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60
SCREENLAND
Presenting
The Movies' "House of
MORGAN"
I
SHALL not knuckle to any of the Barrymores !"
Can we believe our ears? A murmur, nay a shout of rebellion ? Yes, a shout — and that in clear, controlled, yet emphatic tone ! Whence came the shout? From the suave, the quiet, the smiling Frank, younger of the brothers Morgan. He, who had played the principal role of "Topaze"' most successfully on the stage in New York, had been asked to appear again in the screen version. But not in the leading role ! His aid was solicited for the second role in the screening of comedy. John Barrymore had been selected to play the part Mr. Morgan had created in New York. Then came Mr. Morgan's answer.
An answer that shook Hollywood ! An actor had flouted the Barrymores. He had snapped the finger of indifference in the united facial front of the Royal Family of the stage, the monarchial trio of the screen. He would not knuckle, not he, to any Barrymore, be it, as the refrain had it, "Lionel, Ethel or Jack."
Was Morgan daring to the point of madness ? What motivated this scene of defiance? Did he not know that the Barrymores are the oldest acting family of the American theatre ? Was he unaware that there had been gloriously stellar nights when the names of the sister and her two brothers blazed, each above a different theatre, in New York at the same time ?
No ! Morgan was not mad. Yes, he believed he remembered the three-star radiance that once had illuminated Broadway. Then why had he said coolly, calmly, with a good-humored smile: "I will not knuckle to any of the Barrymores"?
Because he was quietly conscious that although he and his brother were not the ninth but the first of acting generations of their family, he had played "Topaze" so well, and Duke Allessandro in "Firebrand" so superlatively, there approached a time when their names would flash at the same time from Broadway's portals. So true was his prophetic vision that the night arrived when the name Morgan radiantly was spelled five times along the Lane of Lights : "Ralph" before two of them, "Frank" leading three, all in popular motion picture offerings !
Ralph, the elder of the Morgan brothers, and the more quiet and reserved of the two, launched his screen career with two famous characterizations: Charlie Marsden and Czar Nicholas.
In "Rasputin" the strange fate which seems to have intertwined the paths of the Morgans and the Barrymores brought Ralph, as the Czar, opposite Ethel Barrymore as the Czarina.
Ralph Morgan seeks diversion during a busy screen season by playing tennis with his daughter, Claudia. Miss Morgan has also embraced the profession of her father and uncle.