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THE STORY Of
BRIAN AHERNE
Forsook Business For Acting
By BARBARA BOURCHIER, Our Special Representative in Hollywood
MADE the mistake of thinking Brian
Aherne was a comparative newcomer to the picture business. True,
I knew he had appeared in a picture with Dietrich, the glamorous,
m
- which I be-
lieve was
called "Song
of Songs."
/ knew, too,
he made one
or two others,
but I thought
that was all,
so I asked
him how he
liked the pic-
ture business.
We were sit-
ting on the set
o f "Beloved
Enemy," in
which Brian
plays the role
of Dennis
Riordan, stal-
wart and ro-
mantic leader
of the Irish, a happy choice, I
might add, since A herne is of
pure Irish ancestry.
HEN I asked that ques- '
tion he broke into a ¡
large-sized chuckle, and it was i
then I learned that Brian was i
a pioneer in the picture busi- s
ness. He played in English ¡
movies in the days before the¡
war, when he got a wage, as t
he tells it, of "five shillings a J
day and shrimp tea."
"I have to laugh when I think of
it now," said Brian. "In those days
we didn't have the properties to
work with we have now. Our only
light was the sun, our make-up was
a thick orange concoction that
cracked when we smiled, and an
expenditure of 50,000 dollars meant
a super-super colossal picture."
Brian made his stage debut at the
age of three, he confessed. While
? his parents, Mr. and Mr. De Lacey,
of King Norton, Worcestershire,
England, are not actors, his mother
was a director in the Birmingham
Repertory Theatre.
First Appearance
AND it was in one of his mother's
amateur productions that he
made his first aDpearance. When he
was ten, his father, an architect by
profession, sent him to London to
take up professional training for the
stage. It is interesting to know
that this school, conducted by
Italia Conti, also numbered among
its pupils the now famous Noel
Coward and Gertrude Lawrence.
But Brian, after a year, decided
that he didn't want to be an actor
and so he went to prep, school and
later to Malvern College. It wasn't
until after he had spent two years
as clerk in the office of a-Liverpool
merchant that he decided life as
an actor might be more interesting.
Or perhaps it was that he was down
to his last shilling after quitting
the clerking job. At any rate, he
returned to the theatre, playing
small parts, and found that he liked
it.
Then there followed a period
when he played stock in Australia,
doing "Rose Marie," "Dear Brutus,"
and "What Every Woman Knows."
j Back in London again he played
in several hit shows, but it
wasn't until he played the role
of Robert Browning with Katherine
Cornell in "The Barretts of Wim-
pole Street" that he scored an out-
standing success. Then followed
w
none Help
. BRI AS A HERN H with Merle Oberon. The tu o appear together in
"Beloved Elie»/}
several film engagements in Holly-
wood and England.
In between parts on the stage
m those early days were a few days
now and then playing in the films,
but Brian had never been very much
impressed with the flickers. He
says that that was because they
seemed so amateurish then.
Now he likes to sandwich a pic-
ture between plays. Having just
now completed "Beloved Enemy." in
which he plays with Merle Oberon
and David Niven, he will go to Ne^l
York to begin rehearsals for "Beain
Stratagem." in-which he will ap-
pear this autumn.
Brian is so tall he makes you
feel like a midget, for he is 6 feet
2'2 inches tall. He has a slender
athletic build which he keeps ,n
trim by tennis, golf and horseback
riding. He likes to smoke a pipe
too. But I forgot to ask if he wi s
married. Careless of me, too. know-
ing the interest of feminine fans
$