Screenland (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

Judy Garland. Billy, two years Bobbys senior, has the edge. He and Judy have been "going steady together about seven months now." Billy's serious minded. He reads sociology and politics. "My utimate aim," he tells you, "is to be a director, and meantime I want to act." Mr. Kingsley heard him on the air— he's been in radio since he was four— and sent for him to read a part. They tried him out for Spit, "but I didn't like it so well, because it wasn't a sympathetic character, so I never put much schmaltz into it. Then they gave me Tommy." His father is a lawyer whose practice keeps him in New York. He makes flying trips to Hollywood, while Billy, his mother and sister go east every four months _ or so. "It's hard on mother and dad, beingseparated, but they think it's worth the sacrifice to help my future career." What he thinks of people who identify the Dead End kids with the parts they play , is revealed by the following incident, told with quiet scorn. "I was eating here in a tearoom one day, and a lady came over and said: 'Do you eat with the rats in New York?' I just walked out, and left my chicken there and everything." He likes Judy because she has "a personality that's different and she's on the square." He takes her to parties and the movies, and they always see each other's previews together. "We just had a bigfight, because I wouldn't take her to the Rollerdrome. I hate that place. That's how Bobby came to take her. Oh, we patched it up all right. I don't worry about Bobby. He's sort of guessing, but Judy's really my girl. Of course, it's more or less just a friendship. We're kind of young." Bobby has no illusions about whose girl Judy is. This is a triangle which is wholly in the clear. "I told Billy I was taking her to the Roller Derby, and ; he said, Well, what can I do about it?' I thought that was nice of him. Just the same, we're going to a show next Sunday. Billy can stay home and read that book. Maybe he's not afraid of competition. Neither am I," said 15-year-old Bobby tranquilly. He's the wistful-looking one who played Angel, the bootblack. Highspirited as the rest, there's still something gentle_ about him. Which comment, if he reads it, will cause him to hold his nose. His mother used to be a dancer, his father is a garage foreman. They're both in the East now, trying to get rid of the house they live in. When they do, they'll come out to California for good— Bobby hopes. "Depends if my luck holds out." Meantime, an older sister looks after him. . He too was attending Professional Children's School. For two weeks, because of odd jobs in radio and modeling, he hadn't had time for a haircut. "We got a day off today, mom," he said one morning. ' Right after school we'll get that haircut." That was the day the Dead End call came. "You're playing Angel," said Mr. Kingsley, "and letting your hair grow." He hasn't had a real haircut since, and by now is immune to the catcalls of "When ya gettin' yer permanent?" Bobby is the only one of the boys for whom California has been a shining but inaccessible goal. "What for? I'll give you three guesses. They have pictures, > sunshine, and beautiful women. I wasn't interested in the last two — not then." He spotted a newspaper item, to the effect that Mr. Goldwyn wanted to buy Mr. Kingsley's play for the movies, and that Mr. Kingsley was asking $165,000. He informed the others. They agreed that the guy was screwy, but they hoped he'd get it. He got something like it. Bobby would like to be an actor, if he can. If not, he has a yen for deep sea diving He doesn't trust the press. "Things never come out the way you say 'em. I might say Bette Davis was swell in 'Jezebel' It comes out, Bobby Jordan's in love with Bette Davis." , Bernard Punsley, a few months Bobbys junior, is the youngest of the lot and about as tough as a St. Bernard puppy. With an accurate sense of the inappropriate, Mike Curtiz calls him "the mad Russian." He hasn't grown up to girls yet. He'd rather tinker with his model railroad, or read a western or detective story. His eyes are innocent and his grin is bashful. He Elizabeth Palmer, movie newcomer with new curled coiffure. pals with his father. They play golf and go to the fights together. His cousin, a theatrical agent in New York, told him about "Dead End." It was his mother who persuaded him to apply. "I thought it was too much bother and waste of time. My father sided with me. He said: You take a chance on having . a flop, and you miss a lot of school' But my mother wants me to be a doctor, and she figured the money would help with my education." He tried out for Dippy, and they cast him as Milty. Even when the play was a hit, it never occurred to his people that Bernard might earn his living as an actor. His mother still wants him to be