Wheeler Oakman — With the Big Show! (1918) 🇺🇸
Wheeler Oakman doesn’t like to talk to strangers. This doesn’t mean that he is discourteous. Being a Virginian, he couldn’t be that. But only that after he has shaken hands — he has a firm, strong handclasp — he is likely to shut up like the proverbial clam unless you’re very lucky. In that case, something may happen to remind him of an incident of his “trouping” days and he may happen to tell you about it.
by Elizabeth Peltret
Perhaps the incident which “draws him out of his shell” will be only a description of some out-of-the-way little hotel, or some strange character, met up with when he was playing the leading parts in eight or ten wild and woolly melodramas a week in almost as many different, dinky little towns, at a reputed salary of twenty-five per week — (for the most part, he actually got about seven) or of another time when he started in with Selig [William Nicholas Selig] as an extra man, after having played leading parts with Lubin [Siegmund Lubin], and walked to and from work, a matter of three or four miles more or less, to save ten cents in carfare — (afterwards he played opposite Kathlyn Williams in the biggest picture Selig ever made: The Spoilers) — or again it may be of the trip to Panama where “The Ne’er Do Well” was made; really, it makes no difference what the anecdote is about, it is certain to be well worth listening to.
At twenty-seven, he has been through almost as much romantic adventure in real life as there is in the photoplays he has appeared in. Only, the last two years have been quiet ones. For instance, there was fifteen months spent making one seven-reel picture with Mabel Normand, when all the excitement he had came from looking at film to see what was the matter with it. He didn’t say so, but for a man of his temperament, that must have been a trying time. Running through all he says, there is a little undertone of restlessness; not discontent; it is just the same old “call of the open road.” After all, what does security, a fat salary, and ease count for in the life of a natural adventurer?
Wheeler Oakman wants to go “on the road” again. And he’s going. Though exempt from the draft, he has arranged his affairs and volunteered for service in France.
“I used to go trouping with companies that invariably ended by owing me money,” he said.
He speaks slowly, in a low tone of voice and with scarcely a gesture. He has just a trace of Southern accent.
“Now,” he added, still without any expression in his voice, “I’m going with an all-star cast of the biggest show on earth.”
“It won’t be any circus.”
“No,” laughing. “But neither would staying here be any circus. I come of fighting stock, you know. I was named for Gen. Joe Wheeler of the Confederate cavalry — “Fighting Joe,” they called him — just about the most peppery little commander in the army. My younger brother is in the service now, a commissioned officer. I tell you, I hate to go out on the street because every time I see a soldier it reminds me that I ought to be in uniform. This last month has been almost unendurable.”
Made up as a miner, he sat on the steps of his dressing room at the Metro studio, where he is working with Edith Storey. “Shooting” was temporarily held up while necessary changes were being made in the set. During the pause that followed, Oakman pulled his big automatic from its holster and began playing with it.
“Can you shoot?”
“No-o-o, I’m a rotten shot,” he answered. “I never was very strong for killing things — never cared anything about hunting — but the thought of killing men in war don’t worry me any — on the contrary. How would I feel if I saw the body of a German I knew I had killed myself?” repeating a question. “Why, I think I’d feel all right. Just as if I had won an exciting game, perhaps.”
The visitor had taken the gun and was examining it.
‘‘Please don’t look down that barrel!” he exclaimed, with unexpected vehemence, adding, “Even if the gun is not loaded, it’s a bad thing to do.”
He is very tall, strong and broad-shouldered — but then everybody knows that — and his hands are brown and calloused, from playing baseball perhaps. His proficiency in that game has gotten him out of many a scrape.
“But speaking of getting stranded,” he said, “The worst experience I ever had was one time when we went stranded in Boston. I woke up one morning to find the company gone and myself dead broke. After weeks spent trying to get work, I finally managed to earn enough money to get me back to New York — steerage. I walked on board the boat with just sixty-five cents in my pocket, and I hadn’t been on board an hour before I began to actually suffer from hunger. With just the smallest little ray of hope that everything would be all right, I called a steward and asked if the meals were table de hote or a la carte. Another blow, he said, a la carte. I stood it as long as I could before going to the dining room, and there I found that the only thing on the menu for fifty cents was beans. I couldn’t even get coffee. I took the beans and threw the waiter my much-needed fifty cents. Anyway, I didn’t tip him.
