Walter Pidgeon — Presenting Mr. Pidgeon (1926) 🇺🇸
What, I ask you, are the movies coming to, when our leading men kid both the business and themselves? When they deny boisterously that they have become movie actors solely to satisfy a great artistic urge? When they completely neglect to insinuate that their success is due to constant study and devotion to things histrionic? That I should live to see the day when a handsome leading man would look me straight in the eye and say that he realized that the only reason he had a job in pictures was because the Lord had seen fit to make him six feet tall and lucky!
The young man with this astounding lack of reverence for his profession is Walter Pidgeon. Picturegoers may not be very familiar with him yet, but unless Joseph Schenck and I are both wrong, they will very shortly be bombarding the mails with requests for his photograph — "autographed, please!" My judgment may reasonably be doubted, but Joseph — our cinema Napoleon — who has never picked a loser, is wholly dependable.
Last fall, Pidgeon was singing in New York with Elsie Janis when he met Schenck. That astute producer immediately signed the actor for six months, asking him to leave at once for California to appear opposite Constance Talmadge.
The Talmadge opus then slated for production was "East of the Setting Sun," which Erich von Stroheim was to adapt and direct, and wherein he was also to play the villain. It would have furnished a dazzling debut for Walter Pidgeon, a glorious entrance under the eye-compelling banner of von Stroheim. But, like so many well-laid plans of mice, men and movie actors, the plan for this film went astray. The story has it that the finished script provided marvelous opportunities for the heavy — Mr. von Stroheim — almost equally good chances for the hero — Mr. Pidgeon — and also a nice little part for some blonde girl — maybe Constance Talmadge. Anyway, that idea was shelved — leaving Mr. Pidgeon with a contract, but without a job.
Then, one Sunday, a friend took him out to Jimmy Cruze's big, hospitable home in Flintridge. He had a pleasant, lazy day, smoking his pipe and poking round the garden. Some one asked him to sing The Volga Boatman, and he agreeably obliged. As he was leaving, he told Cruze how much he had enjoyed himself, adding that he would like to come again sometime if he might.
"Well," Cruze said gruffly, "I don't know whether you can or not. You're everything in the way of a man that I don't like. You don't drink, and you smoke that pipe that's so strong it makes me sick, and you sing that infernal Volga Boatman ditty."
Pidgeon, totally unprepared for Cruze, who is one of our most likable eccentrics, backed away a bit.
The churlish James squinted an eye speculatively.
"How'd you like to play in my new picture? Yes? O.K.? All right, kid, I'll fix it up with Schenck."
Thus, Walter Pidgeon became the hero of "Mannequin." Immediately afterward, Fox borrowed him for Rowland Lee's production of "The Outsider." Then, he was loaned to First National for "Old Loves and New." They liked him so well that they kept him as Anna Q. Nilsson's leading man in "Miss Nobody." Now he is appearing in the Fox film, "The Pelican."
All this, please understand, within a period of half a year, and — Mr. Pidgeon to the contrary — when the leading-man market is going through a particularly crowded era.
Calling the class to order, and with my little compass making a chart of the situation, I should say that the demand, at present, is primarily for gentlemen rather than for actors. This is due, first, to Ronald Colman, who in the beginning aroused the public's fancy for ultra refinement, and second, to the sweeping popularity of the smart, sophisticated, light drama of life in the upper strata.
Time was when the main requirement of the wealthy, dashing hero of a piece was the ability to make every move a drama, every expression an uncontrollable emotion.
But between Mr. Colman and Herr Lubitsch, the screen is drawing nearer and nearer to life, and its people are acting more like people and less like actors. It is a period of relaxation, a reaction from the period when the very lighting of a cigarette had to mean love, or hate, or sudden death. The idea, now, seems to be that the actors being brought into prominence must have "background" first, and ability second. If they turn out to have both — well, Happy New Year and a nice, long-term contract!
Of the gentlemen with both of these qualifications, Walter Pidgeon seems to be leading the field of the new discoveries. That almost greatest obstacle of all — lack of box-office value — has been disregarded entirely in the rush for his services. This is almost without precedent — this entrusting of leading roles to an actor quite unestablished with the public.
He is quite the handsomest player, this Walter Pidgeon, that the colony has greeted in some time. Over six feet, of athletic build, he is dressed, I am sure, by the most exacting of London tailors. His eyes, in case you have a special penchant for them, are blue and humorous. Healthy, tanned complexion — black hair — nice hands — contagious smile. In fact, my dears, he is very good-looking.
