Tour

In 1933 fluttery Comedian Edward Everett Horton made a walloping twelve-week success of Springtime for Henry in Los Angeles. In June 1939, with no cinema commitments to tie him down, he decided to revive Benn Levy's frothy farce. Since then he has played Henry all over the country, has scooted profitably in & out of more than 75 theatres. Still going strong in Gloucester, Mass, last week, Horton's revival was pushing on past 300 performances.

Resplendent are the statistics of Henry's, travels. Henry even made money in Florida. The show grossed $3,100 for a one-night stand in Rochester, N. Y., skidded down to $100 in Charlotte, N. C., where it was given as a matinee before 52 people in a gamy auditorium usually reserved for cattle and poultry shows. Total take for the winter tour: $310,000; longest run: Chicago, where Henry grossed an average of $11,500 for eight weeks.

Horton's performance in Springtime for Henry is not solely a labor of love. His contract calls for a minimum of $500 a week. He gets a third of the gross when it amounts to more than $1,500. Only permanent member of Horton's company besides himself is Marjorie Lord, who was discovered by Horton in Saratoga, N. Y. The other two characters required for the play are hired in advance by Horton's stage manager, given a dress rehearsal when Horton and Lord arrive in town.

As the philandering bachelor of Springtime for Henry, Horton has plenty of opportunity for the jittery mugging that averages him $80,000 to $100,000 a year in Hollywood. Much to his taste is a role that deals frivolously with love. In all his contracts, Horton includes an unwritten clause that he shall not be compelled to play a married man, kiss a woman, have any children. A bedside-bottle hypochondriac, he is nervous about his diet, which is rigidly supervised by his 82-year-old mother, who accompanies him almost everywhere. Feverishly interested in antiques, Horton has acquired all kinds of bric-a-brac on his barnstorming. He ships his finds back to "Belleigh Acres," his estate on the edge of Hollywood, to which it is said he adds a room every time he makes a picture. The estate includes a ten-room doghouse, an impressive community barn, the inevitable swimming pool. Horton never uses the pool.

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