The Strenuous Life By Kyle Crichton Bounding around on the rear seat of the family jaloppy and being in kiddie shows since the age of two and a half did something for Joan Leslie. The offices of publicity departments in Hollywood studios are lined with pictures of lovely ladies and handsome men. By some form of alchemy the publicity men, otherwise sane individuals, become metamorphosed into hero-worshippers. They look upon these fabulous faces with the rapt gaze of devotees. "See that little girl up there on the left? No, that one. Sally Boltz. Can't miss. Be the hottest thing around here in six months." On all too many occasions, when you come back in six months and ask about Miss Boltz, there are signs of distress. It seems that Miss Boltz's option has been dropped. She looked promising but there was a little something missing. Didn't quite make it. After years of facing this problem, we have reached the conclusion that only actors have an idea of the worth and possible future of a young actor. Out at Warner Bros.' in Burbank, the actors are excited about a fifteen-year-old girl named Joan Leslie. She started in High Sierra and was so well liked by the studio that they rushed her into everything on the lot and finally gave her the lead opposite Gary Cooper in Sergeant York. "Um-m-m," say the older actors, lifting a significant eyebrow and making a tiny motion with the thumb and forefinger. They don't mean that she's a beauty; they mean that she has that something that pops out of a screen and smacks people. The average fifteen-year-old should be spoken to only by other fifteen-year-olds on the theory that nobody of that age knows anything, has ever done anything or has a right to opinions on anything. The Leslie girl is an exception because she happens to be an actress from away back. She is an old hand, an ancient trouper, a seasoned performer. Since the age of two-and-a-half she has been coursing up and down this land, mostly on the rear seat of a Ford car, accompanied by her papa and mama and two sisters. This brings the story to the Brodell sisters, singing, dancing, acrobatics, impersonations and instrumental specialties. Father Brodell was an accountant in Detroit. Mother Brodell was a pianist and had ambitions for her daughters along that line. The dancing was thrown in to give the girls poise. Musical intruments were a cinch for them; they could finger anything handed to them. It ended with Mary playing the saxophone, Betty playing the banjo, and Joan playing the accordian. They started with kiddie shows, traipsed around with same during vacations and gradually worked up an act that was good for a week at the Detroit-Fox every six months. "Could always play Hamtramck and Toledo, too," says Mary, who was the oldest and booked the act. Joan could play the accordian at three, but school kept her away from the act until later. The real work began when the depression smacked the family and papa lost his job and the family lost its home. They managed to salvage the car and set out to make a living. The older girls would start the act with a duo, a la the Boswell sisters. Joan would come on, sing a number of her own and go into her impersonations -- Garbo, Zasu Pitts, Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, George Givot. They finished by dancing off while letting forth whams from their instruments. "Did a Stepin Fletchit finale that killed them," admits Joan. The Girls Knew Best For a time they worked with a Southern unit of a kiddie show, traveling by car and living in a tent. Other performers liked them and gave them advice. Form the Randall sisters they got the notion that the hard-boiled tap dancing of the period wasn't the thing for nice girls. They made theirs more feminine. When the manager of the unit objected to their dancing as too aesthetic (they had based what they did on their ballet training), they waited until he was out of the way and then began taking the audience into their confidence. "How'd you like to see us do this one?" they'd ask, and then do it to great applause. From that came the patter that was later a part of the act. Traveling in a car was a major adventure because in addition to the tents, extra blankets, stove, cooking utensils, suitcases, and musical instruments, they always had a dog, and in one instance dragged two mutts around for a season. They had even more trouble with the labor laws. Joan was under ten and was passing for sixteen; Mary was fourteen and passing for twenty-one. They were supposed to have a tutor -- and they had no tutor; they were not supposed to play in theatres -- and they played in theatres. When they crossed into Canada it was up to the girls to talk the custom officials out of a deposit guarantee the return of the musical instruments to this country. They managed that and were such a hit in the French quarter of Quebec that they stayed for four weeks and Joan learned enough of the language to do her Chevalier impersonation in the original. "And then we had some really good luck," reports Mary. "We got so poor we couldn't pay the two dollars a lesson for our dancing, so we left my sax and Betty's banjo with the teacher as security. He skipped town with them. We never let on to papa but we used to get off by ourselves and cheer about it." Finally they reached Stanley Theatre in Pittsburg, held the usual family conference and came to a decision. Being close to New York, the thing to do was make a break for it. They hit Broadway with no job but a lot of hope. There was a new show going into the Paradise night club and Mary went