Fred Stone — “A Danged Good Actor” (1936) 🇺🇸
When a mother tags along to Hollywood with a petite, camera-conscious daughter, Mama is distinctly a back-seater. Maybe not actually, I’ll admit, for she’s likely to be the brains of the combination. But still, it’s not Mama who is the news.
by Dickson Morley
Of course, should the mater be an actress, too, and simultaneously crash through to glory, that would be something to talk about. Only it has never happened yet, so we shan’t race our pulses in that direction now.
After which elaborate build-up I am sure that you are going to recognize an extraordinary set-up when I plop it down before you. I beg you to pause and ponder the Fred Stone case.
Fancy a father racing his three fetching, grown-up daughters for movie positions! He, also, is a stranger to Hollywood peculiarities and must face all the puzzling perplexities. Side by side they are figuring out pictures. They huddle in conferences. A quartet taking on the town together!
Fred Stone’s ménage is an all-’round innovation for us. The rambling, comfortable house in a conservative section has no gaudy modernisms and the people in it reflect the genuinely homelike atmosphere. They’re “just folks” in spite of their talent.
I was received by a vivid (and in-a-rush) brunette, whom I learned was youngest-daughter Carol [Carol Stone]. She was surrounded by an excited group of chattering chums. “Daddy,” she cried, “Here’s your interviewer!” Beyond, in the lived-in living room Fred Stone put down his cigar and paper, and arose from the davenport to give me a genial greeting.
For a few minutes there was a hubbub typical of any household full of impatient youth. Carol and her friends bustled off to a preview and no sooner had the front door slammed than a radiant redhead came dashing down the stairs. This was middle-daughter Paula [Paula Stone], en route to a pal’s house in the neighborhood.
The blonde of the family, oldest-daughter Dorothy [Dorothy Stone], is temporarily in the East. She has attained footlight prominence but will be back to vie again for a film break. Her attractive hubby, like Daddy and her sisters, has a studio start.
To date this remarkable father has outdistanced his daughters in the screen sprint. That’s really as it should be if you are sentimental like I am and remember his marvelous stage record. Yet Hollywood is a place where recognition depends wholly on present ability. Fred Stone has had to click on his current competence alone.
When you go studious about him, he’s even had a tremendous handicap. His girls have a fresh loveliness, as well as skill. Producers have been tough on fathers. Many a gray-haired mother has been a dramatic pivot, but good old, middle-aged, homely dad was thoroughly forgotten until Mr. Stone, as Hepburn’s [Katharine Hepburn] father in “Alice Adams,” characterized this universally beloved type. The patient, well-meaning unsophisticate whose years have been spent working for security’ and happiness for his family.
With one part Fred Stone went across with a bang. Immediately he was pronounced star material. Special stories are being programmed because he’s introduced something original — “Pop appeal!”
He had just returned from a month’s location trip to Big Bear, in the Southern California mountains. There he’d been fathering Sylvia Sidney in “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.” In person I found him quite as I anticipated. Certainly he’s no runner-up for the handsome honors, but that occasional twinkle in his still bright blue eyes betrays a ginger you can’t resist. He is, incidentally, very modest. Not until you get his confidence do you realize what an amazing person he is. Conquering Hollywood at sixty-two is an unprecedented accomplishment, but his life has been loaded with achievements.
Although he may be a new name to filmgoers, he is exceedingly well-known to anyone familiar with the theatre. He has been professionally active since he was a mere nine years old! A circus stopped in a Kansas village and he disported himself so impressively as an acrobat that he was invited to join up as a tight-rope walker. Which he did! Eventually he got to Broadway, and topped there for more than thirty years. He has starred in many of the most popular musicals, and his acrobatic dancing, songs, and genius for-fun-making have greatly distinguished him.
But he has none of those “hammy” actor traits. He’s never been touched by the artificialities, because his tastes are simple and his ideals high. Nor do those hits of the bygone era weigh importantly on his mind. He lives completely in today.
He gave the company a thrill at Big Bear with a between-scenes experiment. A wagon wheel, in which the spokes were nearly all nil. intrigued him. So he folded himself inside and went rolling down a hill lickety-split. Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda ran to his rescue, but the child actors in the cast beat them to him. Nonchalantly he dazed one and all with, “That’s nothin’. I used to do that every night on Broadway!” As a matter of fact, athletic stunts were indeed routine for him.
Because daughter Paula had a location trip before he was sent on one, Mr. Stone was as anxious as could be for such an experience. He rented a cottage at Big Bear so Mrs. Stone and the girls could week-end with him. And he admits he had to dig out his woolen underwear to withstand the nippiness. This second assignment was in Technicolor and he’s sharing his discoveries about the special make-up with the Misses Stone.
“I’m not crazy to be a star out here,” he declared to me. “If I can keep busy in roles that are interesting I’ll be satisfied. It’s the girls I’m most ambitious for. I think Hollywood is a wonderful spot for us all. The thing that makes me happiest is our being together.”
He believes men and women are meant for vital, stimulating lives, and that a natural mode is the smartest. Often he has been buoyed up by his dependence on the divine power available to those who search their own hearts for strength to carry on. Too, he has a passion for sports and has excelled in most of them. The girls, practically from infancy, have been tutored in outdoor fun.
“They’re all different,” he fondly explained. “Dorothy is a splendid entertainer, if I do say so myself. Carol, the baby, is most inclined towards straight drama. She’s studied with New York’s finest coach. But it was Paula who beat me to the cameras. While I was waiting to be cast, she went right out and began.” Now she’s under contract to Warners.
These adored daughters aren’t helter-skelter. They’ve always had a real home. They’ve been raised to please the public because Mr. Stone himself has found acting a rich road to a full life. He’s demonstrated that the erratic and the tragic are avoidable trimmings. Mrs. Stone [Allene Crater], who quit a stage career of her own at marriage, was out the evening I visited. I am certain she must be exceptional, too.
Father’s prestige isn’t being capitalized on by the girls, who’re tackling Hollywood independently. Each has her agent to secure jobs and each relies on her individual abilities. Yet it was easy to detect that this understanding, encouraging lather is the fount to which they all turn for advice.
He may be a novice in movieland, exactly as they are, but he couldn’t have triumphed in the theatre without gaining much applicable information.
In return for being treated as equals, they keep his dates in order. They aren’t so puzzled by Hollywood’s amazing idiosyncrasies.
Quite the up-to-date, as well as wise parent, he’s eager to sample all the grand things this world has to offer. But he’s not given to accepting second best. The secret of his record success has been nothing more complicated than Work, and lots of it. He considers easy short cuts fallacious routes. Deliver the goods and he promises you’ll not be overlooked.
He isn’t afraid the hey-hey laddies will be tempting his girls, either. They’re too sold on the way they’ve been reared to be lured off on any foolish tangents. I came away from Fred Stone with a swell feeling. This dear old dad is not only arousing our emotions on the screen. He’s revived our respect for honest-to-gosh home life.
Years ago the straw man of “The Wizard of Oz” made a million kids happy. That was Fred Stone. He has never lost the trick.
Young Doug Fairbanks [Douglas Fairbanks Jr.], who once was such a prominent figure in Hollywood, has recently been working in England, where he has his own company. His first picture, “The Amateur Gentleman,” is soon to be released.
Collection: Silverscreen Magazine, April 1936