Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-25
FOOTL|GHT BABIES
HAVE GOOD SEASON
Dozen Stage Infants Make
Good in Broadway Play
Productions.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, February 25.-This is a
brisk season for the babes behind the
footlights.
Several score of mothers lead preco-
cious children every Autumn to the
casting agencies which supply child
players for roles on the New York
stage. Generally the number Of such
actors far exceeds the call for them.
In many seasons among 200 new plays
there are parts for only three or four
youngsters.
This year. however, a full dozen of
them are reveling nightly in the land
of make believe. One is a featured
player and another has come from Lon
don to amuse American playgoers.
Boy Of IL Is a Co-Star.
The most seasoned of the young play
ers is Junior Durkin. who at IL has
played in "Pinafore," with William
Faversham in a revival of THE SquaW
Man." and now in Courage" in which
he shares honors with Janet Beecher,
the star.
In the play he is one of widows
brood of five, and it is he who enables
his mother at last to turn the wolf from
the door. In real life, too, his mother
is widow. Her husband died when
Junior was 5, and she became a tele-
phone operator at the Shubert thea
trical Offices. When her three children
were old enough she sent them to dra-
matte schools, and now all are actors
Junior and his sister, Gertrude, in
Courage" and an elder sister, Grace.
;,z y@iDt do &c ond
Is playing her first professional role.
Teddy Hayes, the foreign importa-
ton, is a 12-year1old lad from London,
and he is helping Beatrice Lille and
Noel Coward to get laughs in This
Year of Grace" When C. B. Cochrane,
English producer, decided to bring the
revue to the United States he went to
the same dramatic school Coward had
attended as boy and picked Teddy
for the youngster of his American cast.
Two Have Lo~ Runs.
Two of the young players of the cur
rent season may become veteran troup-
ers in their first roles. One Is Eleanor
in SHOW Boat" and the other is
Charles Walters, IL, Ninas young son
in O'Neill's Strange Interlude." Both
of them have been playing the same
parts in the city's outstanding stage
successes for year or more.
Eleanor manages not only to do we'll
on the stage but to star as pupil at
the same time. She skipped half a
grade lately in the st. Rose Parochial
School, which she attends by day. She
has brother Alfred, 7, who Is also a
child actor and who played last year in
Spread Eagle"
Child actors play on New York stages
under very close supervision from chill
dren's societies. When a youngster I'M
der IS years is employed for a role in
the theater such society inquiries into
| the child's background. and If it's deci-
| sion is favorable a permit is issued
| through the mayors Office. The per-
nit is renewed periodically if the childs
| parents present satisfactory proof that
the stage career is not being pursued
at the expense of education or health.
d. C. Bars Children.
| In some States, however, it is virtu-
ally impossible for child players to ap-
pear professionally. One such instance
arose recently when Ethel Barrymore
played in Washington, D. c.. in THE
Children of God" There are several
children in the play, and those in the
| company were refused permits to play
| in the District of Columbia. Miss Bar
| rymore got Washington mothers to VOL
| unteer the services of their children for
| the week of the run and held special
rehearsals to teach them their parts
Since they appeared as amateurs with
out compensation, the prohibition
against child actors did not affect them