Robert Agnew — Bobby from Texas (1924) 🇺🇸

Though Bobby Agnew hails from Texas and everybody knows that Texas men are supposed to have a great fund of self-reliance and confidence and are never, never abashed by anything, and though Bobby hands inquisitive ladies in and out of his plebeian coupe with a consummate flourish, the fact that interviews are great occasions in his young career cannot be hidden.

For Bobby [Robert Agnew], though now twenty-four, is still boyish both in appearance and manner, sincere in the do-or-die spirit, in giving his level best to everything he tackles. He is going through with this business, he is going to acquit himself nobly, no matter what foolish questions the lady asks, is Bobby.

Bobby’s work in the past year has won favorable recognition. He stands out as the juvenile of perhaps the most promise — and really he doesn’t appear to be, or act as if he were, a day over seventeen. Indeed so ideally is he of that age that Jesse Lasky is considering filming Seventeen again — it was clone once before, if you remember, with Jack Pickford. This time, if the plan materializes, it will serve as the vehicle to bring into central focus the talents of this youngster whom Paramount has been grooming for bigger rôles.

Naturally, Bobby is tremendously excited over his prospects. Not long ago Mr. Lasky [Jesse L. Lasky] called him into the sanctum sanctorum and  indicated his pleasure at the critical approbation that had greeted Bobby’s work in “Only Thirty-eight,” Woman-Proof with Tommy Meighan [Thomas Meighan], and even the tiny bit he had in “The Spanish Dancer.” Bobby went in, his young brow corrugated; it was apparent that the boy from Texas was more than half scared — his mien was that of the youngster sent “to see the principal” — for he hasn’t yet acquired the nonchalant aplomb of the actor. But when Bobby came out, wreathed in smiles, because the Big Boss had given him a comp’, they could hardly hold him down.

“Makes me sick,” he grumbled later, “the way some of the actors rave about their art and,” lamely attempting to put into concrete form the ideas which he was mulling over in his mind, “everything. I hope if I ever get to be a good actor I won’t be stuck on myself. Gee, it gets my goat when they talk about conditions, how they’re rubber stamped into certain types of rôles, and all. We’re each just fit for one thing, see?’

“There are a lot of actors who couldn’t do anything else, if it weren’t for the movies. I’m not saying they all couldn’t, but what I mean is we ought all to be grateful and realize the producers are in the business to make money, not to play around and please the actors. They have to give the public what it wants, what it will pay to see.

“I think folks around here take things too seriously anyway. I want to be a good actor some day, but why take on about your ‘art?’ I think the best way is to work hard while you’re working, study and apply yourself — if you have anything in you it will crop out, express itself, as you get older and, well, sort of develop, see?”

Though rather fortunate in finding opportunities ready at hand, Bobby has worked for the good things that are now his portion. He comes from an old Texas family, long on tradition — his mother was a McKinley, cousin of the presidential branch. At thirteen, smash-bang went the family fortunes, the tale which one often hears from the lips of actors, but which in Bobby’s case happens to be true. He, however, did not step out and grandly, immediately, restore said fortunes.

“I got my first job in a glue factory,” he snickered. “And I stuck to my career for a year — umm, not so good, that pun. Anyway, I worked at this and that after school hours. When I was nineteen I hit New York with nine dollars. I had played in some short comedies made by independent producers down in Texas — home talent stuff, and decided I wanted to be a real actor.

“Had just fifty cents left when I got my first job — they asked me could I ride, and I said, ‘Sure, anything.’ Could I act? Hadn’t I been an actor ‘out West?’ They wanted a fellow to ride in a horse race and the actors were too big for jockeys and the jockeys couldn’t act, so they had to take me, being the only thing at hand that would do. When they told me the salary was one hundred dollars a week I nearly passed out, but managed to act almost natural until I got out of the office.”

The past five years have been full ones. Several pictures with Alice Joyce. Some with May McAvoy. Small rôles in films for Fox, Selznick, the Talmadges [William Fox | Lewis J. Selznick | Constance Talmadge | Norma Talmadge | Natalie Talmadge]. And now his Paramount contract and the grooming and training for big parts. He has recently completed a rôle in William de Mille’s [William C. de Mille] “Don’t Call It Love,” adapted from “Rita Coventry,” and just now is loaned to Ince [Thomas H. Ince] for a crook film with Lila Lee and Jim Kirkwood [James Kirkwood].

While earnestly trying his best to acquit himself well, he is consumed with no theoretical notions, other than the usual likes and dislikes of an ordinary boy, has no “line” to hand out. He has no kick against that portion of the world in which his destiny at the moment is cast, but is quite content to play the juveniles for which he is best suited. If as time goes on he proves himself capable of bigger things, well and good. If not

“I can earn my living lots of ways, if I have to or want to,” he says, with a contagious grin. “I don’t have to be an actor. But I like to. If the folks ever say, ‘Thumbs down on you, you poor prune, you can’t act,’ I could — go back to the glue factory!”

But he won’t have to, for there’s a naive, wholesome charm about this youngster which augurs well for his future. He has been singularly successful in escaping the awkward period of the actor, the self-consciousness that usually intersperses ineffectual immaturity and the final achievement of poise and ease of manner. The boy you see on the screen in his films isn’t any imaginary creature trying to impress you with make-believe action; he is — Bobby Agnew, being himself and having a peach of a time. And therein is the secret of his growing popularity.

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Photo by: Eugene Robert Richee (1896–1972)

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Collection: Picture Play Magazine, March 1924