Chaplain to the Movies

Into Hollywood's small, grey-stuccoed Church of St. Mary of the Angels went many a cinema star last Sunday to honor one of Hollywood's outstanding characters. The Rev. Neal Dodd sang High Mass, marking the 36th anniversary of his ordination in the Episcopal Church's priesthood. For a quarter of a century nervous, bespectacled, balding Father Dodd, 64, has been rector of the parish (224 communicants). He is also an actor, as well as technical adviser and father confessor to the film industry.

This double career began in 1919 when the late Director James Cruze, stung by criticisms that movie parsons never looked like anything but bad actors, asked Father Dodd's help. Father Dodd had been visiting his wife's family in Los Angeles, and was holding services in a rented store.

200 Films. Cruze engaged Dodd to play ministerial roles, give technical advice on ecclesiastical usage. Since then the priest has appeared in or been technical adviser to more than 200 films. He performed his first movie wedding ceremony in Making the Grade. His last movie wedding was a year ago in They All Kissed the Bride. Once he was only a voice: in Cabin in the Cotton, Bette Davis tuned in on the radio, heard Dodd preach a sermon. Dodd's favorite picture was It Happened One Night, in which he appeared but did not utter a word. In the film Claudette Colbert bolted a big lawn wedding just as Actor Dodd was about to start reading the service.

For his acting and liturgical advice Dodd gets $50 a day for regular hours, extra for overtime. As his movie job is only intermittent and his parish salary is $175 a month, Dodd feels he can pocket the extra cash. He is one of the few clergymen who holds a card in the Screen Actors Guild.

Many Marriages. In real life Father Dodd has performed some real movie marriages: Jack Pickford and Marilyn Miller, William S. Hart and Winifred Westover, William Lasky and Margaret Lowe. He has also officiated at movie stars' funerals: Douglas Fairbanks, Marie Dressier, May Robson, John Gilbert, Owen Moore.

Dodd's hardest job used to be getting directors to take his advice. Once a director wanted the wedding guests to cap the ceremony by singing I Ain't Gonna Sin No More. Dodd had to threaten to walk off the lot if the director persisted. But those were the early days. Now directors more readily bow to Dodd's say-so.

Though Dodd works with movie people intimately, no big stars are active members of his parish. Some who do attend: Bryant Washburn, Jonathan Hale, Monte Blue, Marjorie Gateson. Dodd likes movie people, feels he has some influence on their lives just by working with them. And they think he is tops. Wrote Beverly Hills' late Editor Rob Wagner (Script): "Without doubt Father Dodd is the best-loved character in movieland. ... He has never 'preached' nor pointed the finger of superior virtue at his erring sheep. . . ."

Explains Father Dodd: "I am not an odd fish. I am not running some kind of a strange church. I am just a regular priest of the Episcopal Church doing my job in what are somewhat different circumstances."

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