Letters to the Editor
ACTORS, AND HOW!
To the Editor of the Alumni Magazine: With the fervor of the West Lebanon fire department taking a corner, may I hasten to respond to your appeal for information about neglected thespic luminaries?
Before adding a few stars to those already twinkling in the Players' crown, may I correct Mr. Cole in the matter of Mr. "Jean" Markey's given name? Mr. Markey, I believe it may authoritatively be stated, is neither of French lineage nor a female impersonator, but rather rejoices in his descent from Brian Etaoin Shrdlu, a princely Irish author, and signs the prolific output of his social and biological research as "Gene" Markey, the baptismal "Eugene" being thus curtailed.
That fact having been established, let us hie to a discussion of three Dartmouth actors who seem to have set their feet firmly on the slippery rungs of the theatrical ladder.
First in seniority is "Doc" (carried on the books as Arthur E.) Wyman, who entered with 1911, departed for two years and emerged with 191$. Master Wyman, after many years spent in the service of the Red Cross laying cool hands on the fevered brows of sundry men-at-arms, has made himself a place among the star-gazing boys and girls of the University of Hawaii, where he teaches stage craft and acts on the side. Only a few weeks ago we received advices from Mr. Charles Griffith, the itinerant musical pedagog, concerning the adept performance of Mr. Wyman in a program staged under his direction by an amateur organization in Honolulu. Mr. Wyman's sole appearance as an actor was in the role of a Russian chess player. Unless the benign bounty of a life beneath the palm trees has brought additional poundage to his frame, it is to be hoped that the exigencies of the play did not forbid his carrying a sandwich or two in his pocket—assuming that the chess game was true and verisimilar.
Leaving the hospitable shores of Waikiki, we find two rising young men here at home. Curiously enough their greatest fame is concerned with their performances in the same play, though one has been playing on the road and the other in the original New York company throughout the run.
Picked in the order of their appearance on any professional stage, we come first to Mr. Robert (Bobo) Williams, of the vintage of 1926 or thereabout. Mr. Williams started his career as a theatrical minion of the law in "The Trial of Mary Dugan." Those who remember the metropolitan run of that melodrama will recall unquestionably the bluecoated bailiff who slept peacefully amidst the clattering pails of the scrubwomen, and who finally awoke to make noises interpreted by the lawyers and bail bond agents in the audience as signifying the approach of hizzoner and the opening of court. Since then Master Williams has adorned the subway circuit in the guise of a policeman, a detective, a sheriff, a night watchman, et al., until, skilled in the use and adornment of gyves, pistol and bludgeon, he threatens to become a perennial gendarme. At present he is touring the country as Officer Mulrooney (or Mulvaney or Mulgarity) in "Strictly Dishonorable," that comedy which, in the hinterlands, is regarded as hilarious but disreputable. In the narrower sections of the bible belt, Mr. Williams informs me, worthy burghers et ux. maintained their Nordic self-respect by hoarding their laughs until they could get home and relax behind drawn shades, in the company, alas, of refreshment interdicted by their own suffrage.
The third of this trilogy, and possibly the best known to those who attend the theatre in New York, is Louis Jean (our apologies, Mr. Cole, and will you look at his middle name!) Heydt. Forsaking a life devoted to recording the peccadilloes of human frailty in the daily newspapers, Mr. Heydt entered the hectic existence of a grease paint artist via the same "Trial of Mary Dugan," in which he too was a blue-frocked bailiff, as blase in his task as Master Williams. Their combined conversation in this script included scarcely enough words to warrant the purchase of their costumes.
Like someone out of Horatio Alger, it was no time before Master Heydt was appearing every night but Sunday, and two matinees a week, as the young man from East Orange in the original New York production of "Strictly Dishonorable." Handling a very unsympathetic part in amusing style, he was always the butt of sundry hymns of hate from emancipated young things in the audience.
Adding these entries does not complete the list, if you include playwrights, vaudeville performers, singers, entertainers, and radio artists. Harold Osborne, as a prestidigitator, is the peer of professional magicians. Freddy Bachellor, among his hundred or more French-Canadian yarns, has plenty with which to amuse a Sunday-school class. "Bones" Joy wields a skilled baton over his two or three broadcasting orchestras. So they keep coming.
May their children never be acrobats!
MORE THESPIANS
Dear Mr. Hayward: The current issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE just received has a very good article concerning Dartmouth graduates in theatrical and moving picture work, and the Editor requested additional names not mentioned in the article. I only skimmed over the article last night at home, but two names familiar to you come to mind. Bus Heydt and Bob Williams last year were playing leading parts on the stage in New York, and, no doubt, you have more recent information concerning them than do I,—but I think, it will be worth mentioning in connection with the above article.
Hoping that you are enjoying the Hanover spring, subsequent to the board-walk across the Campus, I am
Sincerely yours,
ELEVATING THE MOVIE
Will Hays, who for a number of years has had a high opinion of American motion pictures, continues optimistic. He is out with a statement to the effect that movies will presently be cleaner and more high-minded than ever before. This will be difficult, as the pictures are pretty noble already, but Mr. Hays thinks it can be done.
The reason is that the public is demanding nobler pictures. We have, Mr. Hays is sure, outlived the period of hard-boiled realism that followed the war and are beginning to look for better things, even in our moments of leisurely recreation. All this may bewilder a few who have had a hard time finding a theater that was not showing a gangster picture, but they must remember that Mr. Hays is looking to the future.
The main trouble with realism in the pictures is that it makes it hard for the seeker after high-class entertainment to know who is the villian and who is the hero. Most of us like to have the line more clearly drawn. We also like to know, without too much of a mental struggle, which is the heroine and which is the vampire, or tiger-woman. The romantic drama makes the distinction clear; the realistic drama often does not. Mr. Hays might, in this connection, use his influence with the producers. He could have them adopt the old standards by which the man with the black mustache was invariably the villain, and the girl in the simple frock always the heroine. That would be a step onward and upward.
Spokane Spokanesman-Review.
