| Show 2 Suiula Sunday Morning- UlK - June jlali £ak$ Tribune The Bride's When 4 1939 w il ente'ri I business elry years ago tha sens! coming ' slating the ex of years it w tom for the I ents to give t ter a set of fc those In day silver sterling and costly n to be c "had plated ware years impro rr of esses combined wi have silver r price of flats very excellent came popula brides one th moted by t themselves th selecting the sterling that like to live s At 42 Walter Brennan who has more ideas than teeth is doing all right for such an old codger life and of an her family anc name of the the jeweler w it was easy street and Brennan demand for every eccentric ancient Me isn't vindictive but he thoiouglily enjoys turning down offers from former chiscl-cr- s today sh So is After that has been character available i Me can afford to choose because Goldwyn lends bis players more than be uses them and Brennan was offered eight roles when he came the rich but bride whose not afford its all with in the ding expense because ma friends buy t desires most several piece ver she has k V s terns than ' On This year I have more ap i s lucky “The guy who hasn’t a cent is always talking about tire big deal he's putting over and the one without a job blows about the part he turned down? Well my weakness is talking about how I'm always going to punch somebody in the nose But I’ve been knocked out so many times in mob scenes another lime won't hurt me" Sometimes lie does take a swing and he is forever cussing some overbearing studio hireling who picks on extras or on one of Brennan’s friends of the hard-lucdays "Don’t they ever think there may be a day decoming when they'll be out of a job?” be their full of manded who the "Don’t stars are own impel lance believe that sometime they'll pose and hold it for the photographers” — he draped his lanky body in the doorway and beamed professionally — "and nobody will pay You’ve got to be down for them any attention asked In checking of silver alres by many brides we I the momem popular one Greenbrier most popula Ro: Rambler follow Royt Reed and Ba Lee (only on Kir a month) h Repousse Francis First Diana and equally beau You have si Lace silver a Towle We tracted for sale of this tern and t w vertisement hope to hav’ By Lucie Neville HOLLYWOOD on display at it will conte is a disreputable-lookin- old g THERE for popular other most signs the name of W alter Bren- Iras been woiking around town for quite a while first at one studio then another — anywhere he can earn an honest Academy Award So far he has two for the best performance by a supporting actor The Swedish Swan in in 1937 "Come and Get was followed " the this year by bluegrass grandpop of "Kentucky” In the years the Academy has been bronze out statuettes for the best handing of the movie industry only two other players Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis have enough to use for bookends Right now' Brennan is learning how to he an orchestra leader in one uneasy lesson and the cherubim and seraphim of Goldwyn's "Angela Making Music" are giggling into their fiddles and French horns Me can’t read music and swears he doesn't know anything at all about it so the technical duties of his role trouble him Tire rest of the character is right up his alley because it is that of a dreamy arid amiable old a music teacher who wears a seedv codger smoking jacket carpet slippers ami a dejected mustache Actually Brennan is 42 and a pirlty natty dresser — dark green gabardine shirt paisley scarf plaid sports jacket And steel rimmed It" 1 A sterling s not just a t utility posse that carrier third and f lions and t multitude memories round e'l looms tl ' anc one that h banquet ta most inlima of one's ov the f tioned abo' all the patt are sold All us in Salt Brennan’s part a3 a Swedish lumberjack in “Come and Cet It” This is a brought his first award scene from that picture — Brennan Frances Farmer Edward Arnold 1 1 specs Maybe they’re white gold hut the way he wears them they might as well he steel — looks over their tops for e like an close-rang- school principal He collects ancient coats and hatj for the same reason he absorbs the mannerisms appearance of every sexagenarian he Used ill some Futuie picture lichees and jo Me can hardly wait until lie’s in full makeup with mustache and slimy tailcoat to show himself to the children’s oichestra They all knew him at rehearsal because they had seen him in "Kentucky" hut they thought he was an old old man 1 hey couldn’t have paid him a higher com1 le is tickled pliment silly when studio gate-medon't know him in plain clothes and more pi oud than relieved that he escapes recognition m pieview crowds — probably the only actor in lollywnnd who likes to look older than he is "I’m not a glamor hoy and I never get the girl" Biennan said "I like to play old people because there’s something to them Did you ever see anybody under 30 w ith any real character or And that old guy in expression in his face? ’Kentucky'--he- ll the seat of his punts was 84 T ou didn’t need to see his face" years old n 1 ! I 1h likes to play old people and it will d Sam Goldwyn' and his publicity department no good to hint around in the trade papers that Biennan is being considered as a successor to Will Rogers in revivals of pictures in which the cowboy commentator starred I le isn't going to ghost for anybody lis denial wasn't made with the usual reverent humility most playeit assume when it u suggested