Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

82 Silver Screen for October 1940 Damned Clever, These Missourians ! [Continued from page 3 5] "Convincing a person through strong argument is usually accompanied by the loss of a friend," he said. "Few of us have any to spare." Toler becomes excited only when the script of a picture calls for this reaction. "The true oriental realizes the futility of letting his emotions become unduly aroused over matters of minor importance," he said, "and to a Chinese there are few of a major kind. "Take my young friend, Sen Yung, as an example. Sen is the young San Francisco Chinese who plays the role of my No. 2 son in the' Chan pictures. New to screen work, he was unable to overcome his natural calm in one of our pictures where, as he stumbles upon a corpse, he hears a lion roar right behind him. Lucky properly expected him to register a good deal of emotion. "To obtain this reaction the director finally decided upon a trick. He borrowed a .45 revolver from the property man, loaded it with a blank, and stood ready to discharge it at the exact moment Sen was supposed to hear the reverberating challenge of the king of beasts. Lucky had tipped off Robert Barrat, Eddie Collins and myself who also were in the scene. "'Wham!' The gun went off like a cannon and I must admit Sen came completely out of his placidity — he almost jumped out of his pants. But, unfortunately, the scene was spoiled because when the gun went off the corpse sat up. Lucky had forgotten to let him in on the gag." The oriental's love of a joke, even on himself, is well known, and in this respect Toler again runs true to Chinese form. There was the time in the stock company in Portland, Maine, when Toler was doubling in the role of a butler who came on stage with his nose pointed at the top row in the gallery and a tray of sandwiches, held by both hands, on a line with his chin. As he approached the first player in the scene the latter whispered : "Sid! Your suspenders are loose!" "I shuddered," said Toler, "but went on. The next player whispered, 'Toler! Your trousers are skidding!' I'd have sworn they were. The third player, as I approached him, whispered, 'Good God, Toler, you're losing your pants!' "What did I do? I dropped the tray and raced for the wings. No, everything was quite all right." Sidney Toler also is able to take criticism without flinching. He says Alan Dale handed him the best jolt of his career when, reviewing a Brooklyn stock company performance of "Sappho," he said of the scene wherein the artist carries the girl upstairs: "Mr. Toler picked the girl up and carried her like a sack of oats. She appeared to be chewing his ear as they ascended the stairs." The kindest remark made about him in print was contributed by Alexander Woollcott who said: "I enjoy the way Mr. Toler reads his lines, but I enjoy more what he is thinking while he reads them." Associate Producer Dave Lewis converses with affable Ann Sheridan on the set of "City for Conquest" in which Ann is co-starred with Jimmy Cagney. A compliment to Toler's intelligence. Toler refuses to believe there have ever been any really dark moments in his life. Broke? Many times. Hungry? Never. Well, almost never. "I was a freshman at the University of Kansas and I wanted to go on the stage," said Toler. "So did my best friend and we determined to go to Kansas City and try our luck. I knew a conductor on the train and he said he'd let me ride free, but couldn't fix it for Phil who made the trip by hitch hiking, although it wasn't known by that name in those days. "We had agreed to meet at Main and Ninth, which was and still is known as The Junction. We met on schedule and we were broke and hadn't had breakfast or lunch. The only person we knew in Kansas City was a printer at the Kansas City Star, a deaf and dumb chap we had known at school. We looked him up at the Star and talked to him in the sign language, but we just couldn't make him understand we were trying to borrow money. We thought it was odd because we had conversed with him easily in sign language in school. "Leaving the building we looked across the street and saw a sign outside a saloon reading, 'Free Lunch.' It was about 3 p. m. and only one bartender was on duty. Phil and I walked into the place, talking to each other on our fingers. We made the bartender understand — by means of our signs — that we wanted two beers, which he poured. "Then we went over to the free lunch counter and loaded ourselves. Keeping our backs to the bartender we edged toward an exit into an alley. The barkeep saw us going and called and then shouted, but we kept talking to each other with signs and as we reached the door we ran like the devil. "Several years later I returned to the same saloon, found our old friend, and paid him for the beers. He laughed when I told him the story, but not very heartily." Toler says the experience he acquired during his stock days has paid him handsomely in dollars and cents. "A stock player — if he's in that line of theatre work for any length of time — acquires an amazing knowledge of an amazing number and variety of plays. Acting, directing and staging so many plays led me into a study of what made them click — or fail — and I'd tinker with them and have turned more than one Broadway failure into a small city success." This "tinkering" later enabled Toler to become one of Broadway's top play doctors. He, himself, has authored a half dozen plays that have made the big league, including Helen Hayes' "Golden Days." He left the University of Kansas at the close of his second year and went to New York as the result of encouragement given him by Julia Marlowe. On his second night in the big city, illness forced Bruce McCrea, her leading man", from "When Knighthood Was In Flower," and Toler substituted. McCrea was unable to return and the newcomer played the part for two years. Toler played stock for several years and was with David Belasco for 14 years, leaving him at the close of the long run of "It's A Wise Child," in which he played the part of the iceman, to enter motion pictures in 1931. Toler's home is a three-bedroom, early California type house on top of a hill overlooking Hollywood. For recreation he gardens, plays golf and tennis and swims. In his spare time he writes plays and, differing from the majority of playwrights, he sells most of them. They are marketed by a company catering to little theatre, college, school and church groups. He works most of the weeks of the year at the kind of work he likes best and is paid a four figure weekly salary. As an actor, he contributes to the enjoyment of his fellow man. His health is excellent and he finds plenty of time for the outdoor life he has come to love since making California his home. He has a congenial home life and a few good friends. When he gets one of his occasional notions to clean the slate, he boards a freighter for Panama or South America.