Will Rogers Rambles (1924) 🇺🇸

by Helen Ogden

What you want to interview me for?” Will Rogers twirled his lariat uneasily. A look of panic came into his mild eyes. “Say somethin’ for the public? But I haven’t got any. One nice thing ‘bout not bein’ an actor, I don’t have to read highbrow books to get somethin’ original to say in interviews. But I have to work harder’n these actors do. Whenever anybody around Hollywood has a day off, he thinks up one of these here benefit performances for the starvin’ cannibals. They always ask me to appear as a contrast to the actors. They have a swell time doin’ nothin’ — all the pretty girls an’ boys have to do is come out on the stage, bow so sweet an’ say, ‘Aye thank you, one an’ all, dear public…

We are tryin’ so hard to give you our very best. Thank you. Thank you.’ Imagine me tryin’ to pull that line! When I come out on the stage, the people look me over and yell, ‘For the luvamike, do something’!’

“When I’m not workin’ in a benefit I make movies. By the way, Secretary of Labor Davis come out here t’other day. I told him I was pleased to meet anybody even so remotely connected with labor as he is. He says he come out to investigate labor conditions in the movies an’ I told him this was a darn poor place to find out about labor.

“That is, ‘ceptin’ me. This here Hal Roach must forget I’ve got a weak heart from playin’ around those “Follies” all those years — the way he works me is awful.

Why, no sooner do I finish one two-reel comedy than right away I start another one. I get no time to practice new ways to chew my gum melodious. The boys around here claim they’re gettin’ tired of my regular tune.

“Just finished ‘Uncensored Movies.’ Had to ‘personate all the movie folks. No, I didn’t play Will Rogers, only the actors. Played Bill Hart— say, I like that two-gun he-man an’ maybe I didn’t give ‘em action with them pop pistols — Tom Mix an’ — an’ others.” About his impersonation of Sheik Valentino, the most poignant bit the screen will see this season, he remained uncommunicative. “Shucks, though, we left out the best movie actor the news reels has — Niagara Falls.

“Before that, I made ‘The Covered Wagons.’ When I come out here I found two covered wagons that Lasky had overlooked an’ thought I ought to give ‘em a chance to get immortalized, ‘long with their brothers an’ sisters. Sure, I play both Ernest Torrence’s and Warren Kerrigan’s rôles. Cheaper that way. We correct a lot of errors. Usually the hero swims the river without even gettin’ his smile wet. Clothes look like they’d just been pressed into form by a Will Hays decision. I fix that up when I ‘personate Kerrigan as Will Banion fordin’ the river — I wear a nifty Yale bathin’ suit.

“Now I’m playin’ a cowboy like Jay Howe [J. A. Howe], my director, says to. He knows all about cowboys — he was raised in the restaurant bizness an’ made so much money he retired from active life an’ became a movie director.

“But say, when they show my pictures, I sure hope they leave the cake frostin’ off the program. I been tryin’ to see Chaplin’s picture for three nights. Twice I waited through fifteen Niagara Falls, a dozen prologues, near-sopranos an’ such an’ admitted they had me beat. But t’other night I determined I’d stick it out an’ see that picture if it took all night. I did. At ten thirty they used up all the prologues in stock an’ had to show the picture, so I won,” he chuckled.

“Trouble with most pictures is they got too many people in ‘em an’ not enough actors. Most of ‘em are too good lookin’ an’ the director keeps pullin’ ‘em in before the camera to do their turn an’ so much beauty confuses the audience, makes folks wonder where the story has run off to. ‘Jubilo’ was a good picture because there was only four characters. Each feller knew his bizness in that play an’ he went right to it with a stopwatch on his actin’ and didn’t have time to focus his profile.

“One thing ‘bout this company of mine I’m proud of — we’ve got no efficiency expert. Lots of movie companies go broke hirin’ efficiency experts. I won’t have one, ‘cause he might want to hire some actors an’ that would let me out. The best actors we’ve got in this company is this here bunch of flowers an’ the school-house set. They know all the six expressions of the trained actor an’, like the baseball players, never go wrong.

“I’m steppin’ out into sassiety these days. Sure. I bought a ticket to the annual ball of the cinematographers — anybody that would answer to a name like that’s got no respect for a person’s time at all. Had to, or else they’d shoot me clean out of focus.

“An’ to-morrow I’m goin’ to play polo with Jack Holt. The missus says I gotta wear them white pajama pants. An’ one day a grand op’ry star come out to see me, but I heard about it first an’ — an’ had to work awful hard that day. Dunno whether she wanted to be a comedy queen or whether she planned to make me an op’ry warbler, but I wasn’t takin’ chances either way.

“One thing I don’t have to go to though — the banquet Pola Negri is givin’ for the Polish Army — by the way, who is he? Only actors are invited, an’ prob’ly the mayor. Our mayor’s a mighty fine news-reel actor, a nice feller too, an’ has a busy life, what with dispatchin’ an’ welcomin’ home movie stars. Wonder what the mayors of Boston and St. Louis do to kill time durin’ their hours of office?

“Times come when I’m glad I’m not an actor,” Rogers rambled on, surveying the delicacies laid out for consideration in the Roach cafeteria. “Feedin’ time’s one. Actors, now, have to diet. Say, the waitress that thinks up these signs in here oughta be a subtitle writer. Lookit that, ‘Vegetables changed daily.’ Guess the meat wears better, but gosh it’s nice to know they use new green stuff every day.

“Say somethin’ you can use in an interview? Gosh, I knew there was a catch to this. Who’s my favorite star? Well now, that’s easy. Farina there, the little pickaninny, has got Valentino skinned forty ways, rolls those ‘witchin’ eyes, says ‘Hot dog!” an’ gets anything on the lot. I’m aimin’ to get Farina [Allen “Farina” Hoskins] to teach me how to be an actor.”

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In his latest Hal Roach comedies Will Rogers gives imitations of Tom Mix, Bill Hart [William S. Hart] and Rodolph Valentino [Rudolph Valentino]. And he goes J. Warren Kerrigan one better in an interpretation of Will Banion by having him wear a dress suit.

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Collection: Picture Play Magazine, February 1924

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Among Those Present:

1. Claude Gillingwater — A Movie Homesteader
2. Edythe Chapman — The Secret of a New Mother Type
3. Lou Tellegen — The Return of the Great Lover
4. Percy Marmont — An Overnight Success — After Years of Plodding
5. Virginia Valli — The Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up
6. Mildred Davis — One Half of the House of Lloyd
7. Will Rogers Rambles