Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • Page 20

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1934 aprioous utwits I TTO KRUGER i everything repudiated by the copy books. He is a living' refutation of all axioms, maxims and aphorisms. He seldom finishes what he begins and usually loses interest before making a good start. To an earnest worker, who is convinced that whatever is begun must be finished and who conscientiously finishes everything he begins gets is a startling spectacle to be gazed at in awe and wonderment. Otto Kruger himself deplores his inconstancy, capriciousness and vacillation, but like all charming people, he manages to endear himself to everyone because of his faults rather than his virtues.

There is an old Chinese alalecta which covers the Kruger case with neatness and lucidity: "Some patterns are more nearly perfect because they are not finished; the flawless vase has been in concept only; to the man of genius, nothing is completed; many gold threads are missing from the embroidered coat, even from the coat of the Son of Heaven." Otto Kruger is one of those clever men who can lift one eyebrow ironically, whi.K the other stays in its well ordered place. When he looks at you with that slightly sardonic expression and with a gay good nature shining through his twinkling grey eyes, you find yourself feeling a little sorry for all the heavy, stern, severe men who count the cost and are full of good deeds in a naughty world. If is quite easy to see why he can successfully portray a young lover, a middle-aged lover or a lover grown old, with equal effectiveness. -He is as ageless as a summer cloud. Still, they are making more or less of: a tragedian of him and he does that will, also.

He- doesn't mind being the husband who is deserted, if that's the kind of husband written into the script. After all, he claims only one real and consistent doctrine. He has made acting his serious business and. to that one reality he clings with the tenacity of a bulldog. By Molly Marsh LT HAS got to be the chief topic of conversation at certain luncheons, bridge' teas and cocktail parties as to whether Otto Kruger is a heart-smasher or whether he is just "terribly inter.

5 In general, those from 30 to 40 find him fascinating, while those from 20 to 30 find him "utterly irresistible and just too, too divinely exciting." It has not been the privilege of this writer to speak name and not have it greeted with: "Oh, my dear, he is wonderful," or "Oh' that wonderful certainly makes my heart beat or "Otto is my favorite actor, of course!" So there you are. We like light and frivolous everywhere except in the home. Foregathering in a vacant omce at the M-G-M Studios I Kruger unromantically deep in a discussion as to the comparative merits of certain "lures for baiting the fish in the Virginia Lakes in the High Sierras. He had made certain lures ot pieces of wood, painted with mother-of-pearl nail polish, which had brought the fish leaping to his hooks. My hat, with an artificial silver feather, became at once the object of his concentration.

He wanted the feather for a new "lure." Having got it for that purpose myself, I saw no reason why it should be wasted on fish, but there you are! I offered it to him. If he hadn't been Otto Kruger, he would probably have got it over my dead body! Nobody is immune to the Kruger charm, it seems. Even the hardened publicity man to whom he was talking couldn't tear himself away. "It'c my analytical nature," Kruger explained. "That's why I invent all sorts of silly things.

Somebody told me about a wooden lure and I immediately had to experiment with one. I stuck a piece of mother-of-pearl on one bit of wood and it looked fascinating. Unfortunately I had no more pearl, so I had to think of something that looked like polish! That's the kind of mind I have. I can do wonders with other people's ideas. But I have no creative ability, at all.

HEN I was on the stage, my friends around the club used to call me: 'Lucky 'Lucky they'd say. 'He never misses; always plays in a "As a matter of fact, I did have luck. ''But I never had a part in a play in all my 15 years of Broadway success that I hadn't taken to pieces and done over. Sometimes the whole play. I could never have thought of doing it from the beginning; I'm not creative; but I could, always show the author what was wrong with it.

Together we would rehash it and make it stick." Just then I noticed that his hair is a sort of lightish brown or sandy, not He continued his narrative: "It is this insatiable curiosity, which has made it for me to really conquer anything," he was saying. "As soon as I know what it is about and have analyzed it, I am all for finding out something new. "Take music, i love it. First 1 learned to play the piano, but I wouldn't practipe it conscientiously enough to perfect a Beethoven sonata, a Chopin prelude or a Liszt rhapsody. In order to cover my of technique, I improvised.

Now, if our friends come in and ask me to play, I immediately 'cover' by asking if it will be all right if I put in-a few flourishes of my own. I am scared to death to attempt to go straight through with a classical composition." (The catch in that for most of us is the fact we couldn't improvise successfully. But I didn't interrupt him to say so.) "After the piano, I wanted to learn the violin. I did. Sketchily, of course.

Then the 'cello interested me. I took that up with tremendous enthusiasm, but not for long. Before I got far with it, flageolet claimed my attention. That didn't last long either, for somebody introduced me to the French horn. So now I play them "It's a terrible thing to do so many things half way well.

