Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

Silver Screen for September 1940 87 Hollywood's Most Amazing Love Story [Continued from page 35] ricane" were streaming in, a golden deluge, and Goldwyn said, over and over: "He's sweeping America." Little was said, then, of two actors who appeared in the same picture, both destined for cinema greatness. One was Raymond Massey, the other was Thomas Mitchell. Jon Hall, no doubt, was bewildered, but he took all of this new adulation in stride. To his credit, let it be stated here that he never got delusions of grandeur. He smiled just as cordially at the waiters as he smiled at the important producers and stars. He signed autographs until even his muscular arm must have ached. He was aboard the Hollywood gravy-train, but he seemed to be more dazed at his presence aboard that luxury liner than impressed. He was a naive, pleasant sort of kid, too. A few days after the premiere, I interviewed him over a luncheon table at the Beverly Brown Derby. He was absolutely thrilled at the things which had happened in such breath-taking fashion. "It's wonderful," he admitted. "I've been kicked around for three years in this town. People don't realize that because I worked before under my real name — ■ Charles Locher. Fox had signed me and I made one picture with Warner Oland, 'Charlie Chan in Shanghai.' Then they released me, and for three years, I've worked as an extra and a bit player at Republic and Monogram — wherever I could get a job. Overnight, I'm on the road to stardom and it's wonderful. I want to click. I'll work hard." He told me that day that Goldwyn had given him the name of Jon Hall, instead of Locher. Norman Hall, one of the authors of "Hurricane," is related to young Locher, so Goldwyn decided Jon Hall would be a good name for marquee display. Now the story becomes fantastic, incoherent, completely mad and incredible. For two and a half years after the world premiere of "Hurricane," Jon Hall never made a single picture ! ! The kid who so desperately wanted to click, and who was willing to work hard, never worked at all. Each week he received his check from Goldwyn's offices for $150. Each week, for the first year, he was assured that the studio had a story in preparation, but by the time the second year had arrived, with nothing but promises that never came true, Jon Hall knew that he was deader than the proverbial deadpigeon. "Now it's a funny thing what that does to a fellow," he told me. "At first, when people asked me what I was doing and I told them that Mr. Goldwyn was readying a picture for me, I didn't mind. But after a year of it, then a year and a half and then TWO YEARS, I was almost nuts. I ducked across the street rathct than meet somebody I knew would ask me what I was doing. I avoided parties. I guess a fellow loses his self-respect, loses his confidence, loses whatever it is that makes a man." Hall shook his head like a fighter clearing his head of a series of heavy blows: "If it hadn't been for Frances, I would have hopped a freighter and gone to the South Seas and stayed there. She is the most wonderful wife a guy ever had, and if it hadn't been for her, I very likely would have gone batty." You see, a few months before "Hurricane" was launched, Jon Hall, building to stardom, met singer Frances Langford. They fell in love so hard that you could hear the repercussion all over Hollywood. The sound of it caromed from one peak of the Sierra Madres to another. On June 4, 1938, they were married at Prescott, Arizona. Had he married a lot of other girls, Jon Hall very nicely might have gone crazy in the fantastic two years and a half that followed, because another girl might very nicely have determined to divorce him when it appeared that he was not going to achieve stardom. Such things have happened out here, involving very famous femme stars. "Frances was wonderful," says Hall. "She made me hold my chin up. She told me, week after week, when I was down in the dumps, that all I needed was patience and that everything would come out all right. If we went out and autograph fans asked for her auto 72 A SPARKLING BEVERAGE^ U OUHCES And this is the big, new, streamlined bottle of Pepsi-Cola, favorite with millions . . . because it's bigger and better I Here's 0i «! m<t>ty came to town ' ' P^si-C< tnan 35 years, Pepsi-Cola And today, after more than Y still "gom to town ^ tiroe Pepsi-Cola vs ™^J*y. ^ swing to P^^^ouBce-olthb^ thirst quencherio^^^ .