Screenland (Nov 1941-Apr 1942)

"Who wouldn't?" his companion grunted. "They get five or six hundred a week." When Red stooped to pat a dog or a cat, the creature streaked off like mad. When he said hello to a horse, the horse nipped him. Goaded by the vision of five or six hundred a week, he now discovered in himself a latent power over animals, and wrote to Hagenbeck & Wallace that his father had worked for them and that he himself was a clown of parts. "What walkarounds do you have?" they asked at the interview. "What's a walkaround? You kidding me ?" "No, you're kidding us. A walkaround is a clown's routine, and you never played a circus in your life." "Okay, but I can make people laugh and I want to be a lion-tamer." They thought he had brass enough to be anything, so they gave him a slight job. His leisure was spent watching Clyde Beatty work. It looked wonderful till they hit South Bend. Beatty was breaking in a new tiger act. The day was hot, the tiger mean, and when Beatty dropped his pole long enough to reach for a whip, the tiger jumped him. In the nick of time, a lioness jumped the tiger, saving the boss's life. Deciding he was no hero, Red walked out of the circus and into burlesque. At seventeen he was making seventy-five a week — when he worked. The manager of the Pantages, a vaudeville house in Kansas City, caught his burlesque act and invited him over to fill a spot. The manager also introduced him to Edna Stillwell, an usher, trim, fifteen, blue-eyed. Her hair was what Red calls mousetrap-brown, and her spirit was high. He thought he had a way with girls. She thought he was a fresh monkey, and brushed him off. But when a month later he returned for a second engagement, she made the mistake of laughing at one of his jokes. That was enough for a comic. "You're a nice kid. I had you all wrong when I was here before. Can I take you home?" Distances in Kansas City are long. Red recalls gloomily that they rode for days on a streetcar. It wasn't that he liked Edna less, but he hated streetcars more, so they didn't meet again for weeks. Red was emceeing a walkathon, and who should the cashier be but Edna? And what should the cashier do but enter the contest on a dare and win it. The photogs wanted pictures of her with the master of ceremonies. Blithely unconscious of being instruments in the hand of fate, they said: "Now let's take 'em kissing." What had happened to Edna between streetcars is anyone's guess. For Red the kiss did it. He was knocked off his feet, he couldn't sleep, he couldn't think. Three months later they were married. Edna's mother gave her consent, and Red falsified his age. Everyone said it wouldn't last. It's lasted eleven years, and he still puts Edna next to God. She went with him to St. Louis, where he was scheduled for another walkathon. "I think you ought to get more than seventy-five," she mused. "Now don't start telling me how to run my business," yapped the dominant male. "Okay," said the clinging female, and slipped out of the hotel. When he reached the office of the walkathon's manager, she was at the door. "I've just talked to this man. You're getting a hundred a week. All_ right, bawl me out later. I've got to go in with you now. I forgot something — " As Red listened in a daze, she told the manager she'd neglected to mention the cleaning. "He does a lot of falling around, you know, and the bill comes to so much a week — " This was more than the new-made husband could swallow. He had three suits to his name, and he dusted them off. "Look," he said, the way Billy Gilbert says it, "why don't you tell him about the food too? He's got to feed us — ■" Came a tired voice from the desk. "I'll pay the cleaning. You can have dinner and breakfast at the counter with the other performers. Now clear out, will you, before that wife of yours talks me into buying you a house ?" Outside Red tucked his wife's hand under his arm. "You're a smartaleck kid," he said, "but you're in." So they went together till they felt they'd exhausted the small-time possibilities of the middle west. Uncle Jim Harkins — now Fred Allen's right hand— thought he could get Red a screen test if Red could get himself to New York. They hocked everything they owned. "Edna's mother," says her grateful son-in-law, "reached in like this and got ten bucks for two gold teeth." He was given the screen test. "You a comedian?" asked the talent scout, very busy with phones and buzzers. Red didn't like him. "Matter of opinion — " "Make me laugh." "I can't." So they tested him in a dramatic scene, which stank to high heaven. "Thanks," said the scout, "I'll let you know." He earned ten dollars here and fifteen there, and they lived in a dump behind Madison Square Garden. Far from being dashed, Edna said: "Know what I think? You never went very far in school. That's a handicap when you talk to business people. I think you should take night classes when you're not working." "I'm a comedian." "Even comedians have to talk sense sometimes." Thereafter he spent his free evenings at night school. Edna went along so he wouldn't be embarrassed. There were more and more free evenings, less and less money. It reached