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THE LIFE SIDH D
BURna
BBS TRHUELER
By OOROTHY AHH .LA«
1 i «< Hollywood
53 for time of his w
A
Conclusion
ONE day Bob Burns met a casting director who was testing for a blackface team for Fox Films. (Moran and Mack had just made the successful picture "Two Black Crows"). Bob quickly summoned Claude West and they did their act for the camera. Bob was chosen, but his little partner did not make the grade. The competition was stiff; over 100 blackface teams had been tested. Bob was to play comedy, and John Swor, who was the partner of Charlie Mack when it was "Swor and Mack," played straight. • The team was to be called "Black and Blue."
A miracle at last! Bob was on his way to golden Hollywood with his wife, his boy and his dog. In his pocket rested a fat five year contract, at $300 a week. There wasn't that much money in the world !
"We could live for a year on that much money, if we had to," he said. There followed periods when it looked as though they might have to. But Bob didn't know that, then. He was on his way to the Promised Land. . . .
In Hollywood, he was told to speak negro dialect morning, noon and midnight, to keep in practice. He did. Three months later he got a call, went to the costumer's and was put into a uniform of the Northwest Mounted. He had just one line to speak. At his cue, he slewfooted out and drawled lazily, "Hya, whut's dat you'all been a-tellin' about muh?"
That finished him on that picture. He waited some more, got occasional bit parts. He played miles of golf, then began uneasily to realize that contracts carried options. Just before Fox released him, he went over to Universal to ask about a picture they were to make, called "Heaven on
38
IN THE CONCLUDING INSTALMENT THIS SOL
DIER OF FORTUNE FINDS HIS RAINBOW'S END
BUT HIS HAPPINESS IS MIXED WITH TRAGEDY
river picture. . . . a shanty-boat town.
This
Earth." He had heard it was a Sure enough, the setting was was Robin Burns' own stuff! He talked himself into a job as dialect coach and technical director, wrote several musical numbers for the film, and a theme song which was never used. It was here that he met Lew Ayres, who starred in the picture. They have been close friends ever since.
' But when "Heaven on Earth" was finished, Bob quickly found himself in the ranks, of those waiting to get somewhere in the film industry. It had been a brief spurt of success, quickly forgotten. {Continued on page 56)