to brace the manager. "She was so bashful in school she couldn't even talk to the boy at the next desk," says Betty, "but she would go into any office in the world and bluff the manager." The Paradise people said they were sorry but the show was already set. "We'll give you an audition, anyhow," cried Mary handsomely. They gave their audition in their street clothes and the manager had to admit they were good. But there wasn't any use trying to use an act with a kid in it; the Gerry Society would be on his neck. "We'll go as long as we can and run when they get hot," compromised Mary. It was settled that way and they were a hit and the Gerry people didn't get to them for four weeks. Then they went up the street to the Park Central Hotel. At the end of two weeks the society popped up again. This time the kids were primed. Joan was out of the act and Mary, also redheaded, was doing her impersonations. "You can see for yourself that I'm over age," said Mary in an injured tone. "There must be some mistake. You've got me mixed up with somebody." To Hollywood and Back They stayed for eight weeks and then went over to Ben Marden's Riviera for two weeks. It was there that Al Altman, M-G-M talent scout, signed Joan. The money was wonderful -- two hundred dollars a week -- and the future was rosy. The family loaded into the old car and started west. Joan was ten years old and when she reached reached M-G-M she had only Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin as competition. She did a bit in Camille and at the end of six weeks both she and Deanna were given the air. That was a blow but the Brodells always had the act to fall back on. Three years later they were back in Hollywood. This time they had no two hundred dollars a week and there was no fanfare and they had no work. They kept telling themselves that all they needed was a break and thought they had it when Mary talked the old Trocadero into allowing them to appear on one of the Troc's glorified amateur nights. By this time Joan was thirteen and at the awkward stage but she could still sing and do her impersonations. "We sang our fool heads off," says Joan sadly, "and everybody just went on eating and talking." Wanger gave Joan a bit in Winter Carnival and she talked her way into a Jane Withers picture by assuring the casting director she was a Southern girl. "Anybody here do a Southern accent?" he asked. "Ah does," cried Joan, who has always been fast on the uptake. Still later she did Two Thoroughbreds for James Light at RKO and then Warners took a chance on her. They didn't ask her to do a scene but put her through one of the old-style tests--sing, dance, impersonations. "I can bawl, too," she suggested timidly because she is not at all the forward type. She bawled and they were entranced and threw her forthwith into High Sierra. After a week's rest from that she was launched in The Wagons Roll at Night. With three days' layoff, she was cast in Mr. Nobody. The day they finished, they started Alice in Movieland, a short. While she was still working on that, she started Sergeant York. This made for a strenuous life because she was also in the toils of the California law and must keep up with her school work. Between fittings for costumes, color tests, dialogue tests, rehearsals, still pictures and three hours school everyday day, she was in a mess. Her only time off was to go to a dance at Loyola College in Los Angeles, her first formal affair. "Next day the teacher was asking me all about it," Joan said. "Who was there, who did I dance with -- okay, now; let's get to the French." Take It as It Comes She couldn't use her own name of Brodell because of its similarity to Joan Blondell and changed it to Joan Brooks and later to Joan Leslie. Sister Mary is also under contract to Warners'. She is still Mary Brodell. Betty is doing radio work. The family lives in a little house three blocks from the studio and is recovering gradually from the tough days. According to California law half of a minor actress's salary is impounded by the state until she is twenty-one but that provision was waived for six months in the case of the Brodells to let them catch up on their back debts and appetites. "We never had time to think about its being tough," says Joan. "We were running around too fast and trying to get a job." She is tall, redheaded and a whiz at picking up stage business. She is very friendly, has a fine sense of humor and the poise of somebody aged ninety. When Mary blew up on a test and came home crying, Joan took her aside and talked with her solemnly: "You mustn't let things like that worry you. The worst generally turns out to be the best. You have to take the long view of things, Mary." "Say-y-y," cried Mary, forgetting her tears in astonishment. "Who's the old one in this family, anyhow?" But, as we said at the beginning, it's what the actors think that means something in these matters, and they think she has the goods. If Joan thinks anything about it, she keeps it to herself. Playing with Gary Cooper hasn't excited her. Nothing excites her. At home she plays baseball with her sisters and her father, who was something of a semipro star of his day. On the set she has a lot of fun and takes everything as it comes. When visiting Stephens College girls saw Gary Cooper on the set and yelled, "Come on over here, Gary, or we'll come after you," Joan had a little line for that also. "You come on back here, Cooper," she bawled, "or Mom'll git you." They consider that pretty fast humor out Burbank way. |
[Sign My Guestbook] [View My Guestbook]  |