Lew Cody — The Code of Cody (1929) 🇺🇸

It’s too simply darned annoying that people can't be all of one piece. Cut from one bolt of material. It's too intricate that black can't be black, white, white, virtue, virtue and sin, sin.

by Gladys Hall

I mean, it would be so simple to write of Mary Pickford as an angel picking asphodels with never a mite of common clay upon her feet. Of Greta Garbo, Mary Duncan and Lil Tashman as poisonous frails guiltless of a kindly thought, a good deed. Of such men as Bill Powell, Lew Cody, et al., bringing a mother's white head in shame to the grave, not to mention where they bring the golden heads of daughters.

I mean, villains should not have hearts of gold. Life is complicated enough as it is. And there are so few thoroughly good, dependable villains left. You think you have bagged a rascal and lo, he offers to raise the mortgage on the old home or pension a maiden aunt, or he's kind to cats.

Lew Cody, villain par excellence, is the case before the house. Now Lew looks as if he could be, should be, a Grade A villain. A bad boy. He is so debonair. He has such destructively — well, la-la eyes, you know. You surely should be able to think the worst of Lew and feel comfortable about it.

Lew savors, indeed, he smacks, of the white lights of Broadway and Hollywood Boulevard, of speakeasies, unaccounted-for weekends, ideals broken like wish-bones and what-nots.

Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to tell you that Lew is ready for the Ascension or anything. The official shriver of sins isn't going to get the sack on Lew's account. There'll be plenty to do. It's not as bad as all that. But Lew has a heart. It may even be a heart of gold. He does good. He does — boo-hoo — more good than bad, I fear. It's all come out lately. And I felt you oughtta know. Mothers need not put the latch on the front gate when Lew comes to town. Fathers need not gat about after Lew. They're more likely to find Lew in the county jails, workhouses, hospitals and orphanages doing good to the poor and needy and oppressed than harm to the village virges.

Again I plead with you not to misunderstand me. I'm not trying to gild the lily-known-as-Lew. He takes his fun where he finds it and not all of his activities are Christian Endeavors. But I'm forced to believe that he takes his fun where the same brand can be handed back to him and running over. He doesn't take advantage. He plays in his own back-yard.

I've been suspicious of Lew for quite some time. Little things keep leaking out — such as at the time here lately when Lew's car ran over a dog. He didn't just go on his way twirling his twirlable mustachio and wiggling his cane. Not Lew. He stopped the car, dismounted and knelt in the dust of the road, weeping over the injured canine. He then hopped his car again, took the canine to a good canine hospital and paid visits and all bills until said canine was in that state of health where he could stand being run down again. That's Lew. It is so.

An Old Jail Pal

A few years ago I went to jail with Lew. Sing-Sing. No offense. We went as part of equipment. A picture was being taken to Sing-Sing for the purpose of entertaining the compulsory boarders. Lew went along to make a personal appearance. I went along as a member of the press. Lew talked to the prisoners after the showing of the film. He talked to them as man to man. As a friend. And he left them with their shoulders straightened, their dulled eyes brighter, laughter on mouths long stranger to mirth. I had a premonitory pang then. I thought, "This man has good in him."

I talked to a newspaper man en route to having dinner with Lew one night last week. He told me that Lew spent last New Year's day at San Quentin "with his friends there." The story was noised about Hollywood that Lew was off "on a racket." That was the racket.

Years ago Lew was in stock. A man named Mortimer Pebble was head of the outfit. He wasn't very kind to Lew. He had power — and he used it. A while back he came to Hollywood. He was down and out. Penniless. Old. His power and prestige all gone. Lew bought him a house and lot. He buys him his clothes, gives him his spending money, equips him with a radio and other pleasures. And in return he gets — well, what do hearts of gold get for the largesse they bestow? Mortimer Pebble is still unkind to Lew. When Lew phones him and says he is lonely, is coming over to have a talk or spend the evening, Mortimer is inclined to be indignant. He asks Lew where he gets off at, calling him up at that time of night, disturbing his rest. On one occasion, when Lew called on him around ten o'clock at night Mortimer phoned for the police. He said that Lew was disturbing the peace. Lew laughs and thinks it's great start — and continues to make the old man's waning days padded and happy ones.

