Screenland (Nov 1939–Apr 1940)

gested to mc several years ago, but I felt I couldn't do it, wasn't up to it. That same feeling persisted when 'Young Mr. Lincoln' was proposed. It was partly cowardice, for I was afraid to play a character known to everybody. Finally the writer of the scenario came to the house, and as he read the script both my wife and I cried." His confession of emotion was so unexpected that I asked if anything in "Grapes of Wrath" had made him cry. "One scene," he admitted, then added, "but not a scene I was in. It 'got' me when I saw it in the rushes. I watched them to the point where Pa goes into a little restaurant to buy a loaf of bread, then cried like a baby. John Ford did that to me. It was his simple human method getting in its work. He always has both feet on the ground as a director — a real guy. He made it possible for me to play Lincoln. It was none of my own doing, simply the feeling. 'If Ford thinks I can do it, I'll try it.' Now 'Grapes of Wrath' will mean three pictures in a row with John Ford, after 'Drums Along the Mohawk,' and that's a break for any actor. I'm sure John Steinbeck will feel the same way about the picture Ford is making of his book. It's rather odd they've never met, because they're both alike — absolutely real. But Tom Collins, to whom the book is dedicated — 'To Tom, who lived it,' you know — has been working in the picture with us as technical aid from the start. Collins worked with those people in camps for years, and Steinbeck lived with_ him. So far as I'm concerned, Steinbeck is my favorite writer, just as this is about the most interesting picture I've been associated with in all my time on the screen. It's dynamite, not in the controversial sense, but in the fact that every word of it is loaded with meaning. My most difficult scene is the one in which I say goodbj'e to Ma, not only for the words but because of the thoughts behind them. Steinbeck must have felt something of this same difficulty himself, for at first he told Collins, 'I can't do it — it's too big a story.' _ Of course, all of it couldn't be crowded into a film, but they've used the meat of the book, and haven't pulled any punches." (Jane Darwel Continued from page 3 I "Do you always have such a clear conception of your roles?" I inquired. "Yes, I do," was her prompt reply. _ "I hate to have anybody tell me anything about the part until I've read the script for myself. As I read I see the woman I'm going to be. I know just what she looks like, the clothes she would wear, how she would feel about whatever happens, even the gestures she would use. Sometimes, of course, the director doesn't see the part as I do, but as a rule they let me do it my way." Perhaps that accounts for the fact that all the cooks, housekeepers and such that she has played, small roles most of them, stick in the mind. The woman behind has given them life and personality. "She's not a bit as I had expected sh,e would be," had been my first reaction on meeting Jane away from the studio. I found her well-dressed, assured in manner, and for one moment I could not help thinking, "This woman has been miscast as the simple, understanding mother, aunt, nurse or | what have you and all this time she should have been playing 'grand dames.' " But after talking with her a few minutes, looking into her humorous, undeceived blue eyes, hearing that warmly contagious laugh of hers, I knew that it was all a matter of clothes and make-up. For she herself possesses in abundance the friendliness, the sympathy, the forthrightness so largely responsible for the honesty and genuineness of her acting. She confesses to no curiosity about others, and indeed she betrays none, but her keen eyes surely are observing and storing away for future use the voice, the gestures, the walk, all those little characteristics which distinguish one person from another. It must, indeed, be upon such a storehouse that her vivid imagination calls, for Jane's own life has been cast in very different surroundings. Born Patti Woodard in Palmyra, Mo., at the summer home of her parents, Jane was denied nothing from the start. Her father, who adored her, was a railroad president, a man of position and means and, after her mother died, when she was only thirteen, he sent her East to various exclusive finishing schools. It was at Dana Hall in Boston, the last of these, that Jane had her first taste of the stage, for she appeared in many of the school productions, usually as a boy. Then came a period of travel abroad where, incidentally, she made use of this new advantage to go on with her study of voice and dramatics with top figures in one European capital or another. At this time Jane had not seriously considered a career of her own, although she had always had a strong dramatic streak. "As a child they would take me out and put me on the backs of my father's horses — he loved horses and kept a stable of thoroughbreds. I used to sit up there as they were led about and imagine myself a bareback rider in the circus. I would wave and throw kisses at an imaginary audience by the hour. In fact, it was the only way they could keep me quiet. I was just as restless and full of energy then as I am now," and Jane chuckled at this memory of herself as a very small person. "My brothers were much older and I was left to play alone a good deal. I had a tent and I used to imagine myself a pioneer woman going through untold hardships. For some reason, I was always tragic. Never did I imagine anything nice happening. It was always heartbreakingly sad. I used to play 'visiting' with my mother and I would have the longest, most tragic tales to tell of my children, my husband, my servants. I can see my mother now, putting her hand up to her face to keep me from seeing the smile which she couldn't keep back. It was all very serious to me and I would be furious if anyone laughed." Again Jane chuckled. "I'm certainly not tragic now. I've lived too long not to take life as it comes." But, school over, the pampered only daughter of her father, Jane found life pleasant, too pleasant, perhaps, for doing anything serious on her own. Then, happening in, one day, on a stock company performance of "Sherlock Holmes" while visiting a brother in Chicago, what she had been nursing so long in the back of her mind came suddenly to the fore and then and there she decided that she would go on the stage. She always acts on impulse. "If I try to think I just get confused," she says, and so she marched backstage and talked the manager into giving her a part in his next production. "I think I got it because an extensive wardrobe was required and I had one in those days," is her way of putting it, but I am sure that the manager sensed the latent ability in the inexperienced young girl before him. At any rate, when they began to talk salary Jane succeeded in getting him from the $18 he first offered to the $40 which she thought might pay for the inconvenience of having to be there every night. She played second leads for the rest of the season, incidentally bringing her salary up to $85 a week. It was at this THEN colds cause sniffling, sneezing, soreness, and stuffiness in the nostrils use Mentholatum. It gives quick relief from these discomforts and promotes healing of the irritated membranes in the nostrils. Its vapors also reach deep into the air passages, bringing grateful comfort. Also rub some Mentholatum on your chest and back to improve the local blood circulation. Rub it on your forehead and temples to allay headache and neuralgia due to colds. 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