Daily News from New York, New York • 67

SUNDAY NEWS, OCTOBER 13, 1929 67 I f(VWf I I dflr 4-. 'L. I XS' i 'UK By MARK HELLINGER. KgEATS, sir? How many, please? Two? Certainly, sir. Right this way, sir.

Here are two, sir, just off the aisle. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." It was about fifteen years ago, and the boy was an usher in the Regent theatre, on 116th st. and 7th ave. For the pur poses of this story, we will refer to him as Jack.

needn't worry about that. I am starting at the very bottom in order to learn thoroughly the game that I love. "I know that I have a future as a scenic artist. You don't know what that is, dad, but you can rest assured that it's nothing to be ashamed of. "I hate cloaks and suits, father.

I hate all cut and dried businesses that spell nothing but money, money, money. If a man can't do as he wants to in life, what's the use of living? "Please don't worry, father. I won't be an usher very long and I'm going to make both you and mother very proud of me. Just you Gu Edwards 4" j4 LlL Morris Cest 1 s. Lenore Ulric Sophie Tucker Emma Carus She kissed him.

"Yes, dear," she smiled, "you know we are." "Then, sweetheart," he continued, "you must divorce him and marry meJ I will not go on like this. The whole thing is driving me crazy. 'Please go to him, dear, and tell him. Then, perhaps, I can work again. Perhaps he will As an usher.

I have to laugh when I think of it. And now look where he is. "Certainly is a funnr, world. But I always knew the boy had it in him." Three years ago Jack fell in love. That, in itself, was bad enough but the way that Jack fell was much worse.

He went give you your divorce without any trouble. "Please do this for me, darling. It will be much better so. You will make us both so much so very much happier." She thought for a moment. Then drew forth the ring he had bought for her that afternoon.

His lips muttered sonu-thing but no words came out. He reached for her cold hand and tenderly placed the ring upon her finger. Then he arose and walked rapidly from the morgue. The girl was buried with his ring on her finger. Jack disappeared from Broadway.

His parents did not see him. The few friends he had never knew what became of him. He never went back to his apartment. Tha studio v.as vacated and his effects were sold. There were many who swore that he had committed suicide.

Early last May, when Morris Gest's Passion Play was being offered at the Hippodrome with Adolph Fassnacht as the Christus, a strange looking man was one of the ushers in the balcony. His eyes seemed to stare through you and beyond you. He never smiled. Weird sort of a fellow, really. It was Jack.

His scenic work and his portrait painting wer According to Jules Dassin, who unfolded this yarn to us, Jack was in love with the world of the theatre. Only 19 years of age at that time, he was content to be an, usher in this small theatre. It was not, of course, his ultimate goal. He was artistically inclined and he dreamed of the day when he would mingle with the great stars of the footlights and work with them. Not as an actor, but as a great scenic artist.

Jack's father and mother could not understand their boy's actions. Sadly enough, families seldom can. Often, while he was in the theatre, they wvuld talk about the situation. And the mother always urged her husband to control the boy. "Don't you see, papa," she would eay, "that the boy is going to throw his life away? Ushering in a cheap theatre at the age of 19! What kind of a business is that? What will he become later in life? "You've got to talk to him, papa.

I can't do anything with him. He only laughs at me. You talk to him, papa. Wait up for him tonight. Tell him how we feel about his foolishness." So that night found the father waiting for his son.

When Jack came home, his father sat down with him in the small living room. "Jack," cried his father, "yoii are no longer a child. You graduated from high school last year and you are now 19 years of age. 1 am not a wealthy man as you know very well. But I wanted to give you what I never had a real education.

I wanted you to go through toUege. "You wouldn't hear of it. You 6aid you were tired of school and Wanted to go to work. That hurt me a little, but if that was the way you wanted it, why should I attempt to manage your life? I told you to go ahead." The boy shifted in his seat. "But, father," he asserted, His father stopped him.

"Wait a minute, Jack. Let me finish first. When I told you that you could go to work I figured that you would enter some respectable business. You might have gone into the garment or the silk business very easily. But do you do it? You do not.

"Instead, you become an usher in the Regent theatre. If you were downtown, at least, so many people might not see you. But you pick a show house that is only around the corner. And all the neighbors know what you are doing. "This is no business for a son cf mine.

You are a disgrace to your father and mother. What is your big idea? Are you getting a thrill because you show people their seats and see Gus Edwards and Emma Carus and Sophie Tucker eing for nothing? Is this my boy's ambition in life? "Be sensible, Jack. 1 can send you down to Reuben Sadowsky tomorrow and you can go to work in the cloak and suit business. That, at least, is a future." The boy shuddered. "Ugh," he muttered.

"Cloaks and suits! You don't understand me at all, father. Let me explain something to you. "I won't be an usher in the Recent theatre all my life. You she spoke. "1 11 do it, Jack," she said slowly.

