Silver Screen (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

J ohn Payne Talent And Nc Him A Wrestler He Has Already Falls In H By Julia Gwin Inherited Living Up To His •r Name k v ' 7 John and his pretty wife, Anne Shirley. With Olivia Havilland "Wings of the Navy. I WENT to see "Garden of the Moon" recently with a critic who is supposed to know all the great and near great on and off the stage, in and out of pictures, socially, politically, financially and so on far into the night. We arrived during a scene when John Payne, minus pants and singing lustily, discovers a lady has walked into his room. "Who," said the critic, "is that boy?" "That," I replied, "is John Payne." "Never saw him before. How do you know?" "Neither have I but it couldn't be anyone else. It's the only new name in this picture." "Lady," said the critic, sliding down into his seat with an air of deep satisfaction, "I think we've got something here." So, a week later when John Payne arrived in New York with Anne Shirley, his wife, for a vacation, I decided to find out for myself. Over coffee at nine-thirty in the morning, the earliest j or January 1939 hour a celebrity on leave in New York has ever before offered to see me, I began to find out if we really did have "something here." Contradictorily, Payne seems larger off the screen than on. His hair is wavy V and a very dark brown, \ his eyes are blue and he \ has a simple direct charm, the result of his background, which has not suffered by his overnight hit in the picture Dick Powell turned down. He still talks about if he makes good in pictures, as though it were not a foregone concluison that he has already arrived— in one picture. For that's all he's really done, and anything that went before doesn't count. Cinderella stories are still being written once in a while. "I don't believe in putting all my eggs in one basket," he said in a quiet, mature, well modulated voice. "I hope I may never get to the point where I am utterly dependent on one thing or one person for my happiness. You see, I'm a happy sort of guy and I like to live in that kind of atmosphere. I want security and the things which money can buy; I love the feeling after I have finished a picture of just lying in bed and having my breakfast brought to me; I love to have the time to lie in the sun soaking up dreams and a suntan but I refuse to accept these things as concrete or as the evidence of success bought at the cost of my own soul. I am selfish enough not to want to be hurt or to hurt myself by banking too strongly on one thing for my future. If I don't make a go of this job I should like to try my hand at making adaptations for the screen." And then it came out. John had not meant to be an actor. He is a descendant of John Howard Payne who wrote "Home, Sweet Home," and his mother is Ida Schaeffer, a former Metropolitan Opera singer. With this heritage it is only natural that music, drama and writing should be the things which would occupy his thoughts. During the early years when he was receiving his preliminary education in and around Roanoke, Virginia, where he was born one bright May morning about 25 years ago, he did quite a lot of writing. He turned out short stories and poems by the yard but he admits none of the stuff, except an occasional poem, was ever good enough to be published. Then he received a two year partial scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music in New York and Juilliaid is like that critic, they must believe you've "got something", before they hand you a scholarship. A full scholarship at the school would have meant a good 24 hour a day grind and, even though he had a voice, played the piano and wrote some music he intended using music only as a stepping stone to the writing lie wanted to do. It was this same reason which prompted him to seek a job as an actor; he felt it would help him to understand people and why they tick. He didn't do much about the scholarship but he did study play writing under Thatcher Hughes at Columbia University and he also studied drama and short story writing while there. His first acting job was in summer stock in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He was so good that, believe it or not, Roxbury arranged a scholarship for him at the Victoria Theatre in London, England, in Shakespearean repertory. But John lacked the capital to keep himself alive while enjoying free tuition. Up until five years ago, when he came from Roanoke to New York for the first time, he had never been North of the Mason and Dixon line. When he traveled it always seemed to be South. And yet, he has no Southern accent. [Continued on page 73] 47