回复：【长篇阅读】公子的传记

Taylor would always remember that resignation session. “I asked Mayer to release me from the contract and I told him why. I’ll never forget his kindness. He showed me how to budget so I could have money out of what I made. He advised me about clothes, how to cultivate patience . . . and that day he also gave me a new name.
“Actually, it was Ida Koverman, Mayer’s secretary, who suggested the name ‘Taylor.’ I wanted ‘Stanhope’—it was my mother’s maiden name and I had been discovered portraying Captain Stanhope—but Mayer said ‘Taylor’ sounded more all-American.
“I couldn’t argue with that, but when he insisted on ‘Robert’ I really felt like a nobody! Who the hell wants to have a common name like Robert Taylor when I had been Spangler Arlington Brush for twenty-three years?
“I told Miss Koverman there were already too many Roberts on the lot, Robert Young and Robert Montgomery, but Mayer had already left his office.
“I honestly felt worse than I did the night before . . .”

He strolled down the hall to Kay Mulvey’s office. Kay was a bright understanding girl who worked in the publicity department. She listened to Taylor and they talked it over. They came up with the name ‘Ramsey.’
They were sure Mayer would go along. Taylor was going to demand the change his first name, but when he returned to Kay’s office, he looked more Robert than Ramsey.
“Did he turn you down?”
“Hell,” Taylor replied, “I waited for him in his outer office for two hours and didn’t even get in to see him.”
He might have tried again the next day and seen Mayer, who might have liked the sound of Ramsey Taylor. But he accepted the fruitless two-hour wait as a refusal and the subject was never brought up again.

When Taylor was an established star, he read in his hometown newspaper an article about the whys and wherefores of his taking the name of Robert Taylor.
He wrote to the editor:
Dear Earl:
You touched upon a subject which has always been kind of a “touchy” one in my career.
At the time when my name was changed I must confess that I wasn’t in much of a position to argue with anyone. Jobs were scarce and I considered myself pretty lucky to be offered one even at the rather meager salary of ＄35 per week. I held out for the name of Stanhope as long as I could, but it was largely a matter of being out-voted. They had the job I needed . . . and they coulda called me Uncle Fud if they wanted and I’d accepted it! Nonetheless , I agree with you; Stanhope was a nice-sounding name and I wish I could have used it. At least I tried.
As Ever,
Bob

He was sent to San Antonio to play a flying cadet in West Point of the Air. The picture had a noteworthy cast—Wallace Beery, Robert Young, Maureen O’Sullivan and Rosalind Russell.
Taylor had one speaking line and his name appeared last on the long listof credits. Howev-er, he received a telegram to return to Hollywood immediately. He finished his one-line part in West Point of the Air and rushed back to California.
Lucien Hubbard, an astute producer, had seen Buried Loot and wanted “the young man with the scar on his face” for the part of Society Doctor. Taylor’s co-stars were Chester Morris, Virginia Bruce and Billie Burke.
The director, George Seitz, was able to bring something out in Taylor and it was in this picture that he relaxed for the first time.
Chester Morris worked with ease and some ofit rubbed off on Taylor.

He attended a sneak preview of the movie and when the lights went up, Mayer obviously was pleased. He said he would go down on his knees to talent, and he walked up the aisle smiling at Robert Taylor.
Clark Gable was seated a few rows in front of Bob, and he turned around with a wink of approval.
The reviews said Robert Taylor , with his strikingly beautiful face, was headed for eventual stardom, and a few more letters trickled in.
In Times Square Lady he again worked with Virginia Bruce, and Jean Parker joined him in Murder in the Fleet, in which he impressed the ladies wearing a Navy lieutenant’s uniform.
Though Taylor’s social life was uneventful, he and Virginia Bruce dated quietly. Some said their secret meetings were Bob’s idea;some said MGM did not approve.Yet others thought it was because Miss Bruce had been going through divorce proceedings; to make matters worse, she had received kidnap threats regarding her daughter and she preferred to stay as close to the child as possible.

Regardless of why they kept theirrelationship from the public, except for studio publicity purposes when they had to attend benefits, premieres and the like, Virginia Bruce and Robert Taylor were involved. She was his first romantic interest.
Though she was the same age as Taylor, Miss Bruce had been an actress for some time and made her screen debut in 1929. She had been married, was a mother and now divorced. Her maturity was far greater than that of Taylor, and the sophistication that only Hollywood can produce was well handle and maintained by the lady.
Insiders said simply it was a “fling” and nothing more.
For the first and last time in his career, Taylor sang in a musical,Broadway Melody of 1936. He serenaded “I’ve Got a Feelin’ You’re Foolin’ ” to June Knight, and he danced with Eleanor Powell. Even though he was uncomfortable, the critics said he gave an easy,natural and creditable performance.

Universal Studios agreed and asked if they might borrow him to play opposite Irene Dunne in Magnificent Obsession.
Miss Dunne recalls, “I remember sitting with John Stahl, who was to be our director, looking at some film of Robert Taylor. Neither of us knew much about him. I did know John, howe-ver, and he was the kind of director, who if he were in heaven, would tell God where to sit, and then complain about the lighting.”
“But I like to remember that I told John I thought Taylor would be entirely right for the part of Robert Merrick.”

