回复：【长篇阅读】公子的传记

MGM, in its many biographical releases about Taylor,said he replied, “O.K., Pops, see you in the movies!” Actually, he never gave it a thought, except for the weekly family outing on Saturday nights to see a picture show. And it is doubtful Arly would call Dr. Brugh “Pops.”
At Pomona,the professor begrudged his protégé all outside activities save his academic work and the lessons on his cello. But Arly’s public speaking became so polished he again was asked to join the Drama Club.
Not wanting to offend Gray, he declined,but despite the extensive music lessons, debating, tennis, orchestra and regular studies, he wanted to cram in still another activity and it narrowed down to the Glee Club or Drama.
Taylor said he cannot remember how he came to his decision, but the MGM Publicity Department insisted that it was an interesting story that put him on the stage.
According to them, he was taking a walk on the campus when he came across a cricket and a spider. A silly notion struck him and he drew a line with the heel of his shoe.
If the spider crossed the line first, he would join the Glee Club, but if the cricket won, he would choose Dramatics.
The cricket won and Professor Gray was livid! “A concert performer is an artist. The public expects you to give total dedication to your art. A cellist is a musician, not an actor. The only thing Dramatics can possibly do is take time away from your practice, and your mind away from your total dedication. Dramatics! What a waste of time!”

Dr. Brugh received a letter from his son saying that he was confused: “At one time I wanted to study medicine, but I know how much you and Mother want me to master the cello. Yet I cannot deny mylove for the excitement of debate and acting. What do you consider the most important subject in the world?”
His father’s reply came scribbled on a prescription slip: “Human Nature.”
Arlington continued to play in the college orchestra but gave up his cello lessons.
His Phi Delta Theta fraternity brothers tried to fix him up with many girls but he seemed more interested in his school work than socializing. One of them said, “Every dame in town wanted to go out with Brugh but he turned them all down. He did show up at a few dances but always alone.”

The college crowd at Pomona danced to jazz and be-bop music butArly had mastered only the waltz and wasn’t too impressed with the gyrating,wild steps of the jitterbug.
“What’s the matter, Brugh? Why aren’t you dancing?” a buddy inqured.
“Hell, this is all new to me. I’m still trying to figure out the fox trot.”
“Tell you what you do. Find yourself a girl from Sacramento.They are real square up there. Bet she’ll do a nice slow one with ya”
“But how do I know if a girl is from Sacramento?”
“Probably one of those wallflowers sitting over there…”
He approached one girl and she said she was from Los Angeles.Like a little boy he asked several until he found one from “up Sacramento way,” and what started out to be a joke, turned out just right for Dr. Brugh’s son. They danced every dance.
Someone said, “This is the first time I ever saw a couple doing a fox trot when the orchestra was playing boogie-woogie.”
Taylor said in later years that he didn’t “feel” popular in college because he wasn’t “one of the gang” but thought his popularity—though not outstanding—was due to the fact that he went “smudging” with the other boys toearn extra money.

“The citrus growers burned smudge pots to keep the frost from nipping the fruittrees. It paid fifty cents an hour and the college allowed the growers to call out the guys during the night if necessary, If the cold was bone chilling and help was scarce, it might have even paid a dollar an hour.
“We’d shiver out of those warm blankets, put our oldest clothes on and ride up the baselin-e road into a special wind. It could freeze you down to the warmest part of your body and you’d shake for days afterwards thinking about it. The wind came off “Old Baldy,” and when we got to the fields we felt lucky. We’d go around with a torch made out of a piece ofburlap, dip it in oil and light up the pots.
“The smoke penetrated our eyes, lungs and every pore. Our nostrils and ears and lips and hair were filled with that sticky greasy soot and it was almost impossible to wash out.
“There would be times when all we got was an hour’s sleep before making a seven-thirty class. I was the luckiest guy in the world—just to be working.”

