Evening star., 1951-12-17

change his act. 1t likes his old rou
shopper, etc. DeWolfe, an OBJ
servant, highly literate fellow who
writes his own material, some
times gets disturbed about this.
The truth is that, as one whe
has to live with Mrs. Murgatroyd
and those others in his comedy
act, DeWolfe sometimes finds
them bit of a bore. They
keep saying and doing the same
things, well, pretty much the
same things, and DeWolfe gets to
yearning for change now and
then.
Sometimes" he says, ''it gets
so bad. I even go out and hire the
best writer in the business to
turn out some new stuff. Not long
ago, for instance, I got Danny
Thomas man to turn me out a
pretty elaborate new routine. in
Guiding a song. 1t cost pretty
penny but it seemed worth every
cent of it, until l tried to use it.
But people won't let me ask Mrs.
Murgatroyd to move over. So I
do the new stuff for myself. 1t
kills me-two ways"
DeWolfe, a Wollaston, Mass.
boy and a fellow townsman of
Ruth Gordon, is not as busy in
the movies as he used to be.
Nevertheless, he is buster than
ever elsewhere. Theater and hotel
dates keep him occupied as con-
stantly as he wants to be oc-
cupied. He plays dates like eight
weeks at the Waldorf-Astoria, 10
at the Palmer House in Chicago,
and does theaters in this country
and Canada.
"Canada's pretty wonderful, !"
he says. They've got old fash
ioned vaudeville, five acts and a
B picture. They stand them up in
the aisles. It's a fact. No tele-
vision. you know
DeWolfe is the envy of most of
his Hollywood colleagues. who are
mere actors and have to wait for
roles.
II tell them it is happy to be
an and then actor" he says. AN
and then actor is one who. when
he is asked what he is doing. is
able to say two weeks in Chicago.
and then a week in Cleveland,
and then six weeks in New York,
etc.
I'm my own case, the best part
of this description OF my life is
when I get around to saying and
then the summer off in New Eng
land"
It was in the middle of Wash
ington's weekend snow that De-
Wolfe was explaining how life
goes for him.
"This should be a pretty good
snow" he said, looking out the
window. 1--WE have an old New
England saying for it-in fact. we
have an old New England saying
for everything. This particular
one goes: Snow like a feather,
pleasant weather; snow like meal.
snow a great deal. I can still hear
my old grandmother saying it. A
fine weatherwoman, my grand
mother. New Englanders, of
course. should know all about
weather"
That they also have some sound
ideas about working and relaxing,
DeWolfe implies.
with taxes where they are
and don't misunderstood me. I'm
happy to be a taXpayer-I some
times get the feeling that an actor
can overwork himself. This usu-
ally overcomes me in the late
spring or early summer Last
time I had it, I yielded to an old
impulse to buy myself an eXpen-
Give convertible and head for New
England. Couldn't get away from
the place Tor months, althougn 1
moved all the way from northern
Maine to the Cape.
"You know what New England's S
like in the summer? Edward
Everett Horton in 'Springtime for
Henry, that's what it's like.
Wherever you go. and whenever,
Horton is always playing Spring
time for Henry"
DeWolfe likes relaxing. The
only thing he has against air.
planes, In fact, is that they go
too fast. They are fine for people
who want to get places quickly.
He prefers slowly himself. This
sometimes disconcerts his agent,
who tries to crowd bookings on
Client DeWolfe.
II say no." says the headliner
of this weeks stage show at the
Capitol. Some day he will learn
I mean no."
DeWolfe thinks of himself more
as a solid, than an eccentric. New