Show I 1 ca 14 atlo 1 I HOMER OM EM eo t dav 0 1 0 R CROY C IV eW NU SERVICE THE THUS fan fait amos croy old hll his wu wife settled on a firm farm in mil bourl where homer bomer was wai born homer was wai the first croy to finish high sch school 00 I 1 and ana college ne he went to new york secured mae a position on an a woman maca a tine one married had two children a boy and girl Ms bis first novel was wa coone boone stop having lost both his father and ro mother other he took his family to visit europe paris la in tact fact france la in general did not appeal to him it was while on this trip that nomer homer jr took suddenly III and died americans strangers all came to his aid and helped in every way possible proving that the country ue meant something they returned to america disappointed with europe CHAPTER 1 well I 1 suppose I 1 could go to work at my regular hollywood salary but I 1 vvo would uld have to have my expenses id have to take that up with chicago the very least I 1 could afford to do the job for I 1 said once more enore the businessman you know working pretty cheap he nodded understandingly at the plight of the workingman IU ill cau call chicago and let you know the elevator and I 1 floated down together it long before I 1 was living in chicago in the stevens hotel with all expenses paid oh boyl I 1 went out on a tour of three states and found that a dealer was a filling station man one day to get the feel of it I 1 went out on an oil truck and helped deliver gas gasoline oline and fuel oil to farmers in wisconsin and finally I 1 wrote the training film it was filmed in hollywood under the title stan and was shown in the midwestern states controlled by that company the most ambitious training film that had ever been made then came the great the wonderful moment I 1 put all the training film money carefully aside some magazine stuff I 1 had already written sold so when I 1 was through with the film I 1 hurried home to missouri as fast as I 1 could go and went in to see the representative of the eastern insurance company I 1 asked him how things were they were just plain bad he said as only an insurance company depre representative enta can say it and there was the situation on the croy farm his company had been riding him he looked pretty disturbed well I 1 said 1 I suppose I 1 had better pay that off he smiled pleasantly one of my jokes lets figure up how much it is I 1 said and hauled out a check you mean all of it he gasped 1 I 1 might as well do it now as any time I 1 said as if paying off a mortgage was a mornings trifle then I 1 had a glimpse into a field that made book writing seem as dependable pen dable as a corner post after I 1 finished family honeymoon which I 1 consider my best comedy I 1 sat looking at it with paternal pride maybe it would make a pla play y then and there I 1 condensed the plot into these lines A professor in the middle west falls in love with a young and attractive widow who has four children he proposes and is accepted As the happy bride and groom are getting ready to leave they are forced at the last moment to take the children along on the honeymoon many strange things ha happen but in the end all is well and happiness again reigns I 1 sent this with a note to owen davis and in no time at all he had me on the telephone he was in th the middle of a play of his own he said eaid and had two commitments on his desk but he liked the honeymoon idea and would I 1 send him the manuscript I 1 got it to 35 east street so fast that he must have thought the messenger was already downstairs forty eight hours later owen davis telephoned that he had read it all in one night and that lie he was willing to drop everything and start the professor and his bride off on their honeymoon I 1 was delighted the theater wise owen davis 1 after a while over the pounding of my heart I 1 heard him ask when can you come to the hotel astor and have lunch with me ap 1 I said I 1 could come today he had I 1 discovered a regular table in the hunting room some luncheons you never forget and ill never forget that one not what we ate but what we talked about and the feeling of buoyancy and tremendous delight I 1 had to be alive and a part of this fine world As we built up the humorous situations we laughed so delightedly that people turned and stared but that was all right with me some day be laughing ht at the play and paying us money for the privilege after lunch we went to the office of richard J madden the play agent and owen davis told him the terms he would give me I 1 was so pleased that owen could have said that he would just give me a pass to the show and I 1 would have been satisfied A play on an broadways Broad come back tomorrow and ill have the contracts ready madden laid caid and when we went back there they were stacked as high as his desk lamp we signed them me very meticulously but to owen they were just another contract for he had had two hundred and eighty plays produced richard J madden gave a news item to the new york times never before in theatrical history had a novel been accepted tor for dramatization before it had been published well that was my speed owen started work at once and each morning would call me up and tell me how a scene had worked out owen has a way of holding a receiver across the room from him and whispering into it but that was all right with me it was about my own brain creation which would soon be pulling them in from the sidewalk those people in the hunting room who had stared 1 he finished the play in exactly twenty one days had it typed by the only woman in new york who can read his handwriting and took a copy to richard J madden the jl 71 1 1 cl I 1 studied and weighed and pondered next day richard J madden called up and was so excited he asked us us to lunch ill sell it in two weeks he said he was pretty weak on his guessing for it took two days more than the time hed promised owen called up and said vinton freedley wants it it was actually happening to met mel why I 1 got into this theater business before two days later owen davis was again whispering on the telephone max gordon wants its iti too it was sure goin to be hard to go back to pecking where no one ever called up with exciting news while I 1 was still floating on these broadway clouds owen called again alfred de liagre wants it too I 1 could hardly believe my ears and asked owen again just to make sure right he whispered and hes one of