Evening star., 1937-05-03

4 AEhASO obo, eillo WI luCl, covering
v the show shops on the Coast,
lambasted a Hollywood Gus
tard pie comedy, and, a few
days later whooped it up for Joe Jack
son, the vaudeville clown with the
rattletrap bike. The movie producer
tried to get me fired
Here We spend Sl,286,OOO on this
film and you burn us up and hand
all the bouquets to this tramp" he
said. And that busted bike Of his
wouldn't bring 50 in junk shop"
l said that was what made Joe
Jackson news-he could make better
entertainment with busted So bike
than the movies could with S1,2S6,C00.
That was true-at that particular
stage of film evolution, and, in GER
tain specific comparisons, still true.
Pertinent to all this, or vice versa,
Is the news that old Joe Jackson will
be here from Germany on the Zep-
perlin Hindenburg Wednesday, with
his 30year-old bike, his 23-year-old
pants and the pair of shoes he picked
out Of New Jersey ash can in 1913
SAiN oAity pAopNi biNo NtoNN AL AIdh1LIS
his name and fortune
Joe's pantomime tangle with his
bicycle, which was always falling 10
pieces, stacked up with the best clown
ing of the age, even Chaplins incom-
parable mining. Clarence Kolb, kick
ing Max Dill in the stomach-a Ia
Weber and Fields-and Joe Jackson,
with his bicycle, marked great cul-
tural upsurge on the Coast, which
lasted many years. Old-timers, be-
deviled by change, will be assured
by the news that he and his bike are
still going.
At the age OF II he became the
champion bicycle racer Of Austria.
An Italian promoter got him into
trick bicycle work. He worked up the
clowning.
The tricks are fine, but cut out
the bum comedy" said London man
ager He had to sneak the comedy
back in, gradually.
Doing war service, he was standing
at guard when he got word his mother
was dead. He tossed away his gun and
jail for spell, ducked to Mexico and
got his first real running start in
clowning in this country. All was for
given in Vienna and he was great
success there, too.
incidentally, it was Vienna which,
in modern times, transformed pre-
medieval pantomime into "zauber-
prose-" the full flower of the art Of
| pantomime Joe is the inheritor of a
great tradition, but never has admit
ted as much as he is quite inarticulate
| without his bicycle The great Joy Of
his life is his gargantuan machine
| shop at his Greenwood Lake place,
where he has every gear and gadget
| anybody ever dreamed ola strange
preoccupation for man who licked
the machine age with a 50 bike.
When Sir William LleWellyn was
made president of the British Royal
Academy in 1928 the London Times
| got itself all tied up in knot trying
| to give him break, but noting, with
a sense of England stubbornly doing
its duty, that there were many more
obvious" selections which could have
been made 1t admitted that he had
social tact" and the qualifications
of good chairman of committees"
and concluded that, all things con-
sidered, the traditions Of the Royal
| Academy will be safe in his hands"
So they are. The Times couldn't
| possibly have been thinking of Mrs.
Wallis Simpson, but here she is and
there goes the Duke of Windsor and
here's old William Moser turning in
mischievous painting of Simpson,
esque lady leading a crowned youth in
chains. Moser rates a spot in the
academy and here's a contretemps
which Sir William meets nicely, with
perfect social tact and all the quail
fications of good chairman of COM
mittees. He suavely sidetracks the
picture and the traditions of the acad-
emy, and England, are safe.