EXUBERANT YOUTH ON THE MARCH By Paul Kennedy It is said that youth, and youth alone, has the power to make time tremble. That being so, Joan Leslie is going about the task with an easy indifference calculated to horrify the time-fearing citizen. As example, in these days when any given twenty-four hour period could well plot a new progress curve in the world we know, young Miss Leslie calmy and confidently talks of things she plans "after a little while." "How long is a little while, Miss Leslie?" "Oh, seven eight years," she replies, elaborating on her ultimate professional ambition, to appear in a stage play. Before that, maybe in a year or so, she hopes to be out of musicals and into heavy dramatics. One year, two years, seven, eight years. Only Nineteen on the march can fling such figures around with confidence. Miss Leslie now is resting in New York after eight months' unrelenting work. "Work" is used here in its working sense. "In the eighteen weeks we were doing 'Cinderella Jones,'" she explained. "I had to get up at 6 in the morning in order to be in make-up at 7. We worked right through until about 6 and by the time we were out of make-up and had looked at the rushes, it was 7. Before that it was the same thing in 'Rhapsody in Blue.'" Grooming,' It's Called That has, with certain exceptions, been her schedule for the past three years. "Grooming," they call it. "When they took me out to Hollywood, they told me they were going to groom me by putting me a picture here and a picture there. From that minute on it was one picture after another and on my sixteenth birthday I was handed the role of Gracie Williams in 'Sergeant York.'" As must every actress with twenty or so pictures behind her, Miss Leslie has often given thought to which of these pictures was the high point of her career. She gives it much thought, but never comes up with a clean-cut decision. Her role in "Sergeant York" she looks warmly upon for sentimental reasons. It was her first real part. The role of Agnes Nolan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" is equally near because it was through this role that the little Detroit girl got a glimpse of the immensity of her new world. "Before that it was more like a dream. I was just a kid, taking things as they came, the good roles, the bad ones. It was all new and a lot of fun. But in 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' the idea of the whole thing began opening up. I realized that, or rather was starting to realize, where it was I wanted to go and how hard it was going to be to get there." Serious Talk That paragraph represents a lot of serious talk for Miss Leslie. Not that she is averse to being serious. As a matter of fact she gives the impression of cultivating seriousness, just as she is now cultivating a new voice level. To achieve the latter she forces herself to talk a half note lower than her normal voice. But with the first spark of enthusiasm her voice goes sliding right back to its original level. About the same thing happens with her seriousness. One grin, and she's a healthy young lady about as far removed from artistic nervousness as a wide wedge of apple pie from a French menu. This rugged normalcy runs the short way back to her childhood in Detroit, where as one of the three daughters of John and Agnes Brodel, she grew up much as any other daughter of any othe Midwestern bank teller. It was only when the three, Joan, Betty and Mary (Joan says that Mary is the prettiest of the three), branched out into a semi-professional radio act that the norm began to veer slightly. There was a bit of concerned questioning on the part of the parents and the good sisters at St. Benedicts High School at this. But when the trio went unreservedly professional, grabbing theatre and night club engagements billed as the "The Hollywood Kiddies, Song and Interpretations," it was then the eyebrows zoomed. The tentacles of show business had reached into another good home! The tentacles, it so happened, were exceptionally strong ones insomuch as they carried away the whole family, Mother and Father Brodel accompanying the youngsters on their tours, which carried them to threatres and nightclubs from Maine to Miami. The routine consisted of close harmony melodies, with the inevitable interpretations of Zasu Pitts, Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn. Nostalgia "It was all pretty silly, I guess," sighed Miss Leslie, torn between nostalgia for those dim days of four years past and the newer seriousness of Nineteen. "It was pretty silly but it worked out right." Right into Hollywood, where Joan was taken after talent scouts caught her act in a New York night club. The elder Brodels and Betty accompanied Joan to the Coast, where she promptly got a new name because hers was too considered too similar to that of Joan Blondell. As heiress presumptive to choice Warner roles of the future, Miss Leslie is concentrating more and more on dramatic coaching. At any rate, she doesn't feel the time is quite ripe to tackle the heavier roles. She is sure of that now, but a few months ago she wasn't quite so certain. At that time she made a determined bid for the role of Bessie in "The Corn Is Green." It seems, as a matter of fact, that she actually put her foot down regarding "l'affaire Bessie," to the mixed consternation and amusement of Brothers Warner. They demurred that the part wasn't exactly right for her and suggested she read it over carefully. She read it and as speech after speech of the degraded and conscienceless Bessie unfolded, Joan wondered what the people back in Detroit, the good sisters of St. Benedict's, might think of this newest role of the Brodel "Kiddie." She decided there was time. One, two, seven, eight years. Ah, Nineteen! |
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