Back in the 1930s, a fan magazine attempted to describe the wide-ranging appeal of Richard Arlen: “Women turn to gaze at him, attracted by the abundant hair that waves back from a good forehead, the fine figure, the mannish attractiveness. Men like him for the square look in his eyes and the sense of fresh air about him. It may be that he carries with him a part of the skies in which he’s spent so much of his life, for he was a flyer long before he was an actor.” In a career that lasted more than fifty years, Arlen seemed to do it all—romance, action, crime, war, westerns, comedy, drama—any demographic could relate to Richard Arlen. He changed with the times, his adaptability prolonging his career and his likable durability has kept him fondly remembered today.
This man’s man was born with the unlikely name of Sylvanus Richard Van Mattimore, in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 1, 1898, the youngest of five children to Mary and James Van Mattimore. (Arlen’s birthplace has been credited erroneously as Charlottesville, Virginia, and his first name as “Cornelius.”) He attended St. Thomas Academy and the University of Pennsylvania. Arlen was a natural athlete, excelling in football, baseball, tennis, hockey, and sailing. Of his early jobs, Arlen told New Movie Magazine in 1930, “Somebody gave me a bicycle and I thought I ought to use it somehow to make money, so I got a newspaper route. That was when I was eight years old. I lived at Manitou Island and every morning I rose at five-thirty and supplied 165 houses with papers. My salary was eight dollars a month. The next winter I got a snow route. That means that I had a certain number of houses which I kept cleared from snow, and from these I got five dollars per winter each.”
At seventeen, during World War I, Richard joined the Royal Flying Corps in Winnipeg, Canada. He was sent to Toronto and learned the science of aeronautics at Toronto University. He received a lieutenant’s commission and was posted at the Toronto Flying Field as an instructor until the war ended. Arlen stayed in the R.F.C. until the spring of 1919. One of his proudest possessions was his discharge letter, which read: “George, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions beyond the seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, Vc. To our trusty and well beloved Van Mattimore, greeting, We reposing trust and confidence in your loyalty and good conduct do by these presents constitute and appoint you to the honorary rank of 2nd Lt. in our R.A.F. from the date of your demobilization.” It is signed by the “father of the Royal Air Force” no less, Hugh Trenchard. Following the war, Arlen became a reporter for the Duluth Tribune. He later left this job to become a swimming instructor in St. Paul. With $200 in savings Arlen went to Los Angeles intending to find employment in the Southern California oil fields. Instead, he got a job as a motorcycle messenger at a film laboratory. It was during this time that his “lucky” accident followed. While riding his motorcycle, he crashed into the gates of Paramount Pictures and suffered a broken leg. The studio, impressed by the tall (5-foot, 11-inch), handsome Arlen, began giving him work as an extra. He was subsequently signed to a contract by Paramount, making several uncredited film appearances from 1921 to 1925. Starting in 1925 Arlen rose to credited roles. His big break came when William Wellman cast him as a pilot in the silent film Wings (1927) with Charles (Buddy) Rogers and Clara Bow. The story of fighter aces would win the first Academy Award for Best Picture. When he was assigned his first important role, it was suggested that Richard Van Mattimore was not a marquee-worthy name and needed to be changed. The inspiration for “Richard Arlen” came from author Michael Arlen, whose notorious novel “The Green Hat” was then in the limelight. Dick not only approved the change, but later made it his legal name as well. William Wellman, the director who was responsible for Arlen’s big break, would work with him in three other movies, Ladies of the Mob (1928), Beggars of Life (1928) and The Man I Love (1929). In 1931 Richard Arlen was one of the highest paid stars on the Paramount lot, and also considered one of the nicest guys in the business. His friendly attitude helped him find work even as he aged. A prime example of Arlen’s foresight occurred in the early 1930s when he called to a messenger boy on the set.
“Hey, kid,” he asked. “What time is it?” The nervous messenger said he didn’t have a watch. A few days later, Arlen repeated his request to him. The reply was the same. “Tell you what, kid,” said Arlen, “we’re going to sign a contract. When you get to be a producer, you’ll use me in all your pictures.” Arlen handed the messenger a small package. It contained an engraved watch. The messenger boy was A. C. Lyles, who over the years would become a fixture at Paramount, and the producer of numerous films. In 1963 Lyles completed a new film at Paramount, Law of the Lawless, in which Arlen played the part of a rough-hewn bartender. Arlen would make numerous westerns for Lyles, who never forget Arlen’s generosity to a mere messenger boy. Arlen sometimes recalled fond memories of the Paramount lot of the 1930s. The mere mention of the place would inspire memories of W. C. Fields arriving for work and brushing aside the studio bootlegger. W.C. needed no such help, of course, because clutched to his bosom was a satchel containing four quarts of booze.
Arlen also spoke of fun-loving Jack Oakie nailing the hairpieces of some of the stars to their dressing room ceilings. Once Oakie used a sledgehammer to knock down walls between the stars’ dressing rooms to aid his social rounds. Oakie was a friend and frequent co-star in several films with Arlen. Of Jack, he remarked, “When you see him on the screen you really know him. He’s never at a loss for a wisecrack. Most of his lines in his pictures are his own.” Arlen also had memories of neighbors in dressing rooms to the right and left—Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Clive Brook, William Powell, Mae West, Mary Brian, Paul Lukas, Fredric March, Clara Bow, Buddy Rogers, Cary Grant, Claudette Colbert, and many more.