a^ doctor, "because acting's too unsteady." He's openminded. "It all depends on what happens. The Punsleys refused to be separated. Bernard's father, in the clothing business, came out with his wife, his son, and his daughter Joan, to look for an opening here. Bernard is still homesick for his grandmother. He wants to go back at least twice a year to see her. "She felt so bad, my mother didn't want her to come to the train. But she came, and she cried. You don't feel so good when you see your grandma cry." His fingers twisted. "You know?" . , , Leo Gorcey is the oldest and most mature. Mature not only in proportion to his years, but by any standard. He has a selfknowledge that men twice his age might envy. It was Leo who played on stage and screen the unsympathetic part of Spit. His father was an actor. It never occurred to the elder Gorcey to look for talent in Leo. He concentrated on David, a younger son. "I don't blame him," says Leo. "I'm bad enough now, but I. was an awful lot messier-looking at 14. Big black freckles, so fat I couldn't see my feet, a smile that was more of a smirk or a sneer —still is— the kind of face you look at once, and you've had enough." He was graduated from George Washington High School, and earning $6 a week as a plumber's apprentice. One day he was delegated to take David down to the theatre to try out for "Dead End." In the wings he came on a boy, studying his script. The page held only four lines. Leo, tired of looking at them, asked : "When are you going to turn the page?" "I don't have to. That's the whole part," said the boy, and walked off. Presently the stage manager, mistaking Leo for the other in the semi-darkness, touched him on the shoulder, and said: "Here's your cue." Leo walked on. He knew the lines, and added a bit of business of his own. The tryouts over, they sent for him. "Would you be interested in a part?" "How much dough in it?" "Forty a week." "I'm interested," said Leo. He's been called the orneriest of the "Dead End" kids. There's nothing ornery about him. He grew a shell early to cover his sensitive spots. "I was such an ugly kid. Nobody made fun of me openly, but I always felt, the minute I turned myback, they were saying things about me. Kids're funny that way. When I was 14, I couldn't get a girl to go out with me. Even now, I have to know a girl three months before I dare put my arm around her. Not because I'm such a terrific gentleman. I'm just afraid she'll repulse me." He fell in love at 16. His family moved away from the neighborhood, and he couldn't promote the carfare to visit his girl So he took it out in writing verses. "I'm sentimental, and afraid of showing it, so I put on an act. The act covers a lot of territory — self-consciousness, inferiority complex, and all the rest. People expect me to be tough, so I tell them about the time I knocked over a bank. Not because I'm so crazy to play up to them, but to hide the complex. I know that's the kind of thing I can get away with._ If I used a three-syllable word, they'd think I looked it up in the dictionary yesterday, and was trying to be smart. When they ask me places, it's because they think I'm amusing to have around. That doesn't help the complex either. The only time I speak my mind is on an occasion like this, when I'm alone with someone who doesn't have to be amused. Don't for Pete's sake think I'm being sorry for myself ! Nuts to all that ! I have enough interests at home to overcome what interests I lack outside. I'm crazy about my family, don't give much of a darn whom I meet and don't meet, because they'll always come first." He assumed responsibility for the family when he went to work in "Dead End," and has kept it ever since. His older brother is on his own. His mother, David, and his four-year-old sister Audrey are in California with him. David is under contract to Universal. His mother is the apple _ of one eye, Audrey of the other. Last Christmas he had $300 to spend, and $250 went into gifts for them. He "lugs around a bunch of insurance for them. As long as I can take care of them," he says quietly, "they'll be taken care of." A gleam of the humor you see on the screen lit up his eye. "Mom's my slave. She has to be there. If I call up at 6 or 9 or 12 and say I'll be home in half an hour, she has to be there and sit with me while I eat. Once in a while I get bighearted and send her away on a week's vacation. But I don't like it. I hate to come home to an empty house. Sometimes you don't appreciate those things when you have 'em. I do." . . , , That's how Gorcey is. This is how he thinks the public wants him : He was haled into court recently for speeding. The clerk read a rather lengthy charge. "What's that?" murmured Leo. "Abridgement of 'Anthony Adverse'?" "Three days," snapped the judge. 'T served it," Leo said, "and it served me right." 86