the point where Red mooched along with eyes peeled for a nickel in the cracks of the sidewalk. For two days they didn't eat. Then they hauled his store of jokebooks to a second-hand shop. Red went in alone. "One buck," said the man. "They cost me seventy-five to a hundred— " "One buck," said the man. He reported to Edna outside. "Take it, Red. When you're hungry, a buck's more important than jokes." They loaded up on spaghetti and meat-balls at fifteen cents per. They took in a fifteen-cent show. They -trolled down Broadway, and out of a music shop floated the strains of Brahms' Lullaby — their good luck tune. "Gonna get a job," grinned Red. And, curiously, he did. From among the entrants at a Roxy Theatre audition, he was picked to play the Club Lido, Montreal, for three days. He stayed six weeks, then moved down the street to Loew's. They liked his style, but found his material wanting. Harry Angers, the producer, made him an offer. "Dope out some new stuff, and I'll bill you into Loew's State as a headliner." He told Edna about it as they sat in the little resturant round the corner after the show. She turned thoughtful. "Know what makes people laugh most? Little things that happen in everyday life." At the next table a man was dunking doughnuts, eyes darting sheepishly right and left before he made the dunk. Edna grabbed Red's arm. "If I write something, will you try it?". That was the germ of the riotous doughnut routine that wowed 'em at Loew's State. Edna's been writing for Red ever since. For a _ while they hit the peaks — a radio date with Rudy Vallee, appointment as official master of ceremonies of the President's Birthday Ball, a broadcasting program of his own. Then the movies snagged him, which proved a mistake for Red. He was cast as the social director m 'Having Wonderful Time." The mechanics of movie-making were new. He went around asking people what to do. "At two thousand a week, brother, you should know what to do." When the picture was released, only his doughnut act stood out, and that wasn't enough to save him from being tagged flop. On the strength of which, his radio sponsor proposed to cut his salary. Red told him to go climb a tree, and lost $9000 producing his own show. The climb back was almost as painful as the original haul. Not till last winter did the breaks come his way again. Due chiefly to the fact that Zasu Pitts is crazy about him, he was hired to join her vaudeville act in Chicago.^ He went over big with public and critics, and numbered among his admirers one Mickey Rooney. Mickey attended this year's Birthday Ball. (Red is a fixture of the Birthday Balls. Washington wears him on her heart. In Washington, if you said: "Red stinks," they'd smack you down). "I saw your show five times in Chicago," said Mickey. "You'll be on the coast soon." "I've been on the coast, brother. It's all yours." "These things happen," said Mickey, the philosopher. "Be different next time." He went home and talked the ears off Nick Schenk and Louis B. Mayer till in selfdefense they sent for his cockeyed wonder. On the day set for his test, Edna went with him. "Got anything you can burlesque Hollywood with?" "Why, yes," said Edna. Red stared. She sent him her sweetest smile. "Remember that bit we did in Chicago, honey? The way different heroes die in the movies?" He didn't remember, for the good reason that no bit existed. But he picked up the cue. "Gee, it's so long ago. I'll have to brush up — " They went into a huddle. She sketched her idea, and Red's training stood him in good stead. While he died like Cagnev, she furiously scribbled a parody of Little Caesar's end. They stalled for time, thev whispered and sweated and prayed. The test proved an all-time classic. For weeks people greeted their friends on the Metro lot by asking whether they'd seen the Skelton test. Frank Borzage saw it and put him into "Flight Command." After "Whistling in the Dark," he is co-starred with Ann Sothern in "Panama Hattie." He's lined up for "I'll Take Manila," and a new radio show of his own. The studio's frantically hunting properties for him, and the press hails him as the year's top comedy find. Meantime he and Edna are having a wonderful time. They've found themselves a cook and boss in one, and they love her. Lottie May makes Red eat carrots and use the right fork. "But there's nobody here," he yowls. "You hush up 'n' use it anyway. Be somebody here, 'n' you'll forget." When people drop in, he cooks them a tub of soup from an original recipe, and chortles with joy when they ask for more. The living room is still minus furniture, so he hangs up signs reading DETOUR and CLOSED FOR REPAIRS. He'd let the phone ring till it cracked before he answered it — that voice coming through out of nowhere sets his teeth on edge. Though he never smokes, he always carries a cigar. It used to be a nickel stinker. Now if he feels like paying a buck, he pays a buck. Only one desire_ remains ungratified. He craves a tight-fitting overcoat with a fur collar like the kind John ( There'sAnActor-Doc) Lawrence used to wear. "Edna says no," he reports cheerfully. "But I'm getting one anyway — to be buried in." 62