In his senior year he was picked to join Pomona’s debating team in Oregon, but at the same time he was chosen for the lead in the senior play. He chose the play, and MGM’s version of how Robert Taylor was discovered was a true one.
In 1932 there was a shortage of leading men in Hollywood.Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Robert Young and Fredric March were almost alone among the established male stars. Beautiful women were plentiful, but productions were actually being delayed because of the absence of talented, good-looking men.
Talent scouts were literally raiding the college campuses for photogenic male bodies who could be taught to act.
Ben Piazza, who discovered Harlow, Robert Mitchum and Rosalind Russell, was caustic, hard-bitten and hard to please, but still retained that willing suspension of disbelief that could look upon a starlet and see the glimmer of a star.

He could take one look at a girl, ask himself if he would enjoy going to bed with her, and if the answer was “yes,” he approached her about a screen test. He was seldom wrong.
In December, 1932, he was in the audience at Pomona College to see Journey’s End,and what happened that evening endowed a biographer with all the usual romanticizing: a legend and truth have become some what jumbled together.
Arlington played the part of the disillusioned Captain Stanhope in R. C.Sheriff’s superb tragic World WarΙd Ⅰdrama, Journey’s End, but what was going on backstage that night was rarely related properly as far as the future Glamour Boy was concerned.
“. . . everyone knew there was a talent scout in the audience . . .”
“. . .Arlington was alerted . . . ”
“. . . Taylor put a movie contract in his pocket that very night . . .”

Actually the facts are simple. Piazza liked Taylor’s performance, went backstage and asked him to come to his office the following Taylor saic he didn't look very good the following day: there had been the usual after-the-theatre celebration and the excitement everyone felt about his being asked to make a screen test.
The receptionist at MGM’s casting office expected him, but called him “Mr.Brugg.”
“It’s pronounced B-r-e-w.”
Piazza questioned him about what his future plans were and Arly said he didn’t know, but he would very much like to return to Nebraska after graduation. “California’s OK, but I never did seem to fit in here. And the weather is awful—no change of seasons. I also can’t get over not being ableto ride a horse without going to a stable and renting one.”
“Well, ah, what’s your name again? Arlington?”
“Yes,sir.”
“We thought you might like to take a screen test and if it turns out well, we’ll give you free acting lessons. We have a fine school here on the lot, so . . .”
“Well, sir, I kinda want to finish collegein June.”
“Let’s talk about that after we see what you look like on camera.”
He photographed well, but when he read some lines from Noel Coward’s Private Lives,Taylor said, “I was awful. I could see they were disappointed.”
“Tell you what, kid, I think you’re right. Better finish your education. Come back in June if you think you would like to try again.”
(“I guess that was the easiest way to break the bad news to me.”)

The following June Pomona College conferred a degree of Bachelor of Liberal Arts upon Arlington Brugh. His parents drove out to California for the graduation ceremony.
Ruth was the “Belle of the day,” mingling with the other graduates and professors. One would never know she had been doomed to die over twenty years ago.
But the doctor looked pale and tried.
“What about the cello, son?”
“Wow, I haven’t touched it in months,cramming for exams and all.”
“Your mother’s been talking it to some of your classmates and they say you’ve been pretty good as an actor. ”
“Na. I thought I had a chance when some big shot talked to me about a screen test, but that never worked out.”
“Not good enough, huh?”
“When someone says to come back and try again . . . shoot! That means forget it.”
“I’d say it means to come back and try again.”

The Brugh family talked it over later that day and Ruth was upset. She wanted Arly to come home to Nebraska for the summer and think things over. Then she took he son aside and whispered, “Your Dad isn’t well. I think it would be best if you got a summer job in Beatrice. We’ll work something out.It’s a growing town, you know. ”
Arly was taken back when he heard about his father’s ill health, but Ruth and the doctor left for home without their son. Andrew felt the offer to try again at MGM was worth a try and gave Arly a checkfor ＄250. They agreed if he were rejected a second time, Arly would settle in Nebraska.
Although they were all surprised to see him back at Metro’s casting office, they enrolled him in the acting school there.Oliver Hinsdell, the MGM dramatic coach, gave him private lessons on the side.

