BALTIMORE, Sept. 14 - Norman Chaney, the fat boy of the movie comedies, says it's all a fake. And it's plain to see that Norman is getting in on the fake.
Norman is the kid who won the "Our Gang" comedy contest which the Baltimore Post ran some months ago. And they took him up to Hollywood and gave him a job in Al Christie's "Our Gang" comedies, which you've no doubt seen. Now Joe Cobb, who has been the fat boy of the gang for several years, is leaving and Norman has the fat boy job all to himself.
He's been back in Baltimore for a while and he's going back to the coast. And, saying his farewell, Norman voiced a few opinions on the art and artists of the so-called silver screen.
"Most of it is faked," says Norman. "When Bill Hart lights a match with his fingernail and lights a cigaret, the cigaret didn't need lighting because it was already lit. It's one of those trick cigarets that's got something on the end so that you just rub it and it lights. It doesn't need matches."
Norman Chaney, in fact, is quite unillusioned about the so-called art of the movies. To him, it's just a day's work.
"Do you like it?" they asked him. And mildly, unenthusiastically, he says, "It's aw right."
Perhaps the best part of it is that he no longer has to go to school all day. A tutor comes to the studio and, for two and a half hours each day, teaches Norman and the other kids of the gang. "That's much better than sitting in school," he says.
As for his gang-mates, he has no illusions about them either. Furthermore, he tells tales on them. The black-faced girl who is called Farina, for instance, is no girl at all. The black-faced girl is a boy named Hoskins, or something like that. And the sweet-faced little girl called Jean Darling is a tartar, if Norman is to be believed.
"She screams and kicks all the time," he charges. And ruefully, he admits that she has kicked him more times than he cares to tell. And if you ask him why she kicked him he shrugs his fat shoulders, shakes his head so that his fat jaws shimmy and says, "I don't know. She just kicks everybody."
The baby-faced, angelic-looking child whose movie name is Wheezer is another disappointment, according to this actor who has replaced Francis X. Bushman as Baltimore's most prominent contribution to filmdom. Wheezer, whom mothers see with envious admiration, is a cry-baby. "Every time they tell him to do something he cries," reports Norman.
And one of the other kids is tongue-tied so that, now that the comedies have gone talkie, somebody else has to speak his lines.
In fact, Norman isn't taken with his working-mates at all. Ask him how he gets along with them and Norman, having learned a bit of tact and caution in his Hollywood stay, dodges the issue. "I get along best with the kids on the street where I live," he says.
But then, remembering that he is a movie actor and that his every word is weighed by an eager public, he half retracts by adding, "But the kids in the movies are all right, too. At least, I guess they are."
Norman is learning fast.
The soul of this artist is a bit troubled by the camouflage amid which he must work. He explained, for instance, that he was disappointed when he made his first picture. "Railroaders" it was called. It concerned some youngsters who were playing in the cab of a locomotive and who were sent on a wild, careening ride by a maniac who started the engine.
"Gosh," said Norman, "that was all faked. They took us up to Santa Fe and took the whole picture right in the railroad yards. And there was an engineer in the locomotive all the time but they cut out all the shots that you could see him in. And there was a platform built right outside the engine for the cameras to stand on and the director to sit on. And he just sat outside while the engine went and told all the kids what to do and what to say."
And another picture caled "Boxing Gloves" brought him something of the same reactions. "There was a lot of fighting in that picture," he said, "but it didn't amount to much. We didn't hit hard. I almost hurt Joe Cobb one time, and one time he almost hurt me, but it wasn't anything."
It must be said for Norman, however, that these lapses from realism don't trouble him much because Norman, as I've said, has quickly picked up the mental attitude of many a movie star. The art of the movies is chiefly the art of drawing a salary.
"Is it hard work?" you ask him. And Norman admits quite frankly, "No. None of them work hard."
But when you suggest that they get big salaries Norman, having learned quickly, is quick to defend the art. "Well, that's all right," he says. "They make the movies so that people want to see them." And isn't that, in simple language, the answer that his much older colleagues give?
In one respect, however, Norman has only half learned the art of being a full-fledged movie star.
"How old are you?" I asked him.
And Norman answered, "Twelve."
That was in accordance with the accepted custom of movie stars.
But I asked again, "What is your real age?" And Norman said, "Fourteen."
That latter answer was the result of inexperience. Experienced movie actors learn thoroughly the history of their lives as these lives and histories are created by their press agents. And, regardless of any interviewers, they stick to their stories.