Screenland (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

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J >m«l 92 They're Still Riding High Continued from page 71 up in the saddle in Oklahoma. He wears his ten-gallon hat on all occasions, no matter how sartorially elegant he may be from the neck down. And Buck is one of the people whom you will encounter doing his stuff amid the caviar, orchids, and silver fox capes at the Trocadero. Buck likes his night life, and takes it with zest. He, too, ranches with the best of them in San Fernando Valley, with his wife and his young daughter, Maxine. He has a rambling, Spanish house, and adjoining gardens and corrals for the accommodation of various horses, dogs, monkeys, and birds. He collects saddles and guns, and what in the world he's going to do with them, he can't imagine. In all his twenty-one years in pictures, he has never had even a bit in a picture which wasn't a plain, unadulterated, ripsnortin' Western, but he takes his work as seriously as does a Hepburn or a Crawford. He never misses one of his previews, and agonizes all the way through, because he can see so many places in which he might have been better. He conscientiously sees all the pictures of other important stars, too, and studies their work, analyzes direction, lighting, and photography. His most restful periods, as a matter of fact, are when he is working. He is usually out of doors, somewhere on location, and whenever he isn't engaged in pursuing the villain, or saving the beauteous lady, he sits himself down with a sigh, eases his boots a bit, and looks around for someone to swap yarns with him, preferably yachting yarns. For Buck is an ardent yachtsman, and will sail for Honolulu at the drop of a sombrero. He is a congenital "joiner," and is an honored member of the Shriners. I suspect him of enjoying the costumes. But he also takes his fan mail and the boys' fan clubs very seriously. He is genuinely concerned with furnishing the youth of the country with clean and thrilling entertainment, or, as he put it to me, "something that'll help 'em learn to keep their noses clean — you know — give 'em some ideals." When Buck speaks of the youngsters who make up the majority of his public, you definitely get a glimpse of a man who thinks he has a duty to fulfill, who believes that he has a certain niche in the general scheme of things. But he Is bewildered at the number of women who write him fan letters. A lot of our present big shot male stars had their first training in westerns: Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, Dick Arlen, Randolph Scott, to name a few. I don't know whether it was their cowboy tendencies which caused them to make good Westerns, or whether those early pictures reacted on them. Anyhow, they all take their ranching and their silver-mounted saddles^ very seriously today. They even drawl, in offscreen conversation, most convincingly. It was when Hollywood had almost lost track of Arlen completely, (he had been doing Paramount Westerns for so long), that an executive of that company confided to me that Arlen was worth more actual round silver dollars to the stockholders in a year of ki-yi-yipping on a cayuse pony, than a Chevalier, a Dietrich, or any of their other stars. And Hollywood had almost forgotten that it ever knew Dick Arlen! Remember Tom Tyler? Tom is a Polish gentleman; an excellent weightlifter. He had to be taught to ride before he could essay Westerns. But Tom was good, once he had got the hang of the boots and saddles. George O'Brien, now, has reversed the process, as has Bill ("Hopalong Cassidy") Scree nland Boyd. O'Brien, son of San Francisco's Chief of Police, traveled far and wide, enjoyed many a dramatic role on the stage before he essayed pictures. He was dramatic as the dickens in Murnau's "Sunrise" with Janet Gaynor, some years ago. And now look at him ! He's as rootin'-tootin' as the best of them, and he loves it. But off the screen, he is a trifle more chi-chi than most of the wide-hat boys. He has a home in Beverly Hills, and one at Malibu. He has a pretty wife (you remember Marguerite Churchill), a threeyear-old daughter, and some evening clothes. He gives dinner parties, and sometimes goes to the opera. But he follows the tradition of the outdoor stars in that he neither drinks nor smokes, and that he works out in gym every day. Bill Boyd, too, came up through a succession of stark roles, after an apprenticeship which included working as an orange picker, oil well driller, automobile salesman, and grocery clerk. Cecil deMille discovered him, and, before Bill knew it, he was emoting all over the place in "The Volga Boatmen," "King of Kings," "Two Arabian Knights," and other epics of the silent screen. Some outdoor pictures came his way at last, and he discovered his real forte. He has been Hopalong Cassidy for so many moons now, that lots of his fan mail comes addressed that way. Bill's drawl is real — he hailed originally from Oklahoma. He seems to have a very easy time of it. He works six_ months of the year, and loafs the other six, ably assisted in this latter part by his wife, the former Grace Bradley. You must be tired, by now, of my telling you that these birds have ranches in San Fernando Valley; but they do ; and Bill is no exception. He and Grace ride identical white horses, with identical silver-trimmed saddles, but "The Valley" takes little note of these things. It is full of Western stars cutting such didoes. Boyd has some more ranches, too, scattered here and there, and he raises things on them. He never goes to night clubs or fashionable Hollywood lunch spots, and he prefers bright shirts and large hats. He does own some evening clothes, and his wife tells me that she has them taken out of their moth bags and brushed and sunned frequently. His proudest boast is that he_ has never used a stand-in or a double in a picture, no matter how trying or how dangerous the scene. Jack Holt has probably played more types of adventure and outdoor heroes than any other actor on the screen today. He always returns, eventually, to some role which requires a Stetson hat. I asked him about it, and he grinned. "I've played cowboys, explorers, big game hunters, aviators, motorcycle cops, and army officers," he told me. "There is nothing so romantic, it seems, as the American conception of the early cowboy. I think it's partly that everyone loves horses, and partly that the costumes are so colorful. No one can look romantic wearing a parka or an aviator's helmet and goggles. There is no chase as exciting to the average person as a chase on horseback. It's not only small boys who like Westerns. Quite a slice of the audiences of those pictures are dignified, grown men who have never realized their youthful dreams." They are all nice fellows, these cowboy stars, as two-fisted, hard-riding, and physically fit as they appear on the screen. They cut no capers on the Boulevard, neither do they roister on the Sunset Strip. They ride their ponies, twang their guitars, tend their ranches, and rarely hit the news with scandals or divorces. And, with pictures supposed to be in their much publicized doldrums, these Western stars loom, to producers, as the rocks of strength they have ever been.