|
|
 |
  |
|
 |
|
|
Hobbies
|
|
|
|
Former Film Star Now Plays Real Life Santa Claus
|
|
LA Times, 12/16/1944 article
Edwin August, star of the silent screen, once was paid $5,000, two weeks salary
while he sat idle waiting for his beard to grow for a certain romantic film role.
Yesterday the actor, 30 years older and 100 pounds heavier sat masquerading
behind false whiskers. He wore a long white Santa Claus beard as he listened to the childish prattle of youngsters visiting
the toy department in a Beverly Hills store.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
"And the salary isn't quite $2,500 per," he said
with a hearty laugh that echoed throughout the salesrooms. "But its fun and I get a kick out of talking with the kiddies.
It takes my best ad-libbing to keep up with them."
August, round, jovial and red faced, a man who
needs only whiskers and a red suit to slip easily into the Santa Claus role, is playing in life a part which he once depicted
in a film.
"The other day," he recalled, "a 6-year-old tyke
noticed the coarse texture of the Santa Claus beard. I tried to explain. I told him that Santa was 700 years old and that
he had been growing the beard since he was 100.
"But that didn't stop him. He looked up at me quizzically and thoughtfully.
'Don't you think it's time for a shave?' he asked."
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The actor still lives in the house which he occupied
when his name was up in lights. The cottage has been pushed to the back of the lot, however, to make room for a store-apartment
building which August rents out.
His room is ornamented by dozens of tin ornaments which he
has wrought from cans and sheet tin, and the drawers of his desk overflow with theater mementos of the past.
Among them he discovered a picture of motion picture equipment
set up on the stage of a Brooklyn movie house.
"This was made," August explained, "during the last war. I
headed a unit which went about the country demonstrating in theaters how pictures were made. We actually filmed scenes before
the audience. The price of admission was the purchase of a Liberty Bond."
TOP
HOME
Edwin August on IMDB.com.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