All at Lew's Expense

A few months back a youngster of seventeen or so walked out from somewhere in Kansas. He was a fan of Lew's. He wanted to see him. He went straight to Lew's house. Mabel Normand phoned her better 'alf at the studio and announced the young man's unexpected arrival. Lew had seen him just once, months ago, when he was playing in Kansas City or somewhere. Said Lew, "Put him to bed, feed him, give him some clothes."

The new young man is still with Lew. He recently had to have his tonsils removed. At Lew's expense. Still more recently he took unto himself a wife. At Lew's expense. While he was in hospital he phoned Lew and said, "I want a radio." Lew's chauffeur took him a radio. Oh, dear! Oh. dear!

Lew once had a devoted butler and the devoted butler's wife. They got beyond butlering. Lew bought them a house near the beach. They dwell therein in comfort and prosperity — at Lew's expense.

Lew has now a negro butler named James. Lew plays pool with him. He takes him with him everywhere he goes. When Lew goes to a party, James treks along, a dark, devoted shadow. He watches Lew from hour to hour, though the hours be past midnight. He doesn't like Lew to take a drink. If anyone urges him to, James is gently reproachful. He says, " I thought you were a friend of mine." He would die for Lew; and that is no extravagant statement, let it sound as it will.

Mabel Is Like That, Too

There is Mrs. Lew, too. The House of Cody has chalk marks in Heaven, or something has gone awry with the celestial efficiency department. One day a few weeks back Mabel Normand Cody was driving into Los Angeles. En route she chanced to see a poor mother and her inevitable little ones parked on the sidewalk among a few odds and ends of furniture. They had been, of course, dispossessed by the irate landlord. Mabel stepped from her car. She went to the landlord, paid the back rents and several rents in advance, gave the poor stranger-woman some money, hopped her car again and was on her way. That's the House of Cody for you.

One night the Codys were entertaining at dinner. Mabel had a gorgeous Spanish shawl for which she had paid a princely sum and of which she was particularly fond and proud. One of her dinner guests, a girl she knew very casually, admired the shawl extravagantly. She postured about in it, oh-ing and ah-ing. She kept it up until Mabel said " Do you really love it so much? Does it give you so much pleasure?" The girl sighed and oh-ed and ah-ed some more. Mabel said, "Then take it, please. I want you to have it."

A few years ago. Lew told me, he was sitting on top of the world. Things were going great. He was, he thought, about where he wanted to be.

"One morning," he said, "I was driving to the studio and on a billboard near the studio I read the words 'I can get any woman I can kiss' signed 'Lew Cody, the BUTTERFLY MAN'! I knew that l was through. I was done for. What man would want his wife, sister or mother to see a man who would say a thing like that? What man would want to see a 'butterfly man'? I was finished in pictures — and I knew it.

Roscoe to the Rescue

"I went to my director and asked him how long we had to go on the picture we were doing. He said, 'Four days.' I said, 'You're wrong, we haven't four hours. I'm leaving today.' I did. At the moment I had about four dollars and a quarter in the world. I didn't know how I was going to make the grade to New York, but I knew I would swing it, somehow. I told a very wealthy man I knew — and had done many favors for — of my predicament. He said, 'You could take some sandwiches along.' I didn't have to. An hour before I was to leave, Roscoe Arbuckle handed me fifteen hundred dollars in cash. Without being asked. That is friendship."

Lew went to New York. He went to Europe. He staged a comeback, slowly, no doubt painfully, but surely. He killed "The Butterfly Man" a sure death. And he stands over his corpse today, a sadder and, I think, a wiser man.

Lew is in Europe at this writing. He is billing himself: Mabel Normand Presents Lew Cody, etc. Vaudeville. If you are anything of a psychologist, this will give you a hint — that Lew loves his wife, and no butterfly business about it, either. Whenever he goes away, wherever he goes, he always brings Mabel home some "funny little toys." Because Mabel loves presents and toys best of all and because she cries over them, like the child she is at heart. Lew teases Mabel and gets a great kick out of it when the teasing takes, as it usually does. He phones her several times an evening when he is resting at his beach house. And he is unequivocally loyal to her.

And Lew'd give you the rug off his floor, the door off its hinges, the shirt off his back, the signature off his checks, and never a word about an I.O.U. You'd never go hungry, poor, friendless or alone while the House of Cody stands. So much is certain in a world and among a group of people where almost nothing is.

Photo by: Clarence Sinclair Bull (1896–1979)

Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, May 1929