Screenland (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

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76 SCREENLAND we want to see together. So far, we've never been able to manage more than a jaunt to San Francisco for a football game, and then one of us was playing 'hookey' ! "But I think if husbands would really break down and be honest, they'd have to admit they are a bit intrigued with the idea of a wife having a life of her own. At least we working women like to believe that — and we're probably right about it, even though men do hesitate in admitting it. "I know that as a woman and as an individual I am much happier, because I have so much to make my life complete. I've worked too long and too hard for what I've achieved ever to be content to devote myself solely to the management of a home ; for the details that are so much pleasure to me now — that bring such a richness and fullness to my life — would become routine, if they were all I had to think of. I suppose I'll always have the love of acting in my blood. I come of a theatrical family. I was raised in the greasepaint and excitement of acting. I know I shall respond to it as long as I live. Gene understands that. "It all works around in a perfect circle, really. Now, being so happy with Gene, Ditty, and Melinda, I know that my work and career would never completely fill my life. I'm just plain lucky, I guess! I'd rather be an actress-wife-and-mother than anything in the world — and I got my wish !" The Bravest Actor in Hollywood Continued from page 63 original screenplays that have been made into pictures. But — the outstanding quality of this man is his bravery, his courage, his intestinal fortitude. He is a man who does not know there is such a word as "defeat." The story of his experiences reads like fiction, and it is stranger. While just a youth he decided that life on his father's ranch in Oklahoma was not exciting enough, so he joined the army, hoping to see some of the world. He was shipped to the island of Mindinao in the Philippines. There he became a "top sergeant" and was planning to spend the remainder of his life in the army until he was sent one day with a detachment into the interior in search of a band of Moro ladrones, or robbers. One of the Moro bushwhackers shot him in the left thigh and Buck was taken back to camp on a stretcher. Infection set in, and after weeks in the hospital the leg healed and still he could not use it. Army surgeons puzzled over him for months and finally decided he was "done" — all through. They invalided him home and the future looked tough for this lad who had set forth so cheerfully to see the world and carve a niche for himself. Back to the ranch went Buck and there he decided he was going to fool the whole United States Army. He swung that leg back and forth daily by the hour. He "willed" that it should become sound again, and b'Gosh if it didn't! Just as President Franklin D. Roosevelt overcame the terrible affliction of infantile paralysis, this farm boy overcame his disability, by sheer will power and grit. And all of this took place before he was quite twenty years of age! Sound of limb again, Buck looked for more adventure, and in 1914 joined the famous Miller 101 Ranch Wild West show as a bronc rider and trick roper. This lad who shortly before was never expected to walk again was in the center ring of the circus when it opened in Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1914, thrilling thousands with his riding and roping. It was there he met Odelle Osborne, a rider, and fell in love with her. The next season they both joined the Julia Allen Wild West Show and Buck and Odelle were married one day in the middle of the big circus arena while practically all the town of Lima, Ohio, looked on. Buck felt he should settle down now that he was married, so he quit the show business and went to work in a garage. The circus was in their blood, however, and in 1916, they were back with Golmer Brothers Wild West Show. But Buck quit his good job because the horses were mistreated. He took his wife out of the show and the two were left without a job and with but little money. But that is Buck Jones — no man could abuse an animal and expect him to work for him ! So Buck went back to Joe Cook brings his comedy to a new film, with June Martel, a recent discovery, aiding prettily. the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma and took a job as a plain cowhand. The big money of the circus meant nothing when an animal's feelings were concerned. In 1917 he and his wife wrote Ringling asking for a job. They went to Chicago, rented a room and waited for the arrival of the circus. They were down to their last ten-dollar bill. Then Mrs. Tones came in and blushingly admitted she had spent all of it to buy a Boston bull pup. Buck gave her a sickly smile, patted her on the back and turning to the clothes closet took out his fancy "chaps." "Where are you going with those?" she asked. "Well, the poor mut has to have something to eat, doesn't he?" was the reply. And Buck pawned his chaps and bought meat for the dog. "Incidentally," says' Buck, "we sort of chiselled on the poor dog a bit, for we used some of his meat to make ourselves a stew." Then the circus arrived and Buck and his wife got a job. But when the show reached Bakersfield, California, Mrs. Jones whispered in Buck's ear that the Jones family was to become three instead of two. Without a moment's hesitation, Buck quit the show, took his savings, and headed for Hollywood. He rented a house on Sunset Boulevard for only $12.50 a month, told his wife not to worry, and then started looking for work. He heard that cowboys were making as much as $5.00 a day in films, but he couldn't seem to get inside the studio gates. Funds getting low, a doctor and hospital bill in the offing, and baby clothes had to be bought! Buck was down to just $12.50 — a month's rent. He was wondering whether to pay the rent and trust to luck for food, or to duck the landlord and eat. Daily he haunted the studios, but not a riding job could he get. And then came the landlord. Buck paid him six dollars on the rent and promised the balance in a few days. That day he landed a job as a sheep herder in a film at $5.00 a day. "I worked six days — got thirty dollars," says Buck. "And our depression was over. We sang again in our little house. You don't know how big thirty dollars looked to us." That was the turning point for Buck. He soon got riding jobs, and suddenly secured a job at $100.00 per week, and there were no more worries in the Jones household. Jones was ambitious, however. In 1927 he made a picture under independent production, with his own money paying the bills. That was all he got— bills ! He followed this by organizing the "Buck Jones' Wild West Show." He took it on the roac and before he knew what had happened, he went stone broke. More than $300,000 had gone and he owed a lot of money in addition. But did this man Jones become downhearted? Did he fold up and complain? Did he do anything that the ordinary man does? He did not! Buck just smiled again, promised to pay his creditors, asked them not to throw him into bankruptcy — and went back to Hollywood and to work as an actor again. He joined Columbia Pictures as a western star, and paid back every cent of the debts that had accumulated during his circus fiasco. "Now, honey, I guess maybe we'd better buy ourselves a new car," he said to his wife the night he mailed out the last check paying up his circus debts. Instead of more circuses, Buck bought three acres in San Fernando Valley and built himself a home. And there he lives today with the same charming wife he married beneath the circus tent on August 11, 1915, with his lovely daughter who was the innocent cause of taking her father and mother out of "the big tent" and putting him in pictures ; and with his famous horse, "Silver," which Buck considers as much a member of the family as his wife or daughter. He has three automobiles and a sailboat. And he has his famous "Buck Jones Ranger Band," an 80-piece organization of boys he has outfitted himself. He is starring in adventure pictures for Universal, and he is happy. But not many men could have overcome the difficulties that stood in the pathway of this chap who is not only a "he-man" in films, but also in real life.