"I'll do it for you. But I'm very much afraid. Very." He clasped her to him. "Don't be afraid, honey. Don't.

Go home now and wait for him. Tell him about our love and then come back to me here. I'll be wait and see." So his father sighed heavily and went to bed. And the next day found Jack on the job again. ''Seats, sir? How many, please? Two? Certainly, sir.

Right ttiis way, sir. Here are two, sir, just off the aisle. Yes, sir. Thank you, Eight years later, the boy had made good his boast. After the ushering job had come other positions around various theatres.

He began to be recognized in the profession. He designed several sets for Broadway productions. He painted several portraits that won recognition from the critics. He was doing well. He was living the life of which he had always dreamed.

Stellar lights in the theatrical business welcomed him in their homes. Lenore Ulric was one of his best friends, as was the late Margaret Lawrence. Among the males, Dick Barthelmess was perhaps his closest friend. He seldom had time to visit his parents now. But when he did, his father and mother gazed at him in awe.

They were the proudest people this side of the Social Register. They boasted of him to every one and no people in the world can boast more than the parents of a child who turned out to be unexpectedly successful. When it was warm, Jack's father would sit with the neighbors upon the stoop in front of their home. "Yes," he would murmur, "my Jack is a very successful man. Only twenty-seven years old, too.

You'd be surprised at the money he makes and the people he knows. Why, only the other night he called up Jolson from my house. And he called him Al! "I always knew my boy would be a success in the theatrical business. It seems like yesterday that he came out of high school and wanted to go to work in some business. He seemed to like cloaks and suits.

"But I said to him: 'My boy, are you sure that's what you want in life Be positive that you weren't created for some artistic work before you make up your mind. Wouldn't you like to be an artist? You paint very "Well, the more I talked to him the more he seemed to like the idea. He told me he would like to work his way up in the theatrical business and I told him to start in as an usher. He asked me if that wouldn't be too cheap a thing for him to do. And I told him no because people who make the greatest success generally start at the bottom.

"So that's how Jack started. waiting for my only love. Don't worry, dear." They kissed. And she left Jack left his home shortly after and walked down Broadway. He stopped at a jewelry store and bought a ring.

It was a ring for her. He would give it to her that goofy about a married woman whose husband was extremely jealous. This was no ordinary affair. For the first time in his life Jack was deeply, madly, stupidly in love. The girl was also in love' but whether or not it was the first time, we cannot say.

Probably not. Jack pleaded with her. He begged her to divorce her husband and marry him. But the girl shook her head. She was afraid of her husband.

"You don't know, Jack," she asserted, "how insanely jealous he is. If he ever found out about us he would kill us both. I know it, Jack. I am certain of it. "We'll just have to let things drift along the way they're going now.

A divorce is absolutely out of the question. I am married to a man who is on the verge of insanity. You cannot reason with him. Any mention of divorce would make a madman of him. "We're playing a dangerous game as it is, my love.

Let's leave well enough alone and get what happiness we can." So Jack said no more at the time. But he was not satisfied. He wanted this woman for himself. He wanted her legally. The thought that she belonged to another man hurt him horribly.

A year passed. His work had suffered tremendously. As a matter of fact, he could do no work. He could do nothing but dream of the girl he loved the girl who loved him. And always before him was the picture of the girl's husband, a man he had never met but whom he hated with all the venom in his soul.

"Dearest," he said to her one afternoon, "I simply can't stand this any longer. You -and I are deeply in love. Kiss me, darling, and tell me we are." both things of the past. Dowa and out, he had accepted this job at the Hippodrome. Where ho had been and what he had done in the last two years, only he can tell.

But once more he was an usher. Once more he was back where he started. He called up none of his friends. Evidently he didn't want them. He was standing at his post just before the performance one evening when an old friend appeared with a girl.

He handed the usher the tickets. Jack took them and the friend peered at him more closely. "Good Lord," shouted the friend, "it's Jack. Gee, you've gotten older. Where have you been all this lime?" Jack shook his head and looked straight ahead.

"I don't know you, sir," he murmured tiredly. "I don't know you. Then he raised a finger. "Follow me, sir," he said. "Thank you.

Right this way, please. Here are your two seats, sir, just off the aile. Yes, sir. Thank you." night as soon as she returned to his apartment. He went home again to wait.

6 o'clock. She would be there soon now. 6:30. Any minute now. 7 o'clock.

8 o'clock. 9 o'clock. 10 o'clock. And no sign of her. Jack could have waited for her until the end of time, and she would never have arrived.

For her husband had shot her through the heart and had then destroyed himself by leaping through a window. Perhaps you remember the story when it broke. At any rate, it makes little difference. The police never found out why. Late that night.

Jack was at the morgue. There is no use trying to describe his condition. He was a pitiable object. Sad. Very sad.

He knelt beside the sirl's body and gazed at the lips he would never kiss again. His trembling hands reached into his pocket. He.