The Fall and Rise of Michael Whalen (1936) 🇺🇸
Michael Whalen looks like the hero of a story and since life is stranger than fiction, he is the hero of his own, unusual story.
Other men have become infatuated with women from newspaper pictures but Joseph Shovlin, (Michael's real name) did not know this as he studied again the portrait of Eva La Gallienne. She was beautiful, she was intelligent. She ran the Civic Repertory Theatre in New York; she trained newcomers. Well, she was going to have an unexpected newcomer!
Joseph, aged twenty-three, realized it was a terrific gamble! He knew how many men of twenty-three would have given an ear to have his position as manager of three Woolworth stores. He had done well. But he had intended to do well when he started, at sixteen, as a stock boy in the store at Pottsville, Pa. He drew out his check-book. The balance was eighteen hundred dollars. Not bad, considering he had supported his mother after his father had lost his fortune in the Texas oil fields and died. But now his mother had married again. This eighteen hundred was his ticket to freedom — his pass to that great drama behind the footlights — his gang-plank to meeting the woman whose picture lay before him.
The young man quickly tendered his resignation and while he was speeding on the train for New York he reflected on the new gamble he was taking — charting a new life.
Other men have done this, other women, too. And always, just before they step into a new life, they linger in memories of the past they are shedding — forever. Joseph lingered briefly.
He smiled a little as he remembered how they had thumped him down at the piano at six. His family in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania had expected him to kick and scream against practising, like other children of respectable families. He had fooled them. He had begged eventually to become a concert pianist. But a concert pianist in the Shovlin family! A sissy with long hair and always-clean fingers! He could hear his father bellowing his contempt above the roar of the wheels which were now speeding him toward New York City, No sir — Joseph Shovlin was to become a hod-carrier in his father's contracting business, and work his way up. But the young pianist could bellow also — and it brought a compromise. Woolworth's would not disgrace either side.
He didn't remember just when he first saw the picture of Eva La Gallienne. He didn't know just when a yearning for the stage began to replace one for the piano. But he did know he had saved every possible penny to meet her — to help toward the time when he would be whirling toward that mysterious land of back-stage. Well, the past was over. He would even take a new name! He must have a name which would spell romance and danger and excitement. Michael Whalen! The name of his grandfather, his mother's father. He had always admired his grandfather — ten children; mayor of Avoca, Pennsylvania. A big fellow with dare-devil ideas. At least, this was a name which his 79 cousins would recognize!
When the train reached New York City, Joseph Shovlin had died and Michael Whalen had been born. A plodder had passed away; a gambler had come to life. It was too late to see Eva La Gallienne that evening but he went the next night and the following matinee. She was more wonderful in person than she had been in the newspaper. He asked for an audition for the Junior players and was told to report at eleven the next morning.
Michael Whalen sat in the front row of a cold theatre waiting for the curtain to rise upon his dream woman! When it went up, she sat there alone. He had to cross the entire stage to reach her. Awkward. Untutored. Nervous.
"What have you done?" He heard that magical voice of La Gallienne's which has thrilled so many.
"Noth-nothing." A stutter in his voice, which was experienced only in giving orders to five-and-ten cent store employees.
"Read this role, please. It is an old grandfather who is speaking."
Of course, he couldn't do it. He knew nothing of querulous, old grandfathers. He knew nothing of reading lines for the theatre. Yet, she was before him. He must not let her slip from him. Michael Whalen! The gambler.! As he remembered, he heard a voice begin to wise-crack. Jokes. Irish ones. They fell from his lips as easily as beautiful prose from a trained political speaker's. Eva La Gallienne unbent. Her eyes showed faint twinkles. Within a few moments, she was laughing loudly.
"Now, I'll show her I have poise," that inner voice of the gambler instructed, rfe turned so elegant that his best friends would not have recognized him as either Joseph Shovlin or Michael Whalen. This was the end for La Gallienne. She all but rolled on the floor and she signed him for her Repertory Theatre.
Now, if anyone had told Joseph Shovlin in Pennsylvania he would spend an
entire year playing even the smallest roles with Eva La Gallienne — he would have been unable to eat or to sleep from the thrill of anticipation. But the reality was disappointing!
Eight years later, he said, "I lost all my illusions. I think the biggest reason was because they insisted upon my using broad "A's." They were so affected. I will not be anything but myself! Why isn't the regular American "A" good enough for the theatre? I couldn't take it, got a little work singing on the radio, went broke and was going back home when I met James Montgomery Flagg. I posed for him for three years."
