HOLLYWOOD’S CHARACTER ACTORS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 138, 13 June 1931, Page 18 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD’S CHARACTER ACTORS

MEN WHO SPECIALISE IN CERTAIN TAPES IMPORTANT, YET NEVER FEATURED (Written for the “Chronicle” by Reg. Kelly.) How many ardent picture-goers have inwardly expressed a desire to appear on the screen. It is not so much the desire to see themselves fliting across the silver sheet, but the glamour, the glory, and the worldwide publicity that they desire. Nearjy all want to be famous —nearly all want to be known. But even in Hollywood just a few of the very select get the publicity. The juveniles and the dramatic leads are written across the theatre tops in coloured lights in the great cities, but never the character actor, who, perhaps, is a greater artist in his line than the fortunate few who are forever being pushed before the public eye.

To tell a story on the screen it is necessary to have characters and “ character actors” . .. those men and women who are forever before the make-up box. But don’t run away with the idea that they don’t share in the big money. There are many character men, specialists in certain roles whose pay envelopes are just as fat as the majority of featured players. There are men in the motion picture colony who specialise in butler characterisations. Every picture with a modern society setting invariably uses a butler, so we find a separate butler section in the ranks of Hollywood screen players. Australian hostesses, in search of the perfect butler, should look to Hollywood and not to England.-In England butlering is a profession. In Hollywood it is an art. But then we could hardly expect our hostesses to pay the salary that our butler from the motion picture colony would expect. Such players as Wilson Benge, Edgar Norton. Harold Nelson, Nicholas Soussanin," Burt Marburgh and Sidney Bracey have been known to steal important scenes right away from the star of the picture by their passive artistry as actor-butlers. One of Soussanin s greatest roles was “the waiter who wept” in Adolphe Menjou’s picture, “Service for Ladies.” Hollywood has never forgotten it. On the strength of this performance Soussanin was cast in more important roles but was a failure, which proved the old saying “Once a butler, always a butler.” You see, these character men have schooled themselves for a certain role which they play with remarkable artistry, but cast in a different part, they are all at sea. Edgar Norton won critical praise for his butlering in Bancroft’s Love Brutes.” As the sub-limited butler in “The Love Parade,” he won eveu more. One of the busiest butlers in Hollywood is Wilson Benge, who has been the faithful serving man in so many pictures he cannot recall them all. One of his most recent performances was in Clara Bow’s “Her Wedding Night.” The part had an important bearing on the major theme of the story; as important, in fact, as those played by Skeets Gallagher, Charlie Buggies and others in the cast. Benge., who seldom misses a day’s work before the cameras, has a ready explanation for his almost consistent employment. “The butler automatically slips into the script of every society drama, melodrama or comedy that is written,” he explains. “The butler, is, was, and always will be a staple character of tne screen dramatist. That is why, early in my screen career, I deliberately set about to ‘type’ myself as a butler. 1 wanted casting directors to think of Wilson Benge the minute their eyes met ‘butler’ in the script. It took hard work to bring that situation about. 1 was forced many times to turn down parts a little higher in the social scale, as you might say, and to insist on being the butler or valet, before I won the reputation I wanted. But now 1 have it. And my uniforms are always busy. ”• Perhaps the better known of Hollywood’s character actors is Guy Oliver, whose name has appeared on the cast of more than three hundred pictures. Oliver has been playing minor parts in Paramount pictures since that company’s inception twenty years ago. He has had regular work during all those

years, but has never been under contract until this year. The role of sheriff has been his principal part, but he has portrayed so many other characters that he has won the reputation as Hollywood’s most employed character actor. Because he works in so many pictures, Oliver’s salary would exceed that, of a great number of featured players, but he never shines in the publicity spotlight. It would be a safe bet that ninety per cent, of the regular motion picture fans haven ’t even heard of him. Hollywood, too, has its freak character actors. There is August Tollaire with his magnificent white beard. Without his beard he would be a short rotund little old gentleman with nothing much to distinguish him from some several hundred others on the casting lists. But with his beard . . . ah, ha! He is a personage, a man in demand, an absolutely indispensible part of every Paris street scene, French cafe set, Beaux Arts Ball, or Lonchamps race meeting that nearly always may be found in work at the various Hollywood studios. Tollaire and his flowing white beard will be seen in Paramount’s comedy, “Finn and Hattie,” featuring the Australian Leon Errol, Sazu Pitts, and Mitzi Green. Pens at times have gone lyrical over Tollaire’s inspiring Niagara of snowy hair. One writer once described him as “the man who has dedicated his life to a set of whiskers.” Such in fact is true, for Tollaire is said to give his pct, luxuriant baths in lukewarm milk, to stroke it every night with a camel hair brush, and to press it with an iron as tenderly as a mother holds her babe For why not. His beard is just as important to him as a tradesman and his tools. Countless stories have been written of how- persons secure work in motion pictures. Here’s the latest to join the ranks of the unsung ehaTacter actors. Two years ago, in London, Eric Stacey decided to come to Hollywood. Knowing how hard it was to crash the gates, he sought a logical method. Finally, he bought a 191-1 English taxicab and shipped it to the film capital. Studios demand authenticity so Stacey put his auto to w-ork, and always appeared as its driver. In this way he received two pay envelopes. One for his taxi and one for his acting. Stacey has nowscrapped his motor-car, if it can be called such, because he now fills the more important role of assistant-direc-tor at the Paramount Studios. Since the increased popularity of stories of the American underworld we find scores of players who adapted themselves to the ideal gangster type. Actors who know how to work a machine gun and carry a “rod” under the left arm like the best of ’em in Chicago. Francis McDonald is perhaps one of Hollywood’s best “gangsters.” An ideal “tough guy” and a gang leader, Hollywood keeps him in regular employment. No doubt you will remember him in Jack Oakie’s recent starring pisture, “The Gang Buster.” McDonald recently admitted that he had never met a real racketeer.

We could go on indefinitely quoting instances of some of Hollywood’s wellknown character men. Men, who in the film colony are of real importance but to screen fans just a part of the setting.