the best producers in town have we really got three managers who want to produce it I 1 gasped all so far breathed owen never in his life he said had he had so many managers in such a short time righting fighting to produce a play well the way things go I 1 said modestly I 1 continued to live in a fairy world that I 1 had never known before existed and now under the excitement of it I 1 just about gave up my pecking me for the theater vinton freedley had been the first to accept it so the play went to him owen called with more good news the play would be tried out in the summer stock company theater in skowhegan Skow hegan maine the very theater that had tried out life with father this dazzling fairy world continued to swirl around me owen davis jr called up and asked me it if I 1 would come down and see if I 1 liked the tour four children he had talked to for the part I 1 floated down to the building where vinton freedley had his office I 1 the slightest idea in the world whether they fitted the parts or not but no one suspected this by the way I 1 studied and weighed and pondered for I 1 might be settling the very fate and fortune of those children A day or two later I 1 was called again would I 1 come down and see what I 1 thought of the colored woman who might be able to play the maids part I 1 went down and settled her f late ate and fortune too the wonderful the glorious the exciting days went by and at last I 1 found myself in skowhegan Skow hegan maine shaking hands with herbert E swett who had built up this the oldest stock company in america and with melville burke his director and soon I 1 was face t to face with the tha players who were going to project my honeymoon idea across the footlights and there were the chaj four children just as I 1 had said they should be and the colored maid justl just as I 1 had propounded up from new york had come bigi big i wigs to see the play but I 1 let I 1 them see me first strolling here and there on the lawn so they could see with their own eyes what the author of the first unpublished but produced in play form novel looked like they seem much impressed in fact they took it with immense calm when the great evening came my wife and I 1 arranged to sit in different parts of the theater so that we wa would not influence each other but owen davis and his wife were old hands at this and plunked flunked down side by side the curtain went up and there were the actors speaking my lines out of owen davis and projecting my thoughts sired by croy soon the audience was responding to the professor bewildered by his new family and my heart started to beat again that first laughl i at last the performance was over owen davis who has a peculiarly aloof point of view on his own plays once they are on view said 1 I think that second act curtain when the four children come and climb into mammas bed is the biggest laugh curtain I 1 ever saw I 1 said I 1 thought well of it too herbert E swett who has seen so many shows that he cant bear to sit at one more than ten minutes said about the funniest show I 1 ever put on in this theater 1 I liked it from the first I 1 said modestly there had been problems the children were hard to direct and had been noisy but the play idea was there and the audience liked it vinton freedley shook us by the hand and talked about when he would open the next day he climbed into the plane and full of enthusiasm went back to new york the children learned their places and the play got better and it began to build as we theatrical people call it herbert E swett said id like to have a slice of that play I 1 turned down ohp the opportunity on life with father and I 1 dont want to do x it again at 44 ill see what I 1 can do for yo you u 11 I 1 said the play continued to draw in fact it broke a two years top and still as I 1 set these words on paper has the record since ethel barrymore I 1 was growing more and more proud of myself why I 1 got into theatrical business long long ago the maine papers reviewed it and the boston papers reviewed it very fine indeed I 1 have done better myself then came the last night vinton freedley was to be there to see the changes and to sign the broadway production contract but there was a storm and he had to leave his plane in boston and get to our last night then the next day he went back to new york but still everything was all right then came something I 1 never dreamed of and I 1 had my first glimpse of what chance does in the theater variety gave it a bad review the local man had come from portland and had seen it that first night he liked it and had said so never before had I 1 realized the tremendous influence that variety wields in its field and now I 1 saw there was indeed reason for it to be called the bible of broadway vinton freedley lost enthusiasm for the play and decided finally to spend his time on musicals when the agent took the play to other managers they said if its so good why freedley bring it to town A hard question to answer and hollywood said it failed it the book came out in due time and got good reviews but the play had a black eye and no beefsteak we could put on would do any good aft after er a time the excitement was wag over and I 1 was again back at my pecking I 1 have always been interested in how an author gets that first idea some of mine have come from definite and concrete happenings as I 1 have already mentioned but sometimes writers dont remember where their ideas came from or how they got them in this connection I 1 think of howard lindsay I 1 was invited to dinner with him and dorothy stickney his wife As we were talking before dinner he said this afternoon I 1 was reading to dorothy a collection of stories by clarence day about his father I 1 told dorothy I 1 thought the stories might somehow be turned into a play he went on to say he know how it could be done but that a central idea had come to him and this was that the father and mother should clash au all the way through the play and that the father should be drawn as blustery and the mother soft and gentle and that she should be the one to win out one affer afternoon noon after the play was running I 1 was in his dressing room and mentioned that I 1 had seen him the very day he had had that first hash flash but by now the central idea tor for the play was so well established in his mind and so much a part of him that he had forgotten how and when lied hed first gotten i TO BE CONTINUED |