that they are "another Valentino" or "another Mane Diesslcr" Me just said "Nuts to that! I'm going to he Walter Brennan 01 coutse I could give a pretty good imitation of Will — ” and he did with one of Producer Goldwyn for an encore If coaxed hr (dso will give you vocal imita 1 tions of new babies of jackasses and of the peacocks on tire ranch adjoining his that nightly tear Ills nerves to shreds Between tire peacock screams learning to wave a baton convincingly and memorizing five pages of dialog the first day he was fit to he tied when he began "zngels Making Music" Me was still sunburned and tired from a location trip of several weeks at Sun Valley Idaho where 20th-Fowas making the first part of "Stanley and Liv- Brennan is pretty neat (see above) in everyday life but when he makes up he is not so neat witness his appearance (at right) as Jeff in the film "Stanley and Livingstone" hack to Ins home studio for “zXngels Making Music” "I thought I was going to have-- a few days off when I finished ‘lire Castles'” Bren- nan said "But 20t!i-Fowas starting ‘Stanley and Livingstone’ and they called me to come for a set of store teeth in and get incasuied Couldn’t use my own because these had to have vacancies in front All of Brennan’s are absent and he probably is pretty sick of having them publicized because he tells several versions of how he lost them The accepted story is that they were during the war A destroyed by a more dramatic version is that they were kicked out by an extra’s heavy hoot during a mob scene when Biennan was knocked down by a he'll pressure hose If Ire's feeling the false hit that teeth the ones were extra say his success in old men's Invariably anyway roles is attributed to the missing snappeis a while to know who your friends are Mis best one probably is Bill Steele "I've been woiking without a letup since 2 1938" he said "And 1 wish they January could have distributed some of that work eight 1 could or nine years ago certainly have used I was doing anything — an extra at it then $750 a day when I could get it braying like a jackass for $10 crying like a hairy (or $25 at studios that wouldn't pay the regular rate of $75 for kids I've kept babies and old men out of woik for years" Me even stunted once in desperation for money driving a car at 45 miles an bout off a pier All he could think was "Did I pay that insurance premium?" Mis first movie job was as a dress extra for Two years before he had Lhuversal in 1925 had a comfortable foitunr proceeds of a pineapple plantation ill Guatemala and of the real The money went relate boom in California boom-booBiennan and turned to overnight Me haunted studios walking miles the movies to and from woik to save bus fate and begging casting duectors in vain to let him play the old men roles he knew he could do n I I IS fust real break was as the stationmaster ' in 'Wedding Night" — just an extia role imiil Goldwyn saw him downing on the set and had Ins script writlrrs fatten the pait Old Atrocity in "Bathary Coast" topped that and got him a Goldwyn contract shanty boat owner — vacated 'death — closely followed the "Lome I Kc ei and Get and the role of the by ( hie bale's Academy-winnin- g It” Week Mag sine-- Printed In U S A) n k 1)UT 1 he was playing oldsters in F ¥ IS own hoys — Andy 17 and Mike 15 — are referred to affectionately as "those two clunks” Me says definitely that the daughter small-tim- ’ vaudeville when lie was fresh out of Rindge in Massachusetts And when lie was 6 he was tolling home tramps and other unsavory diameters with the promise of a free meal Maybe it was just childish fascination for these gentlemen of the road and their tall tales then and even now they are specimens to study and reconstruct as screen characters But it Biennan has an immense goes derprr than that sympathy for and understanding of old people of rhildien and underdogs in general With it fine for a stuffed sliiils pompous assist-an- t scorn is and all the Great of assistants ‘ 1 wood lolly "T ou know how a fellow always brags the most about vsliit he hasn’t got?" Brennan do" since he boy who has been Brennan's stand-irated that luxury At least Steele is the first for Slim Summerville friend he mentions is another and ha whom Biennan was stand-iremembers with relish the ribs he pulled on the star Actually he has more friends than Ire can possibly know And before he finishes lint picture he will have 45 devoted admirers — the members of the California Junior Symphony Orchestra that is playing in the Jascha Heifetz Brennan couldn't keep those starring film youngsters from liking him if he wauled to x ingstone" I a cow- lech Ruth will he an actress Tire clunks probably will he farmers at least they’re headed in that direction with horses and cow of their own Mike got an English jacket for Christmas hut Andy got a load of alfalfa for Ins cows from his thoughtful father Far from the dreamy impiactical character he is playing now Brennan is typically New in Ins business Fie hired an agent as soon as he began to get any recognition at all Fven the ranch isn't a losing proposition especially when he counts the enjoyment from its garden all the cream he wants 1 le and room to keep Ins horses brings his lunch from home when studio cafes don't own suit him and says flatly that lie doesn’t go anywhere a tier woik ""When you've got health and money ami the right kim of a home that's enough" Ira said "And I' vc got all those" Lmgland-hardlreade- ' d |
