Screenland (May-Oct 1936)

70 SCREENLAND From Bagdad to Beverly Hills Continued from page 27 Iie"d opened up. "As head man," I inquired hastily, "did you have a renal residence?" He grinned. "It wasn't royal, but it was sanitary. And I designed it and had the building done by prison labor." Victor was off on his reminiscing and what "copy!" His English, in passing, is as precise as Freddie Bartholomew's — when he's out of character. His splendid physique, also, has always served him well. There have been many dramatic hours when he has had to depend upon sheer strength. His inherited respect for decency and, strangely, for beauty carried him through a conglomeration of circumstances and to his present position. "I remember wondering, there in Bagdad, what would ever happen to me. When I was eventually demobilized, and returned to boxing in earnest. Only I was sidetracked into a heap of wrestling. I loved to light. According to my clippings, I rose to being ranked as one of the seven foremost heavyweights in America. By then I'd moved on to Seattle. But at that particular period there was so much red tape and grief for aspiring pugilists that I was discouraged. I probably could have fought for the title if I'd stuck at the game for two or three years. That appeared to be centuries !" Therefore Victor went into the circus, no less. He dug up a partner ; they formed a "unit" — challenging every would-be fighter in the state of Washington and British Columbia. Their proposition was three rounds of boxing or fifteen minutes' wrestling, and anyone who could lick them was to be handed $25. They took turns allotting Anne Shirley co-stars with John Beal, returning to films after a season on the New York stage, in "M'liss." Here you see them with Director George Nicholls, Jr., who has guided Anne to stardom, on the studio set. London, there wasn't a promising future. I was thirty-three and I had nothing dependable in view. "Maybe I can explain what sort of person I had been. My father was a bishop, and I was one of a raft of husky brothers. We were all daredevils. At fourteen I ran away from our little English village to Loudon, where I lied about my age and enlisted boldly in the King's Life Guards. A while of that and I was off to Canada, via steerage. I hired out as a farm-hand, then discovered a silver rush was on. I dropped silver-mining to prospect for gold. And quit searching for gold when I determined to become the heavy-weight champion. "The one genuine regret I have is that I never did acquire that boxing title. I started after it by seizing my first opportunity, which was — to wrestle ! Then in fighting the fire that destroyed the mining town I was in — Cobalt — a falling roof injured my back. A doctor advised me to exercise the ache away, so I got a job as a railway stevedore. To my astonishment I was promoted to a policemanship, to hunt for fur thieves. "The thieves were nabbed and I took up the evenings of the week ; each cared for at least half a dozen hick gladiators a night. In the year they "trouped" they never once lost a single encounter. You can estimate what a strenuous pace Victor set for himself. "It was a grand existeni ^ I hated the notion of settlin. y office job was an appall i I never intended to take. V hen we 1 with the circus tour, my i I look to tramping about. No strim . 3ns — the new dawn was a pe petual r "I had my introductio: ; quite by accident. It's fun ; incident leads to another. I were in a tiny Washington . ir 1 to us that we might teach ; to the natives. When we ti: hobby, we put on a boxing exhibition. Jt was profitable, so we appeared ing villages. I engaged 1 fiddler to deliver 'The Fact i Floor' as our curtain-rais trayed noted classical fig posed however I was insp ever knew the difference! "This minor success gav went to the Orpheum and i to sign our act for three weeks. We were to open in San Francisco. On our way South we tarried in Seattle and we were introduced to a gentleman who owned a brewery. We accepted his invitation to inspect it. Of course, we had to sample his products ; the sequel was a quarrel with my associate. Consequently, I materialized in San Francisco minus him. The Orpheum gave me a day to round up a suitable athlete— we were to anoint our skin with a shiny ointment and illustrate the knock-out blows in familiar title bouts. "I was stumped ; frantic. At the last minute when I was climbing onto the street-car to go down and admit defeat I glanced at the conductor. He was it! I induced him to run his street-car to its barn and go on the stage with me. I learned, afterwards, that he was a fighter temporarily out of the running. His nickname, incidentally, was 'the lantern-jawed Swede.' " Victor's vaudeville memories are highlighted by a special night in San Diego. "I tried to stop two marines from squabbling and shortly the three of us were taking on the crowd that gathered. I must confess that when the poiice arrived they picked on me, and when I sassed them I was ridden to the jail for a reprimand. "To me, being behind footlights was artificial and boring. I was soon off for the Fiji Islands and some pearl-fishing. The ship I got on was stranded in the terrible calm that can follow typhoons. For an entire month we had no wind. Our provisions diminished as fever developed. Very literally, in the nick of time we were rescued. "One of my brothers chanced to be in Australia. Being broke, I resurrected the vaudeville act with him and we played it for a year. Then I examined my cash and observed I had a couple of hundred dollars. I'd never seen India. A couple of days after landing in Bombay I again checked my funds and they were a mere $15." But trust Victor ! Something perfectly astounding inevitably has been around the corners for him. He met the rajah of that district and was installed in the palace as physical instructor. The rajah took a fancy to his company and their chats were mutually interesting. For three months Victor's address was this potentate's elegant abode. "I was ready to learn something new, so I went to Africa and shot lions next. When my money was all gone I aided a trader in selling his goats. That requires unique technique! After which I revived the act to earn my passage back to England to join the army in the World War." Cited by the King for his gallant and distinguished services on the field of battle, he was assigned control of all police when Bagdad was occupied. His chief duty was detecting spies. So this was Victor's past — and hardly an uneventful one. don't you agree ? — when he was completing his Bagdad chapter. "My getting into pictures was all accidental," he declared, pacing the floor in his ultra-swanky dressing-room at the 20th Century-Fox studios in Beverly Hills. He thinks better on his feet, because he has been so accustomed to action. "After the War I was anxious to settle down, to a steady job. I was too old to hope to reach the boxing top. I couldn't find a' work, except an offer for a . London club. I needed that pui t the fray and was feeling gloon \ indeed \ hen a film producer who had been in a seat came back to where I was be ng rubbed