This is all he ever said of this one year in the theatre, but it is not difficult to understand the suffering of a young man who had saved $1800 to meet one woman; to seek one career — only to find the $1800 gone, the "one woman" not seeing him as the "one man," and to discover the theatre a world of reality rather than phantasy.
Just when Michael Whalen was wandering the streets of New York, wondering whether to return to his Joseph Shovlin personality — wondering if his lucky number would ever turn up, then he met Mr. Flagg, who looked at the Irishman's deep-set eyes, windy hair and full mouth and said casually, "You are just what I need. Come and work for me."
And this friendship brought the fullness to living which the theatre had taken from it. It brought not only work but social contacts and mental freedom. Eventually, it even relieved bitterness for the stage, and Michael headed for Hollywood to "crash" on his own. He had social introductions from Artist Flagg which admitted him to the best motion picture homes; he had not a single professional recommendation.
He stood on the top of one of Paramount's sound stages and looked beneath him. Sylvia Sidney was there and Rita Carewe and other lovely girls. He laughed. He had danced with Sylvia the previous night. If she looked up! But she wouldn't recognize him because she would not be expecting to see the social Mr. Whalen sweeping stages as a common laborer! His mind flashed back to the train carrying him to New York — and the train carrying him from New York City to Hollywood. He had been tested at every studio. He had spent a year in the stock company at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He had appeared in plays from the Pasadena Community Playhouse to Canada. Yesterday had been the day when he had to eat. So now he was sweeping sound stages. A common laborer. No — not a common one. He'd be darned if he was! And as soon as he'd saved enough, he'd be dancing with Sylvia Sidney again. Another play would come along —
He was cast by Jim Timmony — yes, Mae West's Jim— in his first little theatre play, Common Flesh. No pay but experience. Almost nine years invested now in experience. But the wheel would turn — it had to turn. Michael walked home after each performance. He came down one morning and caught a wistful look in his landlady's eye. A soft-spoken, sweet woman, his landlady. Michael didn't pay for his room; he worked for it — doing odd jobs — even to helping with the housekeeping. But you'd never know it, the nice way she treated him. There were tears in her eyes now, as she looked at him. "We sold this house yesterday; we're moving out this afternoon. I'm awfully sorry, but you can't sleep here tonight, Michael."
Michael didn't say anything; he couldn't. He returned to his room, packed his things, slipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out his capital. Twenty-seven cents. No place to sleep — no money on which to eat and a job which paid him nothing. He walked to the theatre for a rehearsal, drew his hand from his pocket and showed his twenty-seven cents to a friend. "That's my stake in life, my boy —"
A messenger hurried through the door. "Mr. Michael Whalen, please?"
Michael jingled the coins in his palm. "Yes. What is it, son?"
"I'm from 20th Century-Fox. Mr. Zanuck says you're to come at once. They're going to sign you on a contract."
Whalen laughed — tossed the coins into the air and caught them. He had struck his lucky number. Almost nine years since he had dictated his resignation at the Woolworth company — nine years of waiting for his lucky number —
His eyes softened suddenly. He had remembered. Out at the 20th Century-Fox lot was a lady, Lilyan Barclay, who had charge of the teaching of Shirley Temple and who scouted for talent. She had seen him in his first and last plays in California. She had never given up trying. Five tests had failed at 20th Century-Fox. This last one —
He knew how she had talked to casting director, Lou Schreiber, to persuade him to make it. She knew how Schreiber had lied to producer Daryll Zanuck to help him. One of those old tests had crept onto the screen by mistake when Zanuck had gone into the projection room to see his work.
"Who in hell is that?" Zanuck had demanded angrily.
"I don't know. Some mug trying to get in," Schreiber had answered. And when the new test, arranged by Miss Barclay and Mr. Schreiber swung onto the screen, Mr. Zanuck had not recognized him as the same fellow who was in the other!
He stuck the coins in his pocket and followed the messenger toward the car. A contract, hey? Well, it had taken nine years. But when luck struck once it would strike again. It has. “Professional Soldier,” “Song and Dance Man,” “The Country Doctor,” “The Mercy Killer” — and lastly, “Sing, Baby, Sing.” He walked into the lunch room and saw Alice Faye. He stopped instantly. "When luck strikes twice, it strikes a third time," he murmured.
Michael Whalen can look the world in the face and smile — and buy his dog some biscuits.
Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, November 1936