"Pete," mongrel star of Our Gang comedies, who earns a measly $24,000 a year, chews gum, and hobnobs with all the human celebrities of America's movie colony, was a weekend visitor to San Antonio, accompanied by his master and owner, Harry S. Lucenay of the Hal Roach Studios, Inc., of Culver City.
Pete is on a short vacation, and is traveling about the United States assuring numberless fans that the "black eye" which he sports in all his pictures is very natural. Pete was born that way, and the oddity of his countenance enabled him to crash the films when he was only three months old.
Pete has been in the movie racket for nine years, and has been on the up and up ever since his premiere. In the old days of the cinema, the famous pup got his first role as a mascot to the hero of a prizefight serial. Then he played Tige in a Buster Brown series. And for the last five years, he has been playing to millions of theater-goers in Our Gang comedies.
PETE FORTUNATE
Pete is more fortunate than the other principals in these kid comedies. Kids grow up, but Pete merely grows wiser and more efficient, his owner declares. In fact, Pete and Farina, the dusky member of the troupe, are the only two original players left in the present cast.
Like the rest of the folks out West, Pete has an eye for publicity, and dropped by The Light office Monday morning (the 13th) in order to break into print.
Mr. Lucenay declares that his canine ward is very human.
Pete loves applause and clowns about the studio lots precisely for the purpose of "getting a laugh."
$25,000 INSURANCE
A $25,000 insurance policy is placed on Pete's life, but he could not be bought for that sum several times over.
Pete has never been kidnapped, but he was poisoned once. His crowning glory, perhaps, was the readiness with which he adapted himself to the talkies, which threw lots of canine stars out of work.