Charles “Buddy” Rogers — Fame Was Thrust Upon Him (1926) 🇺🇸

In June, a year ago at the University of Kansas, a member of the junior class, the son of a small-town editor, was preparing for his final examinations in journalism.

To-day, the same boy, Charles Rogers [Charles “Buddy” Rogers], of Olathe, Kansas, is under contract to play important rôles in Paramount pictures, and is said to be a real find.

He has been temporarily loaned to the Fox company to play the lead in one of their films, and then will return to the Paramount fold.

And his success not only fulfills his fondest hopes, but also those of another man in the movies — Jesse L. Lasky. For Rogers got his chance on the screen bv virtue of a project that Mr. Lasky made his hobby during the past year — the Paramount Picture School.

Rogers was a member of the first class of the school, and when the term was completed, and the sixteen students were cast in Fascinating Youth, he was given the rôle of Teddy Ward, the central figure.

A good-looking, manly youth of twenty years, with an open heart and a likeable personality, Rogers did more at the studio than attend classes during the school term. He made friends. When it was over, any carpenter or electrician in the place would have made the same choice as did the studio officials.

He is the son of Burt H. Rogers, editor of the Olathe, Kansas, Mirror, a weekly newspaper. With absolutely no thought of a screen career, he was preparing to follow his father’s profession, when the movies interrupted his plans for a career in journalism. Last year, when Famous Players had all its field men on the lookout for prospects for the school, then being planned, Rogers was recommended to a Paramount representative by the movie theater owner in Olathe. The representative looked him up and found him immersed in study.

An outline of the plans for the school, however, made Rogers give serious consideration to the possibility of applying for admittance as a student, and finally, with considerable doubt and little hope, he submitted photographs. A screen test at Kansas City followed, and when studio officials approved it, he was telegraphed of his selection from more than forty thousand applicants.

—

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, October 1926