In October he was notified that his father had died of cancer. He went home for the funeral and was stunned to discover the doctor had little money left. His books showed that many patients owed him over ＄25,000.
The family managed to collect ＄1,000, which was enough for funeral expenses, and with a few dollars remaining, Arly returned to California, bringing Ruth with him.
The loss of his father broke Arly’s heart. In Taylor’s words, “I was twenty-two then and tried to be the head of a family. It’s funny, always having everything you want, never thinking where it came from or wondering if you could have it. You sit down to dinner at night and there it is. It never occurs to you that the dinner and the bed won’t be there.
“It’s only when you are truly broke and don’t know where your next meal is coming from or where you are going to lay the body down that night that night that you realize everyone doesn’t have those things—that life isn’t all beer and skittles.”

When Dr. Brugh died, so did Arly’s income. Aside from some property and a little insurance, that was it.
Arly rented a three-room apartment in Los Angeles for Ruth and himself, but he knew what little money they had would not last for very long.
When Arly told her that his acting coach,Oliver Hinsdell, was pleased with the results of his lessons and told him to try to stick it out a little while longer, Ruth encouraged him to continue his lessons at MGM.
The students in the studio school were rarely allowed to remain unless they showed promise. They teamed up and did scenes together. Front-office brass attended the skirmishes intermittently and if the glimmer of a star was discerned, a screen test was arranged.

Marcella Knapp, who worked in an executive office at the studio, caught Arly doing When Ladies Meet. She liked what she saw and arranged for him to be test.
(“When we went to the set to make it a few days later, in the middle of the scene, I looked at the camera and the lens was all cockeyed. It looked as though water were running over it, and I thought to myself, ‘The camera is no good!’ When they see this they’ll throw me out of here for keeps.”) It was bad. The actors kept going out of focus, but there was just enough decent footage to win Arly a contract.
Almost five years before he had earned ＄50 for playing with a quartet over KMNJ in Nebraska, and he could have gotten ＄85 a week as a concert cellist. But on February 6, 1934, he signed a seven-year studio contract with MGM. L. B. Mayer offered him ＄35 a week—the lowest-paid actor or actress in the history of Hollywood.

When he received his first paycheck, he told Ruth he had only one debt he had to pay, and he was going to do it that very day.
He headed for a drugstore where he had been eating on a “pay-me-when-you-can” basis. Bill Schulhoff, the owner,congratulated Arly but didn’t have the heart to take the entire che-ck.
“Bill, I’ve kept track of every cent I owe you and it comes to exactly forty-one dollars and forty cents. I’ll be back next week with the five-forty, OK?”
Robert Taylor never forgot Bill Schulhoff and showed up occasionally for years following to have lunch with him. “The food wasn’t that good, but I got a kick out’a going up to the cashier and paying the check.”

Arly’s main concern at this time was his mother. He had never gotten over the fact that she had been gravely ill at one time and was still a weak woman with an unpredictable heart ailment. She was taking the present situation very well and did not complain, but Arly knew she was not accustomed to living the way they were.
“One night I realized I had to take stock of myself. What did the great stars on the lot have that I didn’t have?
“Gable had sex appeal and looks. I thought about Nelson Eddy with that magnificent voice. And Spencer Tracy—the best actor in the business. By the time I got through analyzing myself, it seemed to me I had nothing and no prospect of getting anywhere.
“What I didn’t realize was the things I envied were the result of years of hard work and experience that came with age. I made up mind. I did not have any chance of becoming a success in movies. I had confidence in myself and knew I could find a job—something steady where I could cmpete with an equal.”
“Clark Gable had told me that there were plenty of ‘Gable’ types selling shoes because they couldn’t stand the constant rejection an actor faces. Part of being a star, he said, is having the guts to hang in there and refuse to take no for an answer.”

The next morning Arlington asked to see the “Five Star General of MGM” about breaking a contract.
L B. Mayer was effusive, dramatic, calm,repressed and adaptable. He could rant, he could be patiently logical, he was harsh, merciless and often inept. As the head of the mightiest motion picture studio in the world, he dealt with the egos of the mighty, temperaments, feuds, box office balance sheets and the two Lord Gods who reigned in his Heaven—The Public and The Stockholders.
“I will go down on my knees to talent,” he said, and he made no exception when it came to S. Arlington Brugh.
He sat down and talked to his lowest-paid employee . . .