Hardie Albright — Luck and Pluck (1932) 🇺🇸

While playing with a stock company the young actor is seen by a Hollywood scout, who is so impressed by his work that a contract follows, and the young man is soon on his way to the West Coast.

by Jack Jamison

That's how it usually begins. But how does it end? This is the story of what has become of one of them — Hardie Albright.

He's a young man. One of those mysterious scouts saw him with a road company in Boston and called him to the New York office of a picture company for a test. He soon afterward found himself in Hollywood. They met him at the train and insisted that he come out to the studio and go to work without stopping to find a place to live, or even to wash his face after four grimy days on the train.

An executive took one look at him and cried hysterically, "They told me you were good. Boy, you're better than good! You're starring material!"

The publicity office got to work. The newspapers were advised. Hardie was a find. He was a hit, a knock-out, a smash, a new star!

And then —

Then happened the inside part of the story that never gets into the newspapers. Now that they had Hardie, the studio didn't have the least idea in the world what to do with him. Hollywood lives on enthusiasm. Here they get all excited about a thing one minute and forget it the next. For two weeks straight they made him take test after test. His reward was to be told how punk he was.

For one picture, "Young Sinners," they gave him exhaustive tests, told him he couldn't have a part, gave him another series of tests, told him again that he wasn't the man for the job.

Then they ordered him to report for more tests for the same role. He got the part. It should have been the end of his troubles. Instead, it was just the beginning.

A director said, "Ronald Colman was a failure until I took him in hand. He's a success because I made him grow a mustache. You've got to grow a mustache."

Hardie grew a mustache.

Another studio mogul ordered him to curl his hair. Hardie said "But —" And then remembered that a studio contract is a stern thing.

"I don't like him with curly hair. Dye it black," said some one else in power.

"What's wrong with him is that his lips aren't pretty enough," said another. "Rouge a nice big cupid's bow on him."

By this time the executive who liked curly hair so well had decided Hardie would be better with straight hair after all.

Some executive was mighty dumb or needed a good poke on the chin.

He had signed the contract. The sporting thing to do was to grin and hear it. But it hurt. Why must he be changed? They had liked him for himself. Now they wanted to make something else of him entirely. On the stage in New York he had been a good enough actor, so nobody cared whether his hair was pink or green. It sounded insane. Why?

Finally the studio decided he was ready for the public to take a peek at him. and gave him a picture. Whatever had been Hardie Albright was spoiled. This wasn't Hardie standing before the camera. It was a self-conscious young chap worrying about how he looked. He stood there before the camera with his lips painted to a girlish cupid's how, his hair fluffed up on his head like a silly debutante's, his eyes heavily mascaraed the way Pola Negri's and Theda Bara's used to be in the days of vamps. He was a sight.

"I was in four pictures. Out of the four, I liked only one, and I liked only one scene of that. There were 'Young Sinners,' 'Hush Money,' 'Skyline,' and 'Heartbreak.' I liked the scene in Heartbreak in which Carl, the fellow I was playing, had to go up in his plane when he knew it meant death for him.

"The pictures weren't any too successful. But the studio knew just what was wrong! Oh, they'd fix everything. They told me to grow some more hair dozen lower on my forehead."

How Hardie was to grow hair where it did not grow was not specified in the contract. Hardie took a deep breath, and walked into the front office. "I don't think you know what you want to do with me or how to do it," he said calmly. "I'd like to buy back my contract. I'm in a rut here. I'm miserable. Let me go."

He wasn't angry; he was just discouraged and sad. He tore up his contract and walked out, a free man.

A free man? How many who read this know what it means to tear up vour contract in Hollywood? For one thing, it means the possible circulation of that whisper which covers all Hollywood sins — "He's hard to work with."

A dreary month went by. Hardie is tremendously active, and the mere sitting around the house day after day, with no job. waiting for the telephone to ring, was had enough.

Hollywood didn't want Hardie Albright. That was all there was to it. He might as well leave town.

The telephone rang. Universal wanted him for "Night World."

The phone rang again. Warner Brothers wanted him for So Big. He was to play the part that made Ben Lyon in the silent version. They told him to rush out to the studio. He met a man who was tearing his hair and saying over and over, "I can't do anything with him!"

"With who?" said Hardie. It was no time for grammar.

"Mr. Arliss. He says he won't have any one but you in 'A Successful Calamity.' I try to suggest some one else. I tell him we want you for Miss Pinkerton. He puts his foot down and says he won't have any one but you!"

The dignified George Arliss appeared around a corner. Sternly, crisply, he demanded, "Know your lines, Albright?" There was a twinkle in his eye.

"Yes," said Hardie. He burst into a speech from The Merchant of Venice, in which he had appeared with Mr. Arliss in New York.

"Odd," said Mr. Arliss, "that sounds familiar. I think I've heard that somewhere before."

He walked sternly away. A harsh, cruel man, George Arliss, who thinks of no one but himself!

And after that film, Hardie was cast in "Jewel Robbery," with William Powell. First National has just given him a nice contract.

And after that —

Oh, the young man seems to be doing quite well, thank you. Sometimes ideals do pay.

George Arliss held up "A Successful Calamity" until Hardie Albright was cast in it. Hardie is shown here in "Skyline."

No young actor ever went through a more discouraging period of being tested and rejected, Marcelled, painted, and generally worked over than Hardie Albright. The story opposite tells of his victory over this fate.

Photo by: Irving Lippman (1906–2006)

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, October 1932