It would have been better had I concentrated on the piano. But I couldn't. I am like a butterfly in my tastes. I am still amazed that I am married to the same wife after 15 years. But she knows me." He grinned knowingly and went on: "On the stage I couldn't get out of finishing a character.

That's the only reason I'm an actor. Often I have felt like telling the audience to go home, but I didn'c dare. I was the 'Counsellor at Law' or some other character, and I had to remain that way the curtain fell. "Since coming into pictures, I try all sorts of ways to evade my responsibilities. I can't do it.

There ruger ooks is always somebody standing over me to keep me going. "But before I started to appear before the camera, I went into the sound recording room and learned everything I could about calibration, etc. It probably doesn't do me a bit of good, as an actor, but at least I know what happens when I speak. Just curiosity. Doesn't mean a thing.

"Well, yes, it does mean a little something. I have learned one of the reasons why actors can't let themselves go the camera. As a matter of fact Otto gives just SO per cent of his abilities to the screen; sometimes less. ARE the victims of the mechanics of pictures, as yet, but the fact that they are literally still in their infancy is what makes the whole thing so interesting to me." He got up and took a few turns around the before resuming: "There is another good thing about pictures. There is a contract that must be lived up to.

This gives a consistently inconsistent person like myself -a. cneck. I may want to quit and run out, but I doji't do it. I can't afford it. With the theatsr in its "resent state of collapse, it is a very comfortable feeling to know that the wolf cannot howl over every other weekend." 1 I Otto Kruger is quite a r.hap.

Not everyone can spend 17 years in colleges and universities and come out without a degree of some kind. Yet Kruger did just that. He started practically every course in the curriculum at some time in his never finished any of them! For a person who- has never finished anything, he has done very well by an-d for himself, however. He was born in Toledo, the son of Bernard Alben Kruger, an accountant, and Elizabeth Winers Kruger. The family is Dutch and he is directly related to Oom Paul Kruger of Boer War fame.

During his grade school he; attended the public schools of Toledo. He next turned, up at the University of Michigan, where he studied engineering. But he got tired of engineering and went to where he made a fraternity and not much else. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia, wanted to give him a degree, after he had become famous, but despite all the ingenuity of a firm of accountants, no additions of credits made it possible to tack one on him, so he escaped from college unscathed. From forest ranger to telephone operator to stage work in some mindt companies.

Then on to New York, where according to his contemporaries, "the lucky devil made good at once. 1 On Broadway he made history in "The Royal Family," "The Nervous Wreck," "Young America," "Seven Chances," "Captain Kidd, "Here Comes the Bride," "The Gypsy Trail," "To the Ladies," "Will Shakespeare," "Trelawney of the Wells," "The Great Barrington," "Counsellor at Law," "Private Lives" and others. His first screen role was with Lee Tracy in "Turn Back the after he had been brought to California by Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer, with whom he is under contract. HE OWNS A mountain at Elizabethtown, New York, having bought it to preserve the trees. He goes fishing alone about once a year, in order tr discover, as he says, just how unimportant fellows like Kruger really are.

He is a trained athlete, has a very erect figure, plays a good Otto name spells charm to feminine film fans, young and old. A former idol of the stage, Kruger has quickly soared to top ranking in the spite of himself, he declares. game of golf, fences and plays all the musical instruments heretofore described. In Hollywood he has a charming Mediterranean house in Beverly Hills, overlooking the lights of Hollywood and the ocean. His wife, formerly Sue MacManamy, of New York, and a young daughter, Ottilie, complete the family.

Close friends of the Krugers are the two Barrymore families, Douglas Fairbanks, Conrad Nagel, the Ralph Morgans and others. "Another time when I had to go through with what I started," he explains, "was during the war, when I joined the Navy. I had no choice about what I could do or would do there, either. I did as I was and liked it. "I always notice that most people who are inclined to leave things in the air and never finish them often are compelled to carry on straight through to the end, whether they want to or not.

"Every morning I awaken with the best intentions, but I don't carry them out. Musicians have made me ashamed by playing much better than when their talent was much less than mine. Golf players lick me, although I have a good swing; swimmers can beat me, although my stroke is all right. I'm. one of those chaps described as 'A jack of all trades and master of "Yet oddly enough, I have observed and analyzed both ether people and myself and I have noticed that many of the men who gnash their teeth and work like, galley slaves don't get on much better, and certainly they don't have as much fun!" No.

The Otto Krugers make their own rules. Even their faults become virtues, while the rest of us plod along the best we can, with no mountains in Elizabethtown and no charming wives, homes and children in Beverly Hills. Still, for those who believe in axioms, maxims and aphorisms, it must be admitted that Herr Kruger has one job of work which he sees straight through to a finish and there's no evading or When he acts, he acts!.