In the movie based on Lloyd C. Douglas’ novel, Taylor portrayed a playboy who gradually awakens, through a great love, to a new meaning and purpose in life. He becomes engrossed in the fine ideals and unusual teachings of a famous physician, after the latter is drowned, at the very moment that Merrick himself, having tumbled off the deck of his yacht in astate of drunkenness, was being saved by the only available pulmotor. In time he develops his own latent powers and carries on the profession and the humanitarian message of the great doctor.
It was his performance in Magnificent Obsession that lifted Robert Taylor to certain and instant stardom. Almost twenty years later, the same role made Rock Hudson famous in the 1954 remake of this film.
Not only was this movie the professional beginning for Taylor, it was also the beginning of his being called “cute,” “pretty,”the “It Boy” and “The Darling of the Girls” by the press, which was a burden he would carry for a long time.
Nevertheless, the moviegoers had a different impression of their new “object of adoration and attention” because they had been starving and crying for an idol since Valentino left them without an imaginary lover.

Women admitted they were too busy looking at him to appreciate what role he was playing. The men tried to figure out if he had an imperfection, like a wart on the tip of his nose that the make-up men were cleverly concealing.
Taylor himself was trying to be only one thing—a good actor. He really could not understand what all the fuss was aboutand would be the first one to admit that he was still a kid who admired Gable’s good looks and Tracy’s acting.
But on the screen Robert Taylor was different.
Valentino’s appeal was to the lower side of woman’s nature—slick and dangerous. They had wanted him to kidnap them, beat them and then make violent love to them. Gable’s rough and rugged approach was also attractive to the girls. Both Valentino and Gable were considered members of the “new undiscovered sex” that was now a matter of public interest.
Taylor, however, was all-American, innocent and gentle. Women wanted to mother “Pretty Boy.” Their dreams of him were clean: their search for male kindness, loyalty, softness and perfection ended in Taylor’s image.

Taylor told a friend, “This may sound conceited of me to confide, but I’m almost as hamed to tell you about a party I went to recently.
“When I arrived the room seemed to befilled with women and they stared at me as if I were somebody aside from the norm. They made remarks about my looks, but my inferiority complex was sticking out like a severe case of the mumps. I guess by trying to hide this complex, I give the wrong impression—that I’m a snob or I like myself too much.
“I never know whether people are trying to encourage me or whether they are laughing at me. Should I behave like a gentleman or be aggressive. I don’t know. . . .
“Success is frightening when it happens as fast as it did to me. You say to yourself one day you’ll mix with the right people, the big shots, but then you find out they are only interested in you for business reasons.

“They give you advice—how to invest your money, what kind of movies to make, how to dress for a preview, how to zip up your fly—everything but, ‘Are you happy?’You see, they think they know the answer because anyone who is rich has to be happy. ”
Taylor’s salary, needless to say, had jumped considerably from ＄35. He was now earning ＄750 a week.
Ruth figured it would be a good time to visit old friends in Beatrice and MGM agreed. Although there was a good deal of publicity connected with his returning home a success, Taylor was sincere. In his humble, almost naïve way, he thought things back home would be the same.

Instead, as could be expected, thepeoplein Beatrice put on a big welcome home celebration in his honor, thatincluded aparade, a reception and a banquet.
The Ritz Theatre’smarquee read Magnificent Obsession starring SPANGLERARLINGTON BRUGH and IreneDunne. The manager had bowed to the demands of the township that their mostfamous citizen be billed properly. No one could get used to “Arly” being called Robert Taylor.

Taylor made a brief speech: “I know this thing might be just a flash in the pan. Don’t know, but for some reason my looks caught on, but that can’t carry you far. I don’t know much about acting—I realize that better than anyone—but I’m going to work hard at it, and before the bloom wears off, maybe I can learn something and make a career out of it.
“If I don’t, so what? I’ll go back to school and get my medical degree, just like I had planned to do in the first place.”
Ruth told her friends in Beatrice she was very proud of her son but she would always think of him as Arlington and was disappointed that she would not see his real name in lights instead of that dreadfully common Robert.

Still a frail woman weighing only 100pounds, Ruth was changed by Hollywood in several ways. For one, she dyed her hair, saying, “Arly likes it this way.”
Mrs. Anderson, Ruth’s close friend, said, “Mrs.Brugh was always a delicate, somewhat shrill, unusually pretty woman. Arly had her eyes and mouth exactly. We had not seen her since the doctor died and I hardly knew her. I asked her if Arly had fallen in love with a beautiful movie actress yet and she stared at me for a moment and said that he came straight home from the studio every night and never went out with girls.”

The day they left Beatrice, Bob thanked everyone for remembering to use his real name on the theater marquee. Ruth interrupted and said she had made up her mind to live in Nebraska several months every year to be near her “dear, dear friends,” but that she would maintain residence in Hollywood:“The climate is so delightful there, you know.”
Taylor took an old pal aside and said, “Hey, will you send me the Beatrice Sun. I really miss it. It would be great to subscribe to it. Don’t forget, OK?” And for the rest of his life he received his hometown newspaper everyday—by regular mail.