Charles Farrell — Hero Worshiper (1930) 🇺🇸

If I could only meet a star!" That is the secret wish of every boy and every girl who pays fifty cents at the box office. A star in person! There is a glamour, a kind of magic about him that appeals to the vanity of us all.

by Alma Talley

Bill Smith, who lives just around the corner and takes Mamie to the movies every night — Bill would like to meet his favorite player. And so would Mamie. To touch that magic hand, to look close into those famous eyes. To stand, tongue-tied, in the presence of greatness.

Such are the yearnings of every Bill and every Mamie the country over. They are impressed by glamour.

Imagine, then, their surprise to know that some of the stars themselves feel just the same way about it. Which brings us to Charlie Farrell, also a hero worshiper. Since "Seventh Heaven," Charlie has become one of the most popular stars on the screen. His thousands of fan letters tell him of thousands of admirers.

Charlie says he's quit reading stories about himself, or reviews of his films.

Surely where film fame is concerned, he need not salaam to any one. He could so easily pat himself on the back and say, "Charlie, you're good. Look at your fan letters! Look at your admirers. I guess you're pretty good."

But he doesn't. He doesn't pat himself on the back. And if he says those things to himself, his words are not convincing.

Instead, waving his arms as he talked, he said surprisingly, "When I meet some of the more important stars, I get completely tongue-tied!"

Full of unconscious, boyish gestures, such as rumpling his hair so that it stood on end, all helter-skelter, he said, "When I first met Mary Pickford, I couldn't think of a word to say. I was so awed I couldn't talk at all. I couldn't have been more impressed if she had been the Queen of Roumania. I found later that I need not have been so shy. Mary is very charming, and has a gift for putting others at ease. I came to know her very well, because Doug, Jr., and I were together a great deal, before he fell in love with Joan, so naturally I saw Mary quite often.

"But I'll never forget that first time I met her. Gee, I was scared! I suppose no matter who comes and goes in the movies, Mary will remain czarina of Hollywood. Anyhow, I felt just as you'd feel if you were being presented at court."

His hands were waving violently all the time he talked.

"But why?" I said. "Don't you realize that your own films are much more popular than Mary's are now?"

"Are they?" said Charlie, in genuine surprise. "Surely every one must have seen a wonderful film like 'Coquette.' There's never been anything finer than that on the screen."

"Well, perhaps 'Coquette,'" I conceded. "But that was a rather special film. Mary's pictures generally in the past few years have not gone very well, because her kind of heroine is no longer in vogue. Though of course Mary herself will always be loved by the public. But why should that awe you? You've quite a following yourself."

Charlie is so genuinely naive that your heart warms to him at once.

"I try to tell myself that," he confided, "but it seems no use. When I meet some one like Gloria Swanson, I say, 'Don't be a fool. Other stars are just like me. They've got where they are with the same lucky breaks I've had.' I try to convince myself of all that, but it's never any good."

Amazing, isn't it? Down inside Charlie doesn't yet believe it's true — all this fame, all this money, all this adulation. Down inside he's still the little boy who watched movies in his father's theater at Onset Bay, Massachusetts. A little boy who thought stars were fabulous creatures in a world all their own, far beyond the reach of New England schoolboys.

He hasn't yet begun to realize that he's one of them himself, that his own dreams have come true.

"Then it wasn't a gag, a pose, your driving that now-famous old Ford?" I said.

"Certainly not! If I'd really tried to put on a show like that I could never have done it." Charlie continued waving his hands, plunging them through his brown hair which now stood completely on end. He is exceedingly boyish, full of animated chatter. And the scar on his chin detracts not at all from his appearance.

"I'll tell you how that started." said Charlie. "I was supposed to go to a dinner party before a movie opening, at Frank Borzage's house. I was out at a Santa Monica beach club, and I got all mixed up about the date. Anyway, I forgot about Frank's dinner, until they phoned me. Then it was too late to go, but I said I'd meet the rest at the theater.

"I had on knickers and a sweater, and was driving the old Ford. I just never thought about having to change, I was so intent on getting to the theater in time. Anyhow, I tore in just as I was, sweater, Ford, and everything. And of course everybody was there, all dressed up and in expensive cars, and I caused a lot of comment. That's how all that Ford business started."

"But you do still drive it?"

"Oh, sure. When I first bought it, I couldn't afford a better car. And now I'm sort of attached to it. I have a big car, too, but I still use the Ford sometimes."

And you know all this is not a pose for publicity's sake when you talk with Charlie. He's a kind of harum-scarum youngster, despite his twenty-seven years. The kind who, by his own admission, is the butt of all the studio jokes. But he was very hurt over William H. McKegg's story in Picture Play, which said he had no sense of humor about jokes directed against himself.

"I felt very bad about that," said Charlie, "because I can take a joke, and God knows I have to often enough! I've stopped reading stories about myself, or criticisms of my films, because you forget the nice things people say, and only remember the bad. The dirty remarks hurt, too, when you see them in print. So I've stopped reading stories about me; the flattering things are always called to your attention by friends, anyhow."

Charlie is like that. Extreme sensitiveness goes hand in hand with his lack of self-confidence, his incredulous attitude toward his own fame.

Probably the greatest thrill of his life is his father's pride in him. During Charlie's visit to New York, Mr. Farrell came to see him from Onset Bay, where he still owns a theater.

"I suppose," said Charlie, quite modestly, "I make more money in three weeks now than dad does in a year. And it gave me a great kick to have him here, and take him around and buy him clothes and things.

"For years dad has been hearing about Roxy, for example, and listening to him over the radio. Yesterday he met him, and we all played golf together. Gee, but dad enjoyed that!

"You know," Charlie confided, "dad thinks every girl we see is trying to rope me in."

And dad, it turned out, had reasons to be suspicious. Charlie, it seems, had met a girl at a supper club. A producer had introduced them and confided to Charlie that the girl was one of his fans, and it would give her a great thrill if Charlie danced with her.

So Charlie did. He played up in great style, kidded her a little, held her hand. And as a result, the girl called him up constantly, and once, on his return to the hotel where he was staying, he found her in his rooms. It was only with great difficulty that he managed to get her out, because he knew by that time that she had some little gold-digging game up her sleeve.

That's one of the little troubles that come with being famous. People evolve all kinds of slippery means to extort money.

Charlie was making a personal appearance tour, and apparently his self -confidence was growing with each additional city and the receptions he received on the stage.

"I told the Fox people," said Charlie, "that if I went out on the stage knowing I had to sing a song, or do a regular act, I'd be scared to death. But if I could just go on and manage it my own way, I could feel my way about better.

"And I've had a marvelous time; I scarcely have any stage fright at all any more. My first appearance lasted about five minutes, and gradually they've been getting longer, until now I'm on the stage about twenty."

You could see Charlie's pride in his growing self-assurance. The youngster from Onset Bay who was a movie fan, who shrinks back shyly in the presence of a celebrity, is gradually getting a firm foothold on his fame. And suddenly one fine morning, after he grows up, it will come to him in a miraculous flash that he too is somebody. Suddenly, like the poet in the legend, he will wake up to find himself famous.

Even in Hollywood, Charles Farrell and his mother are at home only in a New England interior.

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, February 1930