Screenland ((Jan–Jun 1947))

part, only to have most of his footage end on the cutting-room floor. About that time Skolsky sold Columbia the idea of making "The Jolson Story." Good old reliable Larry Parks made the first test for the role of "the greatest entertainer of our time," in November 1944, then forgot about it temporarily while he made "Renegades," in which he did have a good part. Meanwhile, for three months, just about every male on the Columbia lot, plus outside actors, crooners, soda jerks and taxicab drivers tested for the Jolson role. Then some Bright Character (the record is confused on exactly who the B.C. was) said, "Let's test that first guy again," and Larry was recalled. This time he was signed. "I had the dubious honor of making the first and last tests for the role," is how Larry sums up that typical example of Hollywood casting. Followed two months of rehearsals about as intensive and exhausting as the training of a heavyweight before a championship bout. Larry studied Jolson's singing and speaking voices, his walk, his gestures, the way he rolls his eyes, until the Parks lad felt "like a Siamese twin." For six months more he worked just as hard while the picture was in production, constantly asking himself, "Can I please the public on this? After all, millions of people who see this picture have seen Jolson, and I'll be compared to the original. Imitations usually suffer by comparison." Miraculously he didn't get ulcers, although he worried enough to develop them, all of which was needless, for he's come through with Parks stock soaring, and through the toughest possible test — the role of a man still alive, still vividly remembered. Think how much easier it is to portray a character strictly fictional, or dead a hundred years; nobody can draw comparisons then. "I wasn't fit to live with lots of the time on that picture, I was so completely wrapped up in work. It's a good thing Betty was in New York!" asserts Larry, thus bringing us to the other half of the Parks story, his long-distance marriage. Back in early 1944 Larry was spending his evenings, a fugitive from his Bpicture routine, working at the Actors' Laboratory Theater in Hollywood, acting and producing camp shows. He needed a leading lady for one production and heard that Betty Garrett, a very able young actress he had known in New York when he was with the Group and she with the Neighborhood Playhouse, was in town. He asked her to play the role and a few months later suggested that she be his leading lady for the rest of their lives. They were married in September, even though they realized their individual careers would separate them for a while. "We talked it over and decided we'd both have more incentive to work even harder at our respective jobs if we were married," is the way Larry puts it. After a month's idyllic honeymoon at the beach, Betty had to go back to New York for rehearsals and the opening of Olsen and Johnson's "Laughing Room Only," in which she was featured. Larry managed time off to be with her there in January and February. Betty spent G3 the summer and fall of 1945 in Hollywood, then shuttled back to Manhattan for "Call Me Mister," in which she is starred. Larry wangled a week off last July to visit her again, and that's when Betty burst into happy tears after seeing "The Jolson Story." That's not the part of his visit Larry likes to talk about. His favorite topic is Betty's success. Interviewing him usually turns into a story on his wife. "Betty's the most beautiful and talented girl you ever met," he'll tell you, even without the drop of a hat. "This is her first starring role — she's been featured before — and isn't it wonderful this happened to us at the same time? It's harder to get tickets for her show than any other one in New York. I even had to stand through half the performance the first night I was there because my ticket was lost at the box office and there wasn't another one available. There were parties and photographers and all that, but we managed to sneak away for a week-end in the Poconos in a hired car. We love the country and the beach." Betty has received three rather staggering film offers since her triumph in "Call Me Mister," but she has stayed with the show. But eventually she will move to Hollywood, to be mistress of her own home. Someday she and Larry hope to build a house at the beach, but their present place has a strong element of the country, their other choice. Only five houses away from fabled Hollywood Boulevard, albeit up Nichols Canyon at the west end of town, it is set in tall trees and heavy shrubbery. A spring runs down a hill at the back of the property and, believe it or not, raccoons prowl around at night, attracted by the spring and the neighbors rabbits and goldfish. "Those 'coons are such thieves," laughs Larry. "They steal the bread left out for the rabbits, and they swipe the fish right out of the pond. When we first heard them last summer when Betty was here, we thought it was a prowler, but one night we saw them. Then we caught a couple but they were such cute little guys we let them go again. After all, they aren't stealing our fish!" Larry's mother has been living with him, but because of her serious illness Larry has had plenty of time to practice conking, at which he's a whiz. "All struggling actors have to learn to cook if they want to eat," he modestly suggests, but the fact remains he whips up really good, full-bodied vegetable soup, beef and kidney pies and beef a la Stroganoff all fit for a gourmet. His favorite is a casserole concoction of fresh vegetables topped with pork chops and tomato sauce which he named "All In One Dish Nellie," for his mother. Meantime, he and Betty write each other twice a week, sometimes briefly, sometimes at great length, but their telephone bills average $60 a month, each, for their transcontinental calls, for which one certainly cannot blame them. And proof positive of their happy marriage is the fact that despite their separation, never once has any gossip columnist even hinted that all is not well with the Garrett-Parks merger. Also proof positive that Larry's is not a one-picture career is the fact that two weeks before he finished "The Jolson Story" he had to start overlapping his schedule as Rita Hayworth's leading man in "Down to Earth." He doesn't want to be typed as a romantic leading man, however. He has his eye on a certain historial drama and then he'd like to do comedy. "That's for me. Comedy!" he says with warmth. Well, Harry Cohn, your studio has turned Out a lot of good comedies, and leading men that can do them are darned scarce. What are we waiting for?