Screenland (Jul–Dec 1946)

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Continued from page 33 couldn't have known that within a year he was destined to become one of the brightest new stars over a planet-glittered Hollywood. It was in the cards, but they were just being shuffled at that point. In accepted Hollywood fashion agents from seven other major studios bustled backstage with impressive offers, but Producer Wallis had jumped the gun and Lancaster was signed to ride in his chariot to fame. For the ex-sergeant the sound of hunting was blending into the first strains of the song of success. Now he is completing his first picture assignment in a role which is considered one of the year's acting plums. He's in Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" with Ava Gardner, and the film is being produced by famed writer-craftsman Mark Hellinger. It is creating no little stir in movieland. Built like a boxer with shoulders and waist that are a tailor's delight, Lancaster carries his 185 pounds on a well proportioned 6'2" frame. He is a closecut blond with blue eyes and ample fighter's hands. When his thirty-third birthday comes up on the second day of November, he will be firmly established as a star in Hollywood. He is handsome in a rugged Viking way. Even though he gives the impression of brute force, he is shy at first meeting, warming up only after he has become better acquainted with the people and with the situation in which 'he finds himself. After that the "regular joe" in him asserts itself. His acting is characterized with a tense sincerity, much like a smouldering bomb which might explode at any moment. When you see him, you know he's not the sort of chap who can be pushed around. You know too that he can raise a lot of fuss at the drop of a hat, and yet that you can trust him. Samples of his love-making in test scenes had hardened women reporters screaming for more. He builds slowly, from a low simmer to an awesome boiling point, and there's no stopping him. He'll be a favorite of any girl over twenty, and wagers have it that bobbysoxers too will go for his brand of romancing. He's a cinch to ring the bell at his first try for recognition on the silver screen. Warm comments and continuous praises from those in the know on the set of "The Killers" indicate that keeneyed Hal Wallis has scored again. "Put your money on Lancaster," say the wise ones. "He's a winner." This rise to stardom in one picture is no surprise to Lancaster, who has seen plenty of ups and downs in his brief years. In the interim between his early youth and his arrival in Hollywood, he has been a circus player, WPA actor, vaudevillian, singing waiter, salesman, fireman, laborer, and promotion man. Born in New York City, he attended public schools and entered New York University at the age of 16. Two years later he was tired of the academic rou tine and ran off to join a circus at pay which barely kept him in cigarette money. He stuck with life under the big top for five years, and then tried the WPA Theater Project. When the WPA Theater folded, he moved over . into vaudeville which he caught in its last dying gasps. Between vaudeville dates, he made stopovers at fairs, carnivals, night clubs and hotels, with even a stint or two as a master of ceremonies. This last venture, however, he dropped at mutual consent. For a time he solved his eating problem by taking on a stretch as a singing waiter in a tavern, but soon the jingle of coins took him back to the circus where he taxed his manly muscles daily in a series of spine-cracking acrobatic performances. As 1940 rolled around, Lancaster came to the conclusion that footlights and greasepaint were slim on the final payoff, so he gave up his dream of theatrical fame for a job as a salesman with Marshall Field's department store in Chicago. In three weeks he began to set records as a super-salesman. Life as a salesman is preferable to many another existence, but to Lancaster it was too confining. In rapid succession he became a fireman, then a temperature control man in a Chicago meat packing plant, and finally wound up on the Illinois Department of Highways as a day laborer. He bade farewell to Illinois when he received a call for a job in the promotion department of the Columbia Community Concerts back in his native city of New York. He barely had time to become accustomed to his white-collar status when, in August of 1942, he donned the khaki of the Army. Army classification experts pegged the erstwhile promotion man for the Special Service division because of his varied experiences in show business. Lancaster served as director and actor for soldier shows with the Fifth Army in Italy, and in all he spent 26 months overseas in this activity. "We made our own portable stages and ransacked Italian opera houses for props and scenery," he recalled. "Our 3-act musical 'Stars and Gripes' received commendations from Generals Clark and Truscott as the finest morale-builder in any theater of the ETO." In September, 1945, Lancaster was demobilized and while he was on his 45-day furlough before discharge, he took an elevator ride which was to set the pattern for things to come for him. He went to visit a friend at the Hotel Royal ton in New York, and in the elevator he noticed that he was being closely scrutinized by a stranger. Hardly had Lancaster greeted his friend when the telephone rang and the friend answered. After a short exchange of words, the friend said to Lancaster, "Would you like to read for a part in a Broadway play?" Still in uniform, Lancaster thought the whole thing was a gag, but when he learned that the stranger in the elevator was a Broadway producer who 76 S GREENLAND