughter went on to win the inter-state finals in a declamation contest. The gold medal was taken home and proudly displayed. For "Lucille doesn't want to be an actress any more. She has decided to teach school." LUCILLE still retained her interest in the theatre. Her father's position as circulation manager of the Fargo Forum enabled her to see every play that came to town. And she was in constant demand to play leads in every home-talent production. Usually she directed them and was a final voice in the Joe White selection of others in the cast. This had been true almost since the Husting family moved to Fargo and Mayville when Lucille was six. Shortly after her North Dakota debut the little girl made her first public appearance. The play was one sponsored by a Fargo organization, and the acting of little Lucille was considered by local critics as one of the bright spots of the piece. William Hodge, the actor, sat in his dressing room backstage of a Boston I theatre. He smiled as he read a letter, and turned around thoughtfully. "Please call a Miss Lucille Husting at Emerson college and tell her to call here tomorrow at five," he asked his secretary. Thus did Miss Husting make her first visit into that magic land, that realm of mystic charm and enchantment, "backstage." Timid and hesitant she came. Stumbling oyer electric wiring, heavy curtain ropes and_ carelessly dropped "props," and bumping into scenery, she groped her way to the actor's dressing room. Romance, she thought, was in , the very air she breathed. To be able to work back here was to be able to live life to its fullest extent. Ushered into the presence of the actor she had summoned the courage to meet, she found him all that her dreams had told her he would be, kindly, sympathetic and helpful. " A CTING, to those on this -£* side of the footlights is little like many of those on the other side imagine it to be," he told her. "It is composed primarily of work, the hardest and most exacting type of labor 'there is. "The reward of self-satisfaction and fulfillment of ambition is large, and in many instances the financial returns are ample. But I wouldn't advise you to become an actress unless you are sure your heart is set upon it. If such be the case, I am willing to help you. For, if you apply the same perseverance to your chosen calling as you did to seeing me, I know you will be a success. And the great actor was sincere." With these words ringing in her ears, Miss Husting returned to her studies. She studied so hard that she finished her fouryear course in three years. Then she began scheming to get on the stage. A letter to Crawford Pepper, president of the Redpath Chautauqua, resulted in an interview. The interview resulted in an engagement in "It Pays to Advertise." A sales talk to her mother, pointing out the educational angle of the production, and explaining that it really "wasn't theatrical," resulted in permission to play the engagement. Three months of being a French maid through the New England states, and Lucille Husting had convinced her mother that being an actress wasn't so terrible after all. When the season ended she secured engagement with the Bainbridge players at the Shubert theatre in Minneapolis. Two years with this stock company, playing everything from little girls to grandmothers, and the young actress was ready for Broadway.