“Arriving in New York, I took the elevated down town, got some coffee, and then walked the streets without a penny. I remember it was St. Patrick’s day, and cold — Lord! About eleven o’clock I stopped on the corner of 42nd and Broadway, intending to wait until the crowds had left and then dive into the lobby of a theater — no one would be likely to find me curled up in a corner, I thought — in New York, you can’t sleep in a park, they run you right out. But luck was with me. While I was standing there, I saw a man I knew who was passing by on the other side of the street. I ran after him, and you can believe that when I caught him, I fell on his neck! Made him take me home with him, give me something to eat, and put me up for the night.”
Wheeler Oakman has been on the stage since he was seventeen years old, starting with his sister in repertoire. One of the plays he appeared in at that time was “Under Southern Skies” — “Just about every actor in the world has played in that, I guess,” he said — at nineteen, he was stage manager of a “Strongheart” road company and it was at this period of his career that he contracted his only case of “swelled head.”
“Speaking of exalted ideas about a mission in life,” he said, “I firmly believed that when it came to real managerial ability David Belasco had nothing on me! I used to smoke big, black cigars, wear eccentric hats, and systematically snub the members of the company for the good of discipline. Incidentally, I found that the job of being a stage manager was a long way off from being the most pleasant job in the world — not even when you think that you’re a Belasco.”
Oakman never tried stage managing again. Six years ago, he came west with a company playing “Checkers” and left them in Los Angeles to make pictures with Lubin. His reason for leaving was a good one; they were going to cut off most of his salary. He played leading parts with Lubin. From there, he went to Selig. The Spoilers, “The Rosary,” and The Ne’er Do Well are three of his best-known pictures with that company. Then came the long period of time spent making Mabel Normand’s “Micky” — “Speaking of a steady job,” he laughed.
“But when things got dull all we did to stir them up again was to start something with Minnie, a great, big fat Indian woman who is just about as good an actress as you ever saw. The joke of it is that one of the best ways to roil her up is to suggest that she is acting.
“‘I’m no actor!’ she’ll yell, ‘I’ll just go ahead and do a thing the way it should be done!’ But the worst insult you can give her is to call her a squaw. She’s an American woman, she is, and she’s likely to let you know it with her fist. Also, she can be witty enough when she wants to. She was educated at Carlisle. And she’s not lacking in real dignity, either. On one occasion I know of, Minnie got into a crowded street car, and a woman promptly decided to use up all the available room in order that Minnie should not sit beside her. The conductor asked the woman to move over, but at this point Minnie interfered.
“‘No thank you,’ she said, ‘I’d rather stand than sit next to some white women. Their teeth are full of gold, their breath smells and I am afraid I might get germs.’”
One guesses that Wheeler Oakman must have taken quite a fancy to Minnie. No wonder; her forceful way of “livening things up” must have given him many an amusing hour.
Following Micky came “Princess Virtue” with Mae Murray at Universal, “Revenge” and “The Claim” with Edith Storey at Metro —
“What was your impression of Miss Storey?” he was asked.
“Well,” he answered, thoughtfully, “First, I was impressed by her attractiveness; next, by her intelligence; but the strongest impression I have is that she can’t play poker.”
And now he is to appear in The Biggest Show on Earth, with Uncle Sam.
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“Gee,” said Wheeler when he looked at the negative of I Love You, in which he played with Alma Rubens, “wasn’t I the nasty villain though?”
With Mae Murray in “Face Value”
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With Kathlyn Williams in “The Ne’er Do Well.”
Wheeler Oakman and Director Tod Browning discussing a scene for “The Claim”
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Attention, Mr. Fairbanks!
The following is to Old Doc Cheerful, from M. Lucile Cornet, of St. Louis, Mo. Doug [Douglas Fairbanks Sr.] will please forward his autographed photograph. “The Man from Painted Post” told “The Matrimaniac” to come “Down to Earth” and stop “Reaching for the Moon.” “The Half-Breed” caught “The Good Bad Man” through seeing “His Pictures in the Papers” when he was trying to break into “American Aristocracy,” and in a “Wild and Woolly” way caused “The Modern Musketeer” “Double Trouble” by “Flirting with Fate.” “The Americano” knew it was just a case of “Manhattan Madness” and would stop when “Reggie Mixes In.” “The Lamb” solved “The Mystery of the Flying Fish” by going “In Again and Out Again” and “Headin’ South.”
Every advertisement in Photoplay Magazine is guaranteed.
Collection: Photoplay Magazine, May 1918