EDDIE CANTOR LAUGHS

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 5 (Supplement)

EDDIE CANTOR LAUGHS

HIS SENSE OF HUMOUR. AMUSING A COMEDIAN. (By EDDIE CANTOR.—In an Interview with JOHN K. NEWNHAM.) Sure, plenty of things in life make me laugh. I know how much good a laugh does one and that's why I enjoy trying to make the world laugh. Some of the things that make me laugh may amuse you as well. Now, a lot of people say they're sorry for me with my big family of five girls. But momma and I don't need anybody's sympathies. The people who are scared of large families just don't know what they're missing. For instance, I had a great laugh with my young daughter, Janet, a little while ago. She is just seven, and is she cute? She asked me if her nurse was going to a special heaven where there were no flowers. "Why?" I asked, "Becos'," she said, solemnly, "Nurse gets hay fever, and it wouldn't be much like heaven if she had hay fever all the time, would it?" Another time, Janet listened carefully while a friend of mine boasted about the way he used aeroplanes to get about from place to place. "I fly everywhere!" he exclaimed. Suddenly, Janet's little voice piped out: "Daddy, you'd better close the window, or he'll be flying out of here!" "In Love" With His Daughter. Incidentally, I got a great "kick" recently when the newspaper headlines announced that I was in love with my secretary. Scandal? Not a bit of it. You see, my eldest daughter is my secretary. One of the first things 1 did on reaching England was to go along and see Tottenham Hotspurs playing football. It was a pretty rotten sort of a day, and I shivered in the sand. "Why does the goalkeeper wear a cap ?" I asked, "The others don't." A man sitting near me stared glumly up at the grey and threatening sky. "To keep the sun oil' his head!" he exclaimed.

And, say, I must tell you about the trick the Goldwyn Girls played on Busby Berkeley, the dance director, during the production of "The Kid from Spain." Bo you remember that big bathing-pool scene? It was filmed during the night. Berkeley made the girls dive into the water time and time again. They were working without a break for hours on end, and it wasn't until five o'clock that he called a halt and told them to go home. They whispered among themselves, and then asked him if he would pose with them for a photograph. Busby said he would, and posed at the edge of the pool with the bevy of beauties around liim. There was a sudden scream and thev all plunged into the water once again—dragging the dance director with them! A Novel Recommendation. Talking of production laughs, I must say I got some fun out of the chariot scenes in "Roman Scandals." We had screen cowboys to appear as the Roman "warriors," and if only the microphone could have picked up some of their Wild West accents while they were hanging around, the scenes would have been even funnier than they were. One of the Koraan "gladiators" was a big, tall Italian and when the film was finished he disappeared. I had a letter from a friend of mine not long ago telling me that this Italian was working in his district, and enclosing one of the ex-film player's cards. It read: "Joe Lucie, second cook. Formerly with Eddie Cantor in 'Roman Scandals.' " That's recommendation for j'ou!

One of the brightest memories of my trip to England is my visit to the Crazy Show at a London theatre. During the interval a man made a rush at me. "You're Eddie Cantor, aren't you?" he asked. "I am," I said. He peered closely at me. "Thanks," he said. "That's all I wanted to know." "What's all?" I asked, intrigued. "Whether your eyes are real or not," he said. "I've lost my bet. I didn't believe it. I thought they were Belisha Beacons!" It was just one of the Crazy Gang! Some Radio Jokes. Somebody asked me," after my 8.8.C. broadcast, about radio work in America, and I told him of a funny occurrence, in which, however, I did not personally figure, thank goodness. In America radio programmes arc, of course, subsidised by the°advertising people. Now, a certain star used to broadcast for one particular firm, but his contract ended and he was signed up by someone else. Can you imaaine his embarrassment when he found himself absentmindedly advertising his former firm on the radio one day? He was in an awful funk about it, but he needn't have worried. The engineers are pretty slick and they cut him off before his lapse became apparent to listeners.

New York radio stars who go to Hollywood have an amusing experience. They "O on to a private line, and transmit their "turn" to New York. New York then sends it back over another private line to Hollywood, where it is radiated to listeners. The broadcasters' voices

thus travel all the way across the Continent—and back! Different microphones are used, of course, for radio and film work, but the great advantage in film work is that you can hear yourself afterwards and if you don't like your voice you can record it all over again. The "boys" at the Goldwyn studios played a nice trick on me not long ago when I went into the private theatre to see the "rush" of a scene, and I just couldn't make out what had happened. I might have five children, but I wasn't quit(T so old as my voice sounded. I still don't know how they did it, but the bovs had somehow juggled with the talkie part of the film and had changed my voice for me!

One of the best chuckles I had during my trip to Europe was when a Continental policeman grasped me by the arm and spluttered something into my ear. I couldn't understand the language, so I didn't know what he was saying. "\ou've got the wrong man!" I exclaimed, but he gesticulated and gabbled on. I began to think I would finish my holiday in an uncomfortable Conti-

nental police cell, till someone came up and informed me that the policeman was merely asking me for my autograph! Did the family laugh when I told them about that? I'll say they did! Corners, Clothes and Kisses. Another great laugh I had against myself was during the making of "Palmy Days," in which I played the part of an efficiency expert. There was one scene in which I had to sit on the edge of a table and cut off a corner in absent-minded nervousness. It struck mo that this was a good idea, because it would save people knocking themselves on the edges, so I went round cutting off all the other pointed corners of the table. Believe it or not, immediately after that scene, I went into one of the executive's offices at the studio, and before I had realised what I was doing

I was hacking away at the corner of his table with my penknife. The rounded corner is still on view for anyone who wishes to see it—but I've never let that executive visit me at home!

Did you know that all film players are given the opportunity of buyiiig their screen clothes at half-price after the completion of a picture? Of course the studio a6ked me if I'd like to buy the Roman togs that I wore in "Roman Scandals."

But the best laugh I've had in this direction was when we finished filming "Kid Millions." Otto Hoffman appears as Mahatma Gandhi in the picture, and at- the end he said he'd like to buy his cotton loincloth. The studio charged him a shilling for it. . By the way, I became a passionate lover for the first time in my life in this picture. Not once in any of my other films had I ever kissed a girl. But I did in "Kid Millions''—! kissed Ethel Merman. Oh, boy!