A Hero Shortage

Must We Have a Protective Tariff for Infant Actorlings?

There is a shortage of heroes.

Glenn Hunter (Merton of the Movies) is the only young American with any semblance of a reputation. Roland Young's glorious portrayal of General Burgoyne in The Devil's Disciples, now running in Manhattan, gives him a foothold somewhere below the niches of the famous. He may hoist himself upwards by other, more difficult performances. To those who rush with arguments regarding Leslie Howard, Joseph Schildkraut, Jacob Ben-Ami, Geoffrey Kerr, it need only be said that all of them first saw the sunlight and the footlights on the opposite side of the Atlantic.

The heroine situation is more encouraging. Helen Menken, Helen Gahagen, Margalo Gilmore, Winifred Lenihan, Katherine Cornell have all turned the earlier corners that mark the narrow road to greatness. Each one of these can show an American birth certificate. They are by no means alone in their eminence. Six or eight bright flashes from an even younger generation disturbed the calm of the season. Decidedly, there are abundant actresses.

Hardly a day passes that without headlines quoting _ some personage on the necessity for men to save the world from ruin. Possibly it is this very call that is robbing the stage. " Men," in the heroic sense, usually look down on the actor. So widespread is this convention that men are not becoming actors. Accordingly, our stage lacks new, young blood.

This is probably as stupid an attitude as any group could take. It is solely due to the unfortunate publicity attendant to the various peccadillos and misdemeanors of certain of the leading actors. It is uninteresting to the public to know that H. B. Warner, Dudley Digges and John Drew are normal gentlemen. As a publicity factor gentlemanliness is neglible. Yet their examples show that it is possible to make one's living from the bright side of the footlights without losing the respect of God and the Social Register.

There has been these last few months a barely discernible turn of the tide. Romeyne Park Benjamin, The Jitney Players (mostly college graduates), Oliver Harriman (Princeton) have cast their lots with the actors. Possibly none of them will succeed John Barrymore; yet their example in forcing the national stage door against the dead weight of convention is invaluable. Young men of less position but with more temperament may be aroused to follow their inclinations through the door thus opened.

W. R.