Frank Hopper — One Chance in Thousands (1927) 🇺🇸
Fairy godmothers are all right in their way — but it does seem too bad that they play favorites. Now, of course, it is very lovely for them to wave their magic wands over young girls with the result that contracts and success and everything just seem to fall their way, but why should springtime and beauty always be the chosen pets and recipients of such gifts?
by Caroline Bell
There are in the world so many weary men and women whose youth has faded under the grueling struggle for existence, characters chiseled by experience into a strong and sure firmness, talents that have not been smothered but instead have been developed by life’s battles and but await mature expression. Abilities, theirs, ready for the command to present themselves.
Now the fairy godmother has redeemed herself in my eyes. I shall no longer crab against her prejudice for Peter Pans. For she woke up to the situation not so long ago, and scanning the crowd of commonplace, middle-aged folks, waved her wand over Frank Hopper.
Because of his startling resemblance to Theodore Roosevelt and the latent gift for acting which tests revealed, Hopper was chosen to impersonate the idol of America’s boyhood in The Rough Riders, the story of the late soldier-president’s activities in the Spanish-American War which Paramount has filmed on a scale meriting attention.
For years and years Hopper had plodded along in a narrow, grooved rut, having long ago closed his eyes to the glitter of theatrical fame which once had lured him.
Then, by a quirk of fate, he was suggested to Paramount as the living double of Roosevelt and chosen for the coveted role from among four hundred candidates. And practically without any effort on his own part! Which proves something or other that my brow isn’t tall enough to meditate upon, so I shall merely give the credit to the fairy mother.
Several months ago a wide search started for a man resembling Roosevelt and possessing acting ability sufficient for the demands of the role. Hermann Hagedorn, biographer of Roosevelt and secretary of the Roosevelt Memorial Association, Lewis Maverick, vice president of the Rough Riders Association, and Victor Fleming, Paramount director, were appointed as a committee to interview aspirants. By the hundreds they stormed the studio, those men who had been told they “looked like Roosevelt” — men with bristling mustaches, with pugnacious jaw lines, with prominent teeth.
By a strange chance, Hopper was brought to the committee’s attention. And a Los Angeles woman is five hundred dollars richer for having obeyed an intuition.
An item, offering an award to the person who should send in the name and photograph of the man adjudged best suited to the role, appeared on the screen of a Los Angeles theater. As Mrs. Dorothy Dodd, who manages an apartment house, left the theater, she noticed a man walking down the street whose likeness to Roosevelt startled her.
Overcoming her hesitation, she accosted him, asked his name and address and requested a photograph that she might send in.
Thus brought to the committee’s attention, Hopper was summoned to the studio and given a screen test. The result: he was chosen.
Prior to this sudden opportunity he was but one of thousands of middle-aged men who found life mildly pleasant despite the hardships of rearing a family on a mediocre salary. Had the fairy godmother not turned her attention from the ingenues to consider the careworn ones of riper years and focused her gaze upon him, he might have continued in that fair degree of comfort which is neither the ease of wealth nor the biting pinch of poverty.
True, as a youth he had aspired to thespic glamour, and appeared on the stage, his achievement most meriting mention having been in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, in which he sang second baritone. Business in Montana promised to be more lucrative, so with a family to care for he renounced his theatrical ambitions. For a while he prospered. Wartime conditions, however, forced him out and since then he has been employed in various lines of work, recently as a book agent in Los Angeles.
“No, ma’am, it hasn’t been so easy, with three young ones to raise, but neither has it been terribly tough. A grind rather than a struggle.”
He had a few moments to spare between his hours of strenuous riding, a necessary preliminary training to get him into trim for the activity of the role. So we had met for a “grab interview” in the publicity department of the Paramount studio.
His resemblance to Roosevelt astounded me. His manner, however, disappointed me. He was too mild. Still, just because one’s memory records reading snatches of the virile soldier-president’s peppy life, one can’t expect his screen prototype to clash into the office with a war whoop, stride up and down, ejaculate in a booming voice and bristle with action.
I scarcely know what I did anticipate. I had a vague expectation of a dominant big man who would bare his teeth at me and perhaps growl. Instead, I found a pleasant gentleman, still a little surprised by his good luck, but schooling himself to it as another of those shocks — this being the first really fortunate one — that life had dealt him.
When he brought home the news of his sudden good fortune, naturally it caused stupefaction. Elizabeth, nineteen, was away on a visit. John and Charles, sixteen and seventeen, eyed him with blank amazement. Their father in the movies! Their quiet, mild-mannered dad, who was accustomed to come in from a hard day’s work to do justice to mother’s good dinner and then to settle with his pipe and paper in the comfy, worn big chair.
When they recovered, of course the boys spread the news over the neighborhood in great excitement.
Suppose your father were chosen to play the leading role in one of the biggest movies of the season, what would you think of it? Well, that’s what John and Charles thought.
“No, ma’am, I’ve never studied Roosevelt’s life particularly, until lately.” With an innate honesty, Mr. Hopper answered me. “I’ve read about him and admired him, as all Americans do. But, though people often commented on my likeness to him, I never thought seriously about it. Now I’m reading everything I can find about him and learning to copy his every gesture. Mr. Hagedorn gave me some prints of news-reel scenes showing Roosevelt during the last years of his life. I flash ‘em on a small screen.
“Roosevelt is more than an ideal; he’s a sort of tradition. I feel humble, to be playing him.
“I’m not naturally very gruff. All I can do is try to simulate that phase of his personality. But listen, Roosevelt wasn’t any torpedo all the time. He was vigorous in action, but a kind and considerate man.”
Hopper’s future is problematical — even his success in this picture, though Paramount officials are confident of his ability to impersonate our national hero realistically in looks, action, and manner.
A question arises, which only time can settle. Will he, like Billings, who gave us such a memorably genuine and human portrayal of Lincoln that no opportunity to display any versatility that he may possess has since been accorded him, continue for a while in a succession of Theodore Roosevelt roles and then drop from sight as an actor? Will he, after his brief day of glory, resume the humdrum existence which antedated it?
All that can be said at present is that he will most likely give us a rousing portrayal of Roosevelt, simple and kindly in his associations, courageous in facing danger and in fighting for his principles. A Roosevelt organizing his volunteer regiment of cavalry — Western cowboys, college athletes, sportsmen — and boldly leading his men in a charge on foot, storming San Juan Hill. A man who knew when to use courtesy and when to use fists.
Anyway, this incident has served to patch up the friendship between the fairy godmothers and me.
Judging from this photograph it is Theodore Roosevelt himself who rides with his men over hill and valley, so convincing is Frank Hopper’s presentment of him in The Rough Riders.
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, April 1927