Silver Screen (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

L LI D 1 N G Melvyn is footloose and happy a true artist. ^xTARE Melvyn Douglas Has Never SurrendereJ His Freedom. Long Term Con= traets Do Not Interest Him. By GUJys Hall MELVYN DOUGLAS is a thief. He steals applause and critical acclaim and he either tosses them to the dogs or over the back fence. He is, in a word, a picture stealer. For about once every year, for some time past, Melvyn appears in a picture and immediately the hair rises on the Holhwood head and all of the best adjectives are toted out. There are mutterings of "A new star has risen! Gable and Cooper and Flynn had better look to their laurels! Watch this man Douglas!" And then the hair flattens do\\'n and all there is to ^vatch is Melvyn Douglas' dust. For the man himself is gone. This has been going on and on until it has attained the proportions of a mystery which should be solved. Think back and you'll understand what I mean. He made "As You Desire Me" with Garbo— and Hollywood prophesied the rise of a new star. Yet nothing happened. He made "She Married Her Boss" with Claudette Colbert and this time, said Hollywood, there could be no doubt about it. Douglas had "arrived." He was all set. The dearth of handsome male stars was to be lessened by one. Claudette, they reminded themselves, had proven herself a "lucky star" for the men who played opposite her. Look at what happened to Charles Boyer, Fred MacMurray and Clark Gable when they were teamed with Claudette . . . stardom for the first two, the Academy award for Clark. But no. For, again, Douglas picked up his tent and, like the Arab, stole silently away. He made "Mary Burns, Fugitive" with Sylvia Sidney. He made "The Lone Wolf Returns" with Gail Patrick. More recently he made "The Gorgeous Hussy" with Joan Crawford, "Theodora Goes Wild" with Irene Dunne, and has just finished "Women of Glamour" with Virginia Bruce, and will soon be at work on "Angel," together with Marlcne Dietrich and Her!)ert Marshall. It was when "Gorgeous Hussy" was being previewed that an eminent critic whispered to mc "Am I crazy or is this Melvyn Douglas taking the picture right home in his pocket with him?" And I answered 20 "He's gone home with it." So what? Will he remain in Hollywood? AVill he, figuratively speaking of course, bedeck himself with the jewels ht steals, with the fame and fan fervor he has earned? Or will he, yet again, vanish from the scene and the screen, i eject the fruits of his triumphs? I put the question up to him frankly. I said, "You steal the jewels. What do you do with them? Don't you want them?" "No," answered Melvyn Douglas. And his gray eyes, his strong nose, his tanned skin and resolute mouth bespoke a man who might well steal the jewels, find them paste and reject them. He doesn't look like an actor, this Melvyn Douglas. He looks as though he might be a surgeon, a prosecuting attorney, a mining engineer, a diplomat. A man of strong mind and strong hands, relentless courage and a fierce integrity— that is Melvyn Douglas. "So you don't want all this?" I said, waving a hand around the de luxe dressing room suite on the Columbia lot, taking in the stacks of fan mail, the piles of photographs waiting to be autographed, the packets of press clippings on "Theoclora," the rows of costumes hanging in the wardrobes, the make-up boxes, the whole purple panoply of stardom. "No," said Melvyn Douglas again, "not if I have to have it at the price of something I want much move— my own integrity. "I am a fortunate man as I see it. But I suppose I might be considered an unfortunate man, as the world sees it. "I am fortunate because I don't want anything Hollywood can give me one half so much as I want the inner satisfaction of doing what / believe in doing. I know this sounds phoney, fine talk for the sake of talking. But I am entirely sincere about it. I mean it. "Perhaps I can clear up the 'mystery,' as you call it, by telling you something about myself— something of which I have never spoken before. "I was born in Macon, Georgia, von know, thai stronghold of conservatism and iron-bound traditions. "My father was a Russian. His name ^vas Edward Hesselberg. He Avas a well known concert pianist and composer. My mother was Lena Schackelford of Kentucky, of Scotch and English descent. Making my brother and me, then, half Russian. "I had a lonely childhood. We were always on the outside of things. People didn't take us in. ^Ve had to develop resources within ourselves. And ^\■e did. "I staged much alone. I ^vanted to be a poet. I figured that a poet need not be dependent on worldly contacts. A poet could sit secluded in his attic and put his heart on paper. Paper «ould not reject his heart and all its feelings. I thought of Byron with his club foot, the sickly Keats, the ostracized Shelley— yes, no doubt of it, my place was \vith the poets. "I read omniverously. I learned that it's what a man is within himself that makes for happiness or the reverse. I learned that the acclaim which the world has to give is not one-tenth so important as what the man is within himself. I learned that lesson early. I believe it still. "I had to be self-sufficient, you see. I had to believe that the «orld of ideas is more vital than the \\o\\A of people. I did believe that. And I still do. I played John Randolph in 'The Gorgeous Hussv' with deep conviction because ! am kin to him in that I, too, -(vould sacrifice fa\our and even love for an ideal. I have the makings of a fanatic. "I had to store up treas,ures within myself. I knew then, as I know now. that these are the only treasures \vhich are incorruptililc. "I gained a sort of contempt for ^^'hat my neighboins thought or did or had to say about me. It wasn't important what anyone thought about me so long as what I thought aboiU myself was all right. "This," said Mcl\\n Douglas, "is the real stor\ of me, the whole siorv of what I am today and will continue to be tomorrow