Little Orphan Julie, cont'd

On his part, Julie blew himself to a lot of books and victrola records. He still orders records by the dozen over the telephone, and plays them while he learns his lines.
They also went to San Francisco and made one flying trip to New York. There they bought tickets for a hit musical comedy. Before, they had to save their pennies for the dramatic shows.
Julie is as loyal to his original discoverers, The Group Theatre, as the average man is to his college.
While in New York he saw their Saroyan play.
"I didn't know what it was about," he admitted, "but I loved it, it was so exciting. I can't imagine working for

 any other theatrical managers. The biggest kick in my life was when they made me a member."
His second biggest kick was when Warners sent for him after "Four Daughters" was released. He had already returned to New York, thinking his part would be cut.
"But he was kind of hoping it wouldn't," says Mrs. G.
She is very honest about him. She doesn't know why, but she thinks "he's lousy in pictures."
And she never went to a preview until "Juarez." Then Julie invested in a tuxedo and she, in her first evening dress, and, incidentally, they sported these fine raiments three times that very first week. She was disappointed in "Juarez" because "they showed so much of Julie's back." She would love him to do bigger parts, "but Muni always gets them."
He worships Muni. On the stage he played the office boy to Muni's "Counselor At Law."
"You can learn from him," he says. "And Cagney. And Bette Davis. I could learn from her. I'd like to make 'The Outward Room' with her."

He would also like to do 'Jean Christophe' and the life of the young poet Heinrich Heine.
"He was an exile from Germany. It would be just like today. Now I'm making 'Dust Be My Destiny.' It's a swell idea, proving that the nobodies are as important as the somebodies."
He went on to talk more about his work. He talks fast, excitedly, and lets grammar go hang. He hopes they won't give him any more prison pictures. He gives them "hot" ideas all the time, "but it goes in one ear and out the other."
At present he would love to take time off to jump on a boat to Mexico or even to his old home port, New York.
"I've never been on a boat," he says.
We walked over to the set. His is a workman's walk. You see it on sailors and bricklayers and sometimes a farmer going home, a walk starting from the hips and sort of hiking itself as it slouches along, while one hand rests in a back pocket. It is not a graceful walk. But it is altogether likable.
AND THEN there is his grin, which is sudden, honest and lightens his whole face. And most of all there is his laugh. You see people shake their heads over it. They say, "You've got to like a guy with a laugh like that." You do.

It starts low and it suddenly shouts and seems to catch on to everybody else's laughter.

I think it's because of those traits that he'll never lose the name of Julie.
His grin and his laugh do not mean he isn't serious. He is --- very. Scratch any liberal organization like "The Motion Picture Guild," whose first picture will be Erika Mann's "School for Barbarians," or "The Motion Picture Democratic Committee," and you will find, head first, among the sponsors --John Garfield.		 I said good-bye on the set. And he sank down into his chair and I saw him pause to do a typically Hollywood act. Now, don't get sore, Julie. He sat in that chair holding a big photograph of himself, and began a requested autograph. "To One of the Dead End Boys," he wrote, and then chewed the end of his pen as, like any conscientious star, he thought of what to say.
I left him figuring it out.                             <<back to page 1