The Salt Lake Tribune from Salt Lake City, Utah • 63

Sunday Morning I December 6 1936 Movie making is tame when "compared with adventures behind the footlights where famed performers have survived nearly every embarrassing experience possible even the losing of their pants Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (shown together below) shared a fearful moment when Lunt lost his pants-irv-the midst of a tense scene She stepped onthem he stepped out of and they went right "on with the act go up in hi line Then whin he heard what the voice was laying he began to get' red and furious The stagehand was reading from a prepared script containing all the choicest invectives in the colorful lexicon of the craft He told the' haplessactorjust what every- body though of him as a performer and as a person Customers in the front rows could aw that the man on the telephone was greatly agitated but they never guessed the true cause Finally haltingly he got through his lines then ripped out the telephone by the roots Probably no movie made from ever Great to the re- "Once in Train Robbery" cently lamented a Blue Moon" was as fantastically bad as somejrf the plays which now and then ventured on -Broadway Worst play of modern times in most opin- ions "was a little charade titled "Beyond Tb leading actress Mary Blair required police protection to get from jhe stage dootjto a taxi after it was all There was one scene though which the pudience approved That was when Miss Blair held some poison in her- hand and debated whether take it or not Finally she decided to it down and end it alL -The applause Was deafening "Will the Lord have mercy on whimpered poor Vivien Giesen in one of her lines in the awful of- eringJ'Love Kills" the Lord have mercy on howled a customer 'And that was the curse and benediction 'TWO seasons ago there a little something called to which waa incredibly vague" and mixed up An unlucky actor was required to bound through a window and loudly inquire of the cast: anybody know what this is all about? boomed the audience almost to a man The most ghastly so- quence of accidents in anybody's memory occurred in a revival of Hood" Howard Marsh was the nevolent bandit He and his merry men cantered on stage leaped off their horses and began to sing The horses neglected browsed among the scenery In no time at all trees buildings and brick walla were toppling all over the place YfHE show went on Came scene when Robin and Maid Marion rode in and di- mounted with athletic flourishes They got off agilely enough but Maid Marion's skirt was left behind caught on her side-saddle She recovered the dress and managed to get through her number somehow By now the audience was prepared for almost anything excepi what happened next For realistic effects during the song a couple of highly jharged wires were laid on the stage One was attached to the anvil the other to the hammer When the hammer struck the axrvil sparks flew It worked fine While the singer took his bow and moved toward the wings the audience clamored for an encore The singer came back and stopped to pick up the hammer While -stooping he rested his left hand on the anviL When the electrical circuit thus was completed the singer emitted a weirdly unmusical yelp and jumped 30 feet Some of the more coruerv-tive reminiscers believe it was only 20 fecL Anyway it provided a satisfying climafc I Claire Luce (above) and Fred Astaire did a dance in that left Luella Gear on the stage with nothing to do So Miss Gear finally hopped up on a table announced a mountain and got a big hand Constance even with Collier got that famed Eractical joker Sir Her-ert Tree by sticking a pin into his inflated rubber suit HOLLYWOOD 'YOU remember the time when Lionel Atwill lost his pants?" but Alfred Lunt was in a tougher spot He and Lynn were right in the middle of a heavy scene saw Francis Lederer fall off a mountain -right into the orchestra but did you see Ethel Barrymore step right out of her Collier was telling me In the restaurants the cocktail patios and on the shadowy fringes of the movie sets so run the reminiscences of the legitimate expatriates AJong about this time of year tyhen the Broadway stage season gets to booming there always is talk of changing the name of Hollywood to Nostalgia Calif Old troupers get Homesick lor the stage and the main reason is that they don't find movie making very exciting Edward Arnold says it's like an interminable rehearsal practicing 1 until each line and bit of action have been properly done just once Behind the footlights where anything can happen and often every performance is an individual There are the uncertainties of mischance critical human situations to be met and spine-tingling tests of aplomb For example: Fields has been doing all right in flickerland but never is he likely to experience quite the thrill of personal triumph that was his one night in Earl Carroll' ani-ties" Knapp in a first-night dither bumped into a piece of scenery The painted