School-Teacher in Clover: Part Two

Sorry for the absence everyone, but I'm back and ready to roll. I feel healthy and good, and it only took about four days for me to really recover from the surgery, which is excellent. Just to give you guys the heads-up, I will be having another surgery June 12th, but this time it's for my wrist(I have a ganglion cyst eeek!) and I might be out for about three or four days, really depends on how I'm feeling. So onto Part Two :)

Article written by: James Street

Mr. Lynn say he was the black sheep of his family. "Father was a man who worked with his hands," Mr. Lynn said. "He came over from Sweden when he was a kid of sixteen, and he worked with engines and dynamos the rest of his life. Imagine an actor in the family. Honestly, I don't think there's any greater humiliation for a family bred in the idea that the only good work in the world is done with the hands. It's different now. I guess Father and Mother have resigned themselves to my fate."

Gee, that's sad. Reminds me of a doomed man eating his last meal of caviar before being smothered by blondes and glamour and big checks.

At high school Mr. Lynn was quite a runner, and at Bates College he was a member of the two- mile relay team that won the 1930 Penn Relays.

As a sophomore he began studying dramatics. He was graduated in 1930 and worked for telephone companies in Providence R.I., and Brockton, Mass. But he devoted his evenings to amateur theatricals.

He might have worked up to be a vice president of the telephone company, but he chucked his chance to be a teacher. He was head of the department of English of the Lisbon(Maine) High School. His department had one teacher- Mr. Lynn.

Determined to be an actor, Mr. Lynn went home to save his money, preparatory to his invasion of New York. He worked with a semi- professional troupe at home and reached New York when he was twenty-four. His first job was as a doorman at a theater, but he spent his days as a student at the Theodore Irvine School of the Theater. Mr. Lynn showed promise and got a job in summer stock at the Barter Theater of Abingdon, Virginia, It's quite a theater. The admission is seventy- five cents, but if you haven't got cash you barter your way in with vegetables, molasses, and hams. You can see several shows for one ham.

Mr. Lynn first broadway job was in "A Slight Case of Murder." He was an understudy, but player and assistant stage manager. Next he worked in a thing called "Stick in the Mud." Mr. Lynn later worked the one-gallus circuits for quite a while, and wound up with the leading role in the road company of "Brother Rat."

That led to the movies. From rats to riches. Wow! That's as bad as slimsy what-you-callems.

They put Mr. Lynn in "Cowboy From Brooklyn," "Where Were You Born?" and "Four Daughters." He didn't set the trade on fire. He probably wouldn't have been in "Four Daughters" but for Bette Davis. She thought he had something and selected him to appear with her in a one-act play on a radio broadcast. She could have had her pick of the actors, but she took Mr. Lynn. He clicked. Errol Flynn, who was supposed to do the job with "Daughters," went A.W. O.L and Mr.Lynn scored as a pinchhitter.

PART THREE: COMING UP IN A FEW DAYS!!!

Stay Tuned! :)