Northwest History. Will Rogers

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1935
• Subjects: Tribute by Jack Lait to his deceased friend and peer Will Rogers; Arctic; Hudson; Polo
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/85487

On the movie lot, Will Rogers, most beloved of American humorists, was as human and as natural as he was at the family hearthside, the fourth chapter of Jack Lait's Colorful Life Story of Rogers reveals On the movie lot, Will Rogers, most beloved of American humorists, was as human and as natural as he was at the family hearthside, the fourth chapter of Jack Lait's colorful life story of Rogers reveals. By Jack Lait Famous Novelist, Short Story Writer and Playwright, Who Has Long Been a Close Personal Friend of Will Rogers (Copyright, 1935, by Universal Service.) On the Fox lot at Westwood, Calif., where Will Rogers was the oldest of stars and the biggest, the grief at his passing is more poignant than can be readily understood even by those who loved him for his more conspicuous qualities of true greatness and humanness of soul. There he was not only the hero who, outside of first runs in New York and Chicago, topped all other film drawing cards—in many towns across the map the arrival of a Will Rogers picture was declared a School holiday!—but he was the Santa Claus, confidante, pal and big brother to the humblest of the bit players, mechanics and studio attaches. All his directors were his bosom friends, and the four he loved most dearly were David Butler, Henry King, George Marshall and John Ford. Every picture has a "shooting schedule," an estimated time for production. To turn in a film under the deadline is a director's pride. Rogers, who hated to study and went to rehearsals like a kid to school in fishing time, prodded himself for the sake of his director- pals and usually finished ahead of schedule. Then, this Rogers-like deed accomplished, who but Will would think of this: "When I do a picture under the limit, stage hands and mechanics and other helpers are deprived of the difference in days' work." So Rogers, out of his own pocket, would pay them all off to the full extent of what they would have earned had he consumed the full time. At Christmas, no one was forgotten—stenographers, telephone girls, ground keepers, everybody. Will handed out currency until his arm was lame. My son, Jack Jr., is employed on the Fox lot and worked with Will as assistant director at times. He visited here a few days before the tragedy and we blabbed far into the nights, mostly about Will, whom we both regarded so fondly. Will and little Shirley Temple were great chums. They would sit on the studio curbstone—these million-dollars stars—and converse lengthily. And what conversation! Will could talk Shirley's language. Not baby talk and not shop. He had the heart of a child and he would make her giggle and she would call him Uncle Will. Rogers was the only actor the management allowed her to become chummy with—every effort is being made to preserve her childish ways and spirits, and the incoming of professional sophistication or an egotistical realization of her importance is dreaded. But Uncle Will was her buddy. He would be. Will rarely entered the handsome bungalow built on the lot for him. He would arrive driving his own Ford, wearing a soft mushy hat of no particular color, overalls, a sweater and the sort of sawed-off cowboy boots purchasable for a few dollars at cross-roads stores, running half way up to the knee and unornamented. He tried his gags out on the hands—never the actors. He never spoke a line that wasn't utterly harmless and wholesome. When a script called for something he didn't approve, he never made a scene or refused to do or say what was called lor. Contrary to popular illusion, he wrote few of his own lines, though he did interject comments and made all his speeches sound like his by the way he delivered them. He would never say, "This is wrong," but he would scratch his head, sidle over to the director and say, "Don't you think this would be better if I said this instead of that?" and he usually Won, not because he was a powerful star, but because his instincts were fine and his vision was clear and clean. When Rochelle Hudson issued a tactless statement in which she reflected on the odor of her town and Rogers', Claremore, Okla., and everything in it—including Rogers- there was a high to-do throughout Oklahoma. Dozens of wires were shot to Rogers from the chambers of commerce of his state, asking him to answer her. His answer was mild, witty and an exoneration of Miss Hudson—Will explained that the water in Claremore has a peculiar fragrance and that must have been what the young woman meant. When the biggest people on earth two Presidents of the United States, nabobs, financiers, geniuses, ambassadors—came to California, they came to the lot to visit Will Rogers; they didn't think to ask him to come out of his way to meet them. Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge spent a night with Will on his ranch, after the episode in which Will imitated the President on the air and many thought it might be regarded as impertinent. The first time President Coolidge was introduced to Rogers, Will put out his hand and said: "Mighty pleased to meet you— but I didn't catch the name!" When, at a speech on Bunker Hill, Rogers lauded Daniel Webster as the man who got up the dictionary, he drew more than 30,000 letters and wires telling him it wasn't Daniel, it was Noah. And Will answered: "Shucks. Can't fool me. Noah was the party that was swallered by the whale." That little Ford of Will's lngers pointedly in my memory. Will owned a 1,500-acre ranch high in the Santa Monica hills. He loved land. He had two polo fields up there and was intending to convert one into a landing field for planes. He had no telephone at the ranch and spent his time puttering around his huge barn, breeding work horses and polo ponies and painting fences and such. It was his haven of rest, his retreat from all the world but his most intimate cronies. Here he could be with Mrs. Rogers, temporarily unmolested at rare intervals. Well, he drove me up there one evening, about twilight. The road runs through canyons on winding ledges. Will was a one-hand driver using the other to emphasize what he was talking about. And every few minutes he would switch hands We made it, but I was pretty green in the gills by the time we pulled up. FILM WORLD'S IDOL Actors Loved Rogers SEPARATED BY TRAGEDY—A recent photograph of Will Rogers and tiny Shirley Temple, taken in Hollywood shortly before the start of the ill-fated Arctic flight.