When I talked to him, he was in the first weeks of Miss Nobody, the picture with Anna Q. Nilsson. As he was out of town on location during the day, we made the appointment for the evening.
He arrived in a very superior, high-powered roadster, apologizing contritely that we could not go somewhere and dance. The part he was playing had necessitated a beard, and it was then much in evidence, causing him acute embarrassment. So we headed toward the Pacific — it being a soft, moonlit evening, and the planetary aspects very favorable.
"How do you like California?" I began the cross-examination, brilliantly.
"Marvelous — I love it! Did you see the sunset to-night? And these orange orchards! All the way back from location this evening. Anna Q. and I did nothing but inhale and exclaim."
"Do you think you will settle here?"
"Yes — I'm trying to buy a house now. My brother and my four-year-old youngster have just come out, and I want to get a home so that they'll stay. My child hardly knows me. I'm only the iceman or the janitor — just a man around the house."'
Voice — I decided — cultured and very nice.
"How did you happen to go on the stage, Mr. Pidgeon?" This question is usually infallible, leading into intensive discursions on an inbred, childhood passion for the theater.
"Because I went broke on the stock market,"' replied that gentleman, shutting off the engine and coasting down a long, steep hill at hair-raising speed.
The twinkling, yellow lights of the valley rushed up to meet us, as the hill behind shut Hollywood abruptly from view. We wound through the broad, shadowy avenues of Beverly Hills.
"Well — pictures. Mr. Pidgeon? Why are you here?"
"Me?" He laughed, and made that justly historical remark. "Because it pleased the Lord to make me six feet tall and lucky, and because there is a dearth of leading men."
Please, boys and girls, remove your hats and observe a brief silence in honor of an honest actor — and an actor quite devoid of any "mission" in his "art," of any message to bring the public.
"But," I protested, as we left Beverly Hills and shot past Tom Mix's vellow limousine on the glassy, silvery road to the beach, "there must be more to it than that."
"I know, just how you feel about it. I'm awfully sorry I can't do better for you. But there's nothing at all exceptional about my life."
"Tut, tut!" I exclaimed, taking out an imaginary notebook and peering, pencil poised, over imaginary spectacles. "Come now — a few facts for the great American public."
He was born in St. John, New Brunswick. This made a successful beginning.
His childhood and early youth were spent in the environment of a cultured home. This I know, because he said nothing about it and because he has what a more vulgar type of person than myself might call "class." His absorbing delight has always been music. He calls it a hobby, but that is an inadequate term for a thing to which he has given such love and effort and diligence. His voice, well-known to concert-goers, is a magnificent tenor.
In the stock market he was momentarily successful, even to the extent of frequent vacations in Europe, spent in wandering about, hearing this symphony and that singer. And then, a few years ago, he suddenly went quite broke. So broke that it meant starting once more at the beginning, treading the same path all over again. He had never cared for business, and did not want to return to it, no matter how profitable it might prove again to be. His wife had died at the birth of their little girl, and he wanted to break away completely from familiar surroundings and habitudes.
In New York, he met the director of Aeolian Hall, who had heard him sing informally. This gentleman wanted to know what, if any, professional singing experience he had had. Pidgeon, scenting an engagement, replied casually that he had done extensive concert work in South America and so forth. Within the hour, he was engaged for a forthcoming concert in the famous and exclusive Aeolian Hall. That was his initial appearance before the footlights. The critics, next day, announced with enthusiasm the discovery of new talent in the musical world.
After extended concert tours here and abroad, and after the making of sundry very popular phonograph records, Walter Pidgeon turned to musical comedy. He opened in London as the leading male support of Elsie Janis in Puzzles of '25. The Orpheum circuit in this country arranged for a condensed version of the show to play their theaters, and Pidgeon followed the theatrical track across country and back again. It was when the show finally played in New York that he met Schenck and the six-month movie contract was signed. Strange to say, he has not vet played in a Schenck film, but he has been kept more than busy by other producers.
A nice gentleman. With wit and charm and level-headed intelligence. And an unexpected streak of poetry. And no delusions whatsoever about the relative artistic importance of a leading man.
I shouldn't be at all surprised if he turns out to be an excellent actor. Fully half of that, of course, depends on his luck in getting the right sort of roles. But whether or not he ever has a chance to make you salaam to his histrionic ability, I think you are going to like him!
Walter Pidgeon comes to the movies after a career in vaudeville and on the concert stage.
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, September 1926