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56
SCREENLAND
Who's Afraid of th Little Black Cat?
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By Reginald Taviner
WELL, Henry Fonda wasn't. Otherwise he certainly would never have brought that cat to Hollywood at all !
A lot of folks believe that little black cats mean big gobs of bad luck. Particularly when starting anything as important as a movie career they'd detour around Cape Horn rather than meet up with one. Especially theatrical folk — but then, Henry Fonda is such a swell actor that he doesn't have to be "theatrical folk."
It's true that Henry was playing the lead in the New York hit "The Farmer Takes A Wife" when Winnie Sheehan of Fox first saw Henry and signed him to play his same part in pictures, and Henry first saw the cat.
You might say though that it was a first appearance for both Henry and the kitten because Henry had never been on Broadway before and the kitten picked that particular night to be born. In the play they had an old stage cat and — well, you know what stage cats are.
One picture, and Henry Fonda was an established leading man. That film was "The Farmer Takes A Wife," in which you see him, above, with Janet Gaynor — and the black cat! Henry in an off-screen portrait, left; and with Rochelle Hudson in "Way Down East," below.
An inside story about a new star and how he won popularity defying a popular jinx
If Henry remembers correctly there were six kittens altogether, but only this one came with white stockings on.
So, when the play closed, Henry and the little cat boarded the train for Hollywood, though they'd only sell Henry a Pullman ticket. Pie had to hide the kitten from the conductor and feed her from an ashtray. She slept in Plenry's coat pocket and whenever she had to meow Henry had to sing. Henry isn't especially proud of his singing, but even a Pullman conductor can't put a passenger in the baggage car for singing even like Henry does.
Anyway, Henry arrived in Hollywood with the little cat still under one arm and it wasn't very long before he had tucked Janet Gaynor's picture right under the other. That's the same kitten you saw on the screen with them.
And now for the past history of Henry : It's a cinch that the fair housewives of Omaha had no idea who was delivering their ice along about ten years ago or Henry Fonda would have been star salesman for the ice company and awfully late getting through work.
As it was, all the housewives probably saw was a cake of ice coming in the back door with a very tall, gangly, and amazingly blue-eyed youth ahead of it. They'd have noticed those eyes, all right, even while the ice melted on the kitchen floor, because Henry's eyes are the bluest you ever saw. They're like summer sunlight on the ocean, you think at first, and with the same sort of tangy depth in them. (Continued on page 65)