side of an entire building began to fall and Fields had to spring to aid and struggle rather desperately to right it me tell he panted "they're not building these houses nearly as strong aa they-used His ad libbed line drew such a laugh that thfc same piece of business was kept in the show after that i FRED ALLEN once turned a scene-stealing interruption to his own benefit As he sat in the footlights strumming a banjo and carrying on his dizzy monolog about his own lack of ability a mouse skittered across the stage Everybody even Allen watched the mouse Blinded by the lights it ran near him and be scooped it up and pocketed it never i -v- TOURING an entire act of "Goodbye Osgood Perkins bad to lie abed on the stage Fellow-players begrudged him the luxury so they went out and bought crackers Also an assortment of nude oysters With these they made Mr Perkins bed and he had to lie in it while speaking his lines as though nothing whatever were the matter One of the most conceited and arrogant actors in Hollywood used to be an extremely unpopular fellow in the Broadway theater Un- popular that is with stagehands electricians and all others whom he considered underlings make the most unreasonable demands and swear at them and try to get them fired He got his come-uppance though Got it on the last night of his last play There was scene which called for this actor to engage in a long telephone conversation and the lines he spoke were very important to the ploL Of course the telephone was an ordinary instrument which had not been connected with anything and all the actor had to do was carry on one end of an imaginary conversation But on this closing night the stagehands really connected the instrument and planted one of their crew on a phone at the other end When the actor heard a voice coming over the phone his surprise made him stammer and he said sadly ''that my act was as as that" According to the Hollywood anthologists a classic example of stage presence was displayed by Alice Nielson one evening long ago in "The Singing In the last act she was supposed to leap into the Arms of Richie Ling She leaped all fight but her wig fell off She disengaged herself turned to the audi-ence and bowed and she announced "My next imitation will be of Sarah Then she adjusted the wig' returned to Ling's arms and spolce the final dramatic lines of the play The audience howled but gave her a great ovation -J Among tests of aplomb though there probably never has been one like the embarrassment that confronted Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fon- tanne in the Theater Guild play The' two were alone' on thy stage in a tense scene 1 They were standing suspend -ers got tired and let go They let go and his -trousers fell off Well not off but in hobbling folds about his ankles The audience was ready to let go too wilh a yell of laughter But Lunt didn't grab at his trousers he went on talking Miss Fontanne also kept up her lines but she advanced and put one foot on the trousers while her hus-band stepped out of them He kicked them under a sofiu Not until the curtain went down which mercifully was did the audience laugh But as-it laughed it applauded its tribute to tire couple who had saved a situation which other hands (or on other legs) likely would have ruined the entire play The film studioa are fine for trifling buffoon- ery but the true test of an mettle is when he is made to face discomfiture before large numbers of cash customers Suavest practical joker of'Hhe stage was of all people an Eng-Iishman Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree do almost anything for amusement liked to go Around unhooking the players' costumes on the stage Once in a particularly dramatic and sinister scene in -Eternal he went through the whole thing with a shiny spangle pasted on the tip of his nose Constance Collier appeared with him a good many tiines In "Oliver when she war playing Nancy Sykes to his Fagin he had to bring forth and empty a bag of loot at each performance The swag was never the same it might include Miss Collier's street clothes filched from her dressing room or a live chicken She got even with him though Good-and even She caught him off guard when he was wearing his famous inflated rubber suit as Falstaff in "Merry Wives of She stuck a pin into him and he deflated wlthTan audible hissing sound "Gay when it came to the stage brought together Fred Astaire and Claire Luce in a shoW-stoppingrcapering dance' over chairs-and table-tops The number also brought Luella Gear from the wings and she had an extremely awkward wait with nothing to do if Astaire and Miss Luce gave any encores She soon began to suspect that a lot of the encores were intended merely to test her stage presence So the next evening she scampered across the stage and jumped on a table mind she said to the astonished dance team only a mountain Her planned revenge drew such a laugh that it was made part of the show (Copir lsrUt list kr XvwrrWMk IbsulMt.