Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

Silver Screen for September 1940 93 The Private Lives of the Don Ameches [Continued from page 42] to slug him with sleeping pills. He was furious when she intimated it was only bicarbonate of soda and proclaimed, 'That never came in pink pills before!' While he's been laid up Honey's been cleaning house over there. She brought my Mother and Bert, my youngest brother, over here to stay." Bert graduated a year ago from the Catholic University in Washington, D. C. He earned half his architectural course by waiting on table and delivering newspapers; Don supplied the other half. The boy didn't have a fancy car nor a swanky apartment. He lived in a modest rooming house. Don, himself, romped through four colleges and felt that less liberality might be better. And Bert did get straight A's which is far more than Don did. Don sent him to Paris for one summer school session. "I didn't want to spoil him, but I imagined I was being a little bit tough so I upped his allowance. He saved all of it so he could fly out here for his Christmas vacation. He's got himself a job as an apprentice architect in Hollywood; I don't even know whose office he's in. He's fixed up a little studio over the garage at home and he's getting all the experience he can by taking on small jobs at night." Radio listeners are already well acquainted with Jim Ameche, who's twentyfour, married, and following fast in his illustrious brother's footsteps. Don wanted him to go to college, but he didn't want to. Like Don, Jim won first place in an Iowa state elocution contest. Like Don, but skipping the collegiate and professional stage ground work Don experienced, he tried out cold for a leading radio show in Chicago and landed the lead in it. This second Ameche moved from Kenosha thereupon, married and he and his Betty moved in with Don and Honey in Chicago. Today, Jim is broadcasting from Hollywood, rents Glenda Farrell's house a few miles from Don's, and is a proud papa. "Jim is being canny about screen offers. He's been tested, but not by 20th; he looks so youthful he's afraid he'll be typed as a juvenile. Our voices are practically identical ! We always wanted to do a skit together and at last we discovered the one we'd been waiting for. But they finally n.g.'ed it because over the radio we sounded like the same person doing double talk! "I'm thirty," said Don, "and Louis, who is twenty-nine, has been closest to me. He's a truck driver. He is a great guy and will do anything for a laugh. I don't know for certain whether to blame him, but somebody put a blurb in a magazine saying I was saving our old homestead. They ran a photograph of the old house with signs in front supposedly ordered there by me. One sign proclaimed that Don Ameche was the best plumber in the neighborhood. Another referred to the college vacation days when I ran cement. There was no mention of my acting. You ought to see Louis leading me on out there in the swimming pool! We play follow-the-leader, which usually means I knock myself out cold. The last time he did a bull frog dive he broke the board. Louis is a massive hulk, strong as an ox. He lies on his back and brings me up on his hands. He's always looking for a good fight, yet tell him a sad story and the tears roll out of him. Yep, he's married. Honey's brother, who is a priest out here, performed the ceremony and Louis and Polly rent a cottage near here." Louis once built up a thriving trucking business in Chicago and Don is anxious to set him up in some business of his own now. Louis lived with Don and Honey in Chicago for a spell, too. Mrs. Ameche interposed, "Don and Louis are such clowns! They're forever telephoning me with some accent. One day Louis said he was Ray Griffith, one of the producers at 20th, and could he have tickets for Don's next broadcast? I was so positive it was Louis I kidded back with some snappy repartee. The pay off, however, is that it was Mr. Griffith and picture me trying to get myself out of that! "My oldest sister is married and lives in Kenosha. I've two sisters who are in high school at the Immaculate Heart Convent in Los Angeles and one who is in a convent college in Brentwood. They open up a lot more with Honey than they do with me." She selects the unmarried girls' clothes and they are on an allowance based on the average of what their classmates have. Whenever any special problem arises Don invariably replies, husband-like, "Let Honey attend to that." He confesses he doesn't intrude with advice on how they should conduct their dates. Grandpa, it appears, still has oldfashioned notions. Mrs. Ameche is as fond of her family as Don is of his and both sets of relatives are welcomed in their home. One of her brothers is teaching in Chicago; her two sisters came out from Iowa to take postgraduate work at the University of Southern California. Adept at making the most of everything, she has Don's expensive suits cut down into tailored suits for herself, then sends her clothes on home. Her dad is the Studebaker dealer in Kenosha. "And a wild Irishman!" she added. "I want him to sell the business and come out here. We bought a car from him to get him to drive it out and sent him back by airplane when mother decided to remain a month with us." Her cousin Johnny now has the job of keeping the Ameche motors in order. He also "helps do some of the chasing," Mrs. Ameche concluded. "None of us write letters often. I'll bet Don hasn't written more than twenty in his life. So, I'm the clearing-house; I'm perpetually making the rounds!" Don finished speaking for himself. "I don't want to brag, but Honey and I will celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary the day after Thanksgiving. When we came to Hollywood we had a lot of responsibilities and — as far as material possessions go — a broken canopener. Literally! Honey treasures it. 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