The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 93

so in it It Page Twelve Quit Architecture for the Stage YOU study the lives of famous actors and actresses you will find that the incidents that start them off on their histrionic careers are most diverse and varied. One goes on the stage because is a tradition in the family; another becomes an actor because the legends of the stage fascinate him. Still another confesses that if it had not been for a medicine show proprietor he would never have thought of becoming an actor. But there is only one man in America who has become an actor merely because it was cold. Roland Young was born in London.

His father was -and still is--a prominent and talented architect. Young Roland Young showed considerable promise as a draughisman and designer already in his early teens and so it was decided, at a solemn family conclave, that be should become, like his father, an architect. In due course, Roland matriculated at the university and decided to learn everything that one could possibly learn from one's teachers. He WAS a good draughtsman, but he did not like mathematics. Nor algebra.

Nor geometry, either descriptive or just the plain kind. And because he did not like figures it took him much time to commit them to memory. And one fine day--or rather, one nasty day-Roland Young caught a cold. It was cold, and he got a cold. It's A pretty common and everyday occurence- in Roland Young's case this particular cold was of paramount importance.

For a8 a consequence of this cold, he flunked his mat. exams. The flunk was soon followed by another one and Roland Young lost Interest, in. architecture. After when one flunks his exams one cannot very well be enthusiastic about one's studies.

So he, went to see his father and told him that he was not very crazy to go on with architecture. Young Sr. looked at him. "Well, what do you want to do? Chuck it? he asked. answered Roland.

"All. right, chuck it." So Roland chucked it. And, that was all there was to it. At. first he did not know what to do with himself.

Then he remembered that he appeared. at some amateur theatricals. He thought that acting was, as good as anything else and he directed his steps to the nearest ager and applied for a job. To his greatest surprise he got one. By George Halasz So he made his first stage appearance in the old thriller, "Third Degree," which was produced in London under the title "Find the Woman." Young's role was of not very, very big, but he did all right.

Roland Young had become an actor. A short time later, in 1912, to be exact, he came to America in a play called "Hindle Wakes," which William A. Brady produced at the Maxine Elliott Theatre in New fork. He was accepted as an actor. Then he played in a number of plays the Washington Square Players- -forerunners of the Theatre Guild- -put on, in a musical comedy with Peggy Wood and Donald Brian, called "Paddies," in Clare Kummer's "Rollo's Wild Oat," and Shaw's "The Devil's Disciple," and his fame grew with every play.

Then came, in 1924, his big success, "Beggar on Horseback." which he played for two years. In "The Last of Mrs. Cheney," that followed "Beggar on Horseback," be also appeared for two years. His latest part is the title role in "The Queen's Husband." Roland Young, Intellectual Comedian, Thanks a Cold for Shift in Professions "The Queen's Husband" is the first play in which he will be seen in his native land since his emigration to America, when that comedy will be produced in London during the coming months. And it will be the first play in which his father will see his son play the star role.

Roland Young Roland Young For Roland Young has not been to England since 1912. He is one of the very few English-born actors who have taken out their American citizenship papers. According to reliable authority, you can count on your fingers those British actors who have become American citizens. And there are dozens and dozens of them who have not. "My home is in America, I live here, make my living here, I am married to an American woman (his wife is the daughter of Clare Kummer, the -I really can't see why anyone should be surprised to hear that I am an American citizen," says Roland Young.

He is an excellent comedian, the possessor of an individual personality, droll and refreshing, which has 8 wider outlet with us than in England. He is at his best in "high comedies," in comedies that appeal more to the brain than to the eye. His hobby is to collect penguins. He has at least sixty of them, all kinds of them, carved of wood, cast in bronze, china, porcelain, earthenware. Several of them are always on his dressing table in the dressing room.

He has great big stuffed one, presented to him by William Beebe, the explorer. That one is called "Reginald." He was first attracted to them in the London Zoo. And ever since he likes them. His hobby is well known among his friends and when Robert Sherwood, editor. of Life, learned that Roland Young would play the title role in his comedy, "The Queen's Husband," he wrote into the play several scenes for the sole benefit of Roland Young and his penguins.

In this play Young, as the King of an imaginary country somewhere in the North Sea, has a penguin on his desk all the time, to the great and constant irritation and annoyance of the Queen, who never lets an opportunity pass by without uttering caustic remarks as regards these aquatic birds. Besides being an excellent comedian and a lover of penguins Roland Young is a good caricaturist. This is the one thing that he has preserved from his days as a student of architecture, this love of drawing. He makes sketches of his friends, of his fellow actors -these are pretty well known to the readers of the dramatic pages--and has illustrated several books, among them the book version of John Howard Lawson's "Roger Bloomer." He is rather taciturn and reticent by nature and feels intimate with his friends only. He has never yet written a play nor does he intend to write one.

He dresses well, with impeccable taste. As a rule, he wears soft hats. He is particularly fond of telling the adventures of his dresser with the inhabitants of Mars. This fellow, a faithful and reliable Japanese, has a radio with which one fine day he picked up some mysterious signs. He claims they were signals from Mars, sent especially to him by the inhabitants of that far-away and mysterious planet.

Of course, we know that the Jap picked up static or perhaps a few Morse signals, but the dresser is positive that what he heard was a most important communication from the Martians. Day after day, while he hands over to Young the powder, the grease-paint and the mascara, he tells him of his adventures. Some time ago, said the Jap, he received word that the Martians were angry with him. Why they treat him abominably, he does not know, but they are positively very angry with him. They told him he would die.

The Jap feels that the Martians are very cruel. Often he wakes up in the middle of the night, with a pang in his chest: the Martians have a new complaint to make against him. There are times when he receives signals from them without the medium of the radio. He understands their language pretty well by now--but he cannot make out why they are angry with him. Roland Young is very fond of the chap because he is an excellent dresser and excellent dressers are not SO numerous these days.

Furthermore, he knows everything that a good dresser must know. Consequently, he tried at first to convince the Jap that there was nothing to the Martian signals. But the Jap cannot be convinced. Roland Young offered to give him one of his penquins and told him to offer it as a sacrifice to the Martians. Perhaps that would appease and placate them.

But the Japanese refused the penguin. So Roland Young, besides being a fine comedian, a collector of penguins and a caricaturist, is one of the foremost authorities in the world on the customs, habits, pleasures and feelings of the inhabitants of that faraway and mysterious planet called Mars..