Screenland (Nov 1945-Oct 1946)

IImTTTV Strictly for Comedy Continued from Page 29 dancing shoes, and appeared at the specified hour for the initial class. Not many minutes had passed before the instructress was giving him fishy glances,and finally, patience exhausted, she exclaimed: "Look! You already know how to dance!" "Sure," replied DeWolfe. "I ought to. I earned my living dancing for ten years." "Then what are you doing here?" Now, another guy in Billy's situation would have tossed the communique in the ash can right off with a firm "That's that." "Heck," says Billy, "it was a front office order. I'm not important enough to ignore a thing like that. Or maybe," he adds with a grin, "I just got used to obeying orders after twenty months in the Navy." But no guy like this ever happened to Paramount before — no comedian, anyway — and the result was mass swooning in the Paramount Studio streets. "Anyhow," is the DeWolfe last word, "it was very interesting. It was still only the second dancing lesson I'd ever had in my life." The first, it seems, occurred many years ago, when a youn? boy answered a chorus call for an "Artists and Models" show in New York City, and was almost scared off because he didn't know how to tap He was saved by a jolly, round-faced fellow who took him out in the alley. But " that comes later. De Wolfe's theatrical career actually began on the stage of the Quincy Theater, in Quincy, Mass. He'd always been stage-struck, probably from the time he was born unintentionally in Boston. Billy's parents were Welsh, but were visiting there at the time. It was only a matter of nine weeks, however, before they'd taken him back to Wales — Pwhelli, Wales, to be exact. And if you want to pronounce it, a hiccup followed by a sneeze should produce the correct result. But Massachusetts had apparently caught hold, so nine years later the family — Jones, it was, and not DeWolfe at all — returned. Mr. Jones, a bookbinder by profession, took out cit izenship papers and settled down in the Boston suburb of Quincy. Not so long after that young stagestruck Bill Jones began to assert himself. He got as near to being an actor as he could by ushering in the Quincy Theater for fifty cents a night, during which time he studied the acrobats and dancers on the stage, then spent what free time he had copying the acts in his school gymnasium. The Jones were ardent Baptists and inclined to frown on Bill's unexpected theatrical manifestations, so they encouraged him to be a minister and sent him to the Methodist Church because it was nearer home. For a while, the Joneses hoped. Bill liked making speeches and leading Christian Endeavor, and "standing up there on the rostrum to give out with gestures." But the discouraging truth remained. When he should have been in church, Bill sneaked out to the theater to watch the acts rehearsing, then copied what he saw. The Joneses' ministerial ambitions for their son were thoroughly nipped when the manager of Jimmy Connor's band, on the bill one week, saw young Jones practicing his routines backstage and asked if he was also on the bill. Bill Jones's excitement at this question almost overwhelmed him. He stopped everyone he knew for days after, to tell them he'd been mistaken for a professional performer. Besides which, the manager was impressed and signed him to a contract, while the theater manager, a former actor, threw in the advice, "You'll neyer be a success with a name like Bill Jones, young man! You'd better take my name instead." The manager's name was DeWolfe. And as for the ministerial ambitions, "I think it was only the ham coming out in me even then."' Billy traveled with the band for several months, doing acrobatic and eccentric dancing. When he decided he'd learned all he could from this experience, he quit, and struck out for New York, which led him to "Artists and Models" and the moon-faced guy in the alley, who said, "Don't worry. If you can do a time step, you can fake your way through the audition." Half an hour later, Billy had learned the step. He was duly grateful and asked the fellow's name. "Jack Oakie," was the answer, and Billy got the job in the show. After five months in the last row of the chorus, however, the DeWolfe ham began to assert itself again. "I like to be out front," he grins. So he quit again, did a solo dancing act in vaudeville, then later teamed up with two Boston girls, Metcalf and Ford. This trio caught the interest of an English manager, George Foster, who booked them into the London Palladium. They'd hit the big time. Billed for only four weeks, the European jaunt lasted five long and exciting years, while they toured the entire continent. "We were crazy kids," Billy reminisces, "but we had an awful lot of fun." There was the time, for instance, when the three of them were riding in a crowded "lift" — elevator to you — and Billy announced in ringing tones, designed for the entire assemblage, "I can't, believe that doctor knows what he's talking about. Where would I have gotten leprosy?" The lift was quickly cleared. And the time they were traveling to Scotland in the same compartment with two timid English spinsters. "Just had a letter from my brother in Chicago." Billy advised his partners. "He got shot at again the other day." (Horrors and flutterings from the spinsters.) "He says," Billy continued, "he's getting sick of hitting the ground all the time, when the machine gunning starts. Afraid a new race of people is going to develop out there — people who live crawling on their stomachs." . By this time the spinsters were ready to faint dead away. During these years, too, Billy was developing a new act. He'd been doing "satiric impressions" of famous people and familiar types for his friends. They went over so well he tried them on the " stage, where the reaction was tremendous. And when, at last, he returned to this country, he branched out on his own, doing a comedy act with dancing left out. As master of ceremonies and doing his The Navy makes a date: Bonita Granville and Ryan, romantic interest in "Breakfast in Hollywood," write it down in her appointment book. Comes the I eventful hour, a corsage is produced and pinned on I her shoulder with the appropriate dialogue. SCREENLAND