Arlen’s most important films at Paramount were The Four Feathers (1929), The Virginian (1929), Island of Lost Souls (1933), and the classic screwball comedy Three-Cornered Moon (1933), about a dizzy Brooklyn family dealing with sudden poverty in the Great Depression. Directed by Elliott Nugent, it co-starred Claudette Colbert, Mary Boland, Lyda Roberti and Wallace Ford.
As the 1930s progressed, Arlen saw his standing in Hollywood slip. Let go by Paramount in 1934, he freelanced at other studios, finding himself, more often than not, working on poverty row. He was a competent performer always, though, at his best doing heroics, a tough, cynical hero with a dash of humor thrown in. Soon, he carved a niche for himself in low-budgeters at Universal, teaming with Andy Devine. He also did a series of actioners for the producing team of Pine and Thomas, which were distributed by Paramount. Popular during World War II, these Pine-Thomas titles included Torpedo Boat (1942), Aerial Gunner (1943), Submarine Alert (1943), and Minesweeper (1943). One of his more interesting films was Republic’s The Lady and the Monster (1944), an early screen version of Donovan’s Brain. Arlen co-starred in this with Vera Hruba Ralston and Erich von Stroheim who played a mad scientist. Arlen and Miss Ralston also co-starred again in Storm Over Lisbon (1944). At Fox he was featured in When My Baby Smiles At Me (1948), starring Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, Jack Oakie, and June Havoc.
In the early ’40s, Arlen purchased a dairy near Minneapolis, Minnesota. He bragged about having just about the most diversified interests of any actor in Hollywood. Arlen owned an aviation school, training both private and other students, operating charter planes, a repair depot, and storage and rental services at the airport in Van Nuys, just a few miles northwest of Hollywood. He was operating fourteen airplanes, some of which were being used in his films. He had the southwest distributorship for Porterfield airplanes and when not working in motion pictures he was flying to various airports throughout the southland demonstrating the planes to prospective buyers. Like many other actors, he was actively engaged in the booming real estate business in the San Fernando Valley, and he also operated a forty-acre farm, raising livestock and alfalfa.
Richard Arlen’s first wife was Ruth Austin, but this marriage did not last. He married actress Jobyna Ralston on January 28, 1927, after meeting on the set of Wings. They had one son, Richard Arlen, Jr. After eleven years, in 1938, Arlen came home one day and started packing his personal belongings into his automobile. He said he was going to his ranch, Breezy Top. Claiming that he was fed up with married life, he said he wouldn’t be back. His wife, Jobyna, waited seven years, until September of 1945, to divorce him on the grounds of desertion. Not wasting any time, Arlen then married 31-year-old Margaret Kinsella, though he did not announce it until March of 1946. For six months the marriage had been kept secret, even from their friends. They would stay married until his death.
By the end of the 1940s Arlen was becoming deaf and he feared this would end his career. However, he would undergo an operation in 1949 that restored his hearing. The 1950s and ’60s saw him mostly in actioners and westerns, usually in support. Besides movies, Arlen also appeared on television and in commercials. His TV credits include appearances on such network shows as Climax!, Playhouse 90, Crossroads, Lux Video Theatre, Matinee Theatre, and Wagon Train.
Arlen’s only Broadway appearance was Too Hot for Maneuvers (1945), but State of the Union marked his initiation into the “straw-hat circuit” and he later appeared at leading summer theaters in Mister Roberts, Jason, Made in Heaven, and The Tender Trap. With the play Anniversary Waltz he toured the country and even took it to Australia. Arlen even went on lecture tours, speaking on “Hollywood and Clean Entertainment” as a sort of good will ambassador for the industry.
In addition to a lifelong love of flying, he had an avid interest in boating and once owned a schooner, a cruiser, and a racing boat. He was considered one of Hollywood’s best golfers and played in the prestigious Los Angeles Open Tournament, for which he qualified four times. He was the first honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks and was also honorary mayor of Toluca Lake, and Sunland. Arlen was named honorary chairman of the 1973 Aviation Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremonies held in Dayton, Ohio, on December 14, 1973.
He had suffered from emphysema for several years and died on March 28, 1976 at the age of 75. More than 300 people, including Forrest Tucker, John Agar, Gene Raymond, Phil Regan, Eleanor Parker, and bandleader Horace Heidt, were among the mourners who attended the Requiem Mass at St. Cyril’s Catholic Church in Encino. Pallbearers included Buddy Rogers, Dennis James, Jack Oakie, Phil Harris, Max Marks, Phillip Hall and A. C. Lyles.
Rugged and handsome, Richard Arlen was an easy-going guy who made a good friend. Not the menacing tough guy type, he was the sort of person who got to know a lot of people while working all sorts of different jobs, and this helped him find work for decades. While he never set Hollywood on fire, he left a lasting impression on the films of the Golden Age. —classicimages.com
