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Once a Clown, Always a Clown: Reminiscences of De Wolf Hopper
Excerpt from Once a Clown, Always a Clown
Most of us fall into our life jobs by chance. We do not become department-store buyers, state policemen, railway 'mail clerks or candy makers because of any driving urge to these particular vocations, but because the paths of least resistance drifted us that way. We have  worse luck to make a living, and this or that was the best or the first that offered. The actor and the actress do not, with rare exceptions, drift on to the stage. They make a dead set for it. Nor do they think of it in terms of meal tickets. They cross the foot lights out of an egotistic desire to strut before an admiring world. They hope romantically to win a fortune along with their pictures in the papers, but always they have been willing to starve cheerfully if accompanied by adequate publicity.
Most of us fall into our life jobs by chance. We do not become department-store buyers, state policemen, railway 'mail clerks or candy makers because of any driving urge to these particular vocations, but because the paths of least resistance drifted us that way. We have  worse luck to make a living, and this or that was the best or the first that offered. The actor and the actress do not, with rare exceptions, drift on to the stage. They make a dead set for it. Nor do they think of it in terms of meal tickets. They cross the foot lights out of an egotistic desire to strut before an admiring world. They hope romantically to win a fortune along with their pictures in the papers, but always they have been willing to starve cheerfully if accompanied by adequate publicity.
282 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1927
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 2, 2021
In reporting so widely on Hollywood’s private life, Hedda Hopper largely succeeded in distracting attention from her own. But if you think that the memoirs of her only husband (divorced 1921) will shed any light on the glamorous but widely detested columnist, you will draw blank. The actor DeWolfe Hopper manages to deliver a detailed book of reminiscences without mentioning one word about Hedda or the rest of his six wives.
So it’s just a career-chronicle, by someone whose name does not echo much in the annals of showbusiness, though it sometimes leaves us wondering why not. Because Hopper seems to have been quite a guy, having not only a famously commanding presence (at six foot five) but a splendid ringing baritone, generally credited as the Voice of the Nineties.
Looking back over a long life on the stage, Hopper avoids undue nostalgia, acknowledging the tiresome routines of going on tour, with broken-down trains, draughty hotels, sometimes pay-packets going missing. But he thinks the movies have destroyed America’s nationwide theatre network, depriving young actors of a chance to learn their trade. (He is writing in 1926, just before the Talkies, so he may have gone on to change his views.) Interestingly, he remembers this happening before, when the roller-skating craze “had the theatre on its back for three years”, something we don’t always think of, as it also doesn’t occur to us that the game of baseball once had its own poet laureate. He was a shy little fellow who could never have got up and recited his own work in public - so, who better than Hopper to declaim the cherished verses of ‘Casey at the Bat’?
If this was the first-ever baseball poem, then it deserves credit, but I think it creaks, as Newbolt’s immortal school-cricket verse from a few years later (‘There’s a breathless hush in the close…’) does not. Yet it followed Hopper wherever he went. For the rest of his life, he would not be allowed to leave any stage without giving them his famous rendering of it.
Only the last section of the book disappoints, because it is all about social life, which does not translate well into memoirs - the reader is simply not able to share the experiences that so excite the writer. But the book as a whole provides plenty of insights into the acting craft, drawn from a long life in the theatre, wholeheartedly lived.
So it’s just a career-chronicle, by someone whose name does not echo much in the annals of showbusiness, though it sometimes leaves us wondering why not. Because Hopper seems to have been quite a guy, having not only a famously commanding presence (at six foot five) but a splendid ringing baritone, generally credited as the Voice of the Nineties.
Looking back over a long life on the stage, Hopper avoids undue nostalgia, acknowledging the tiresome routines of going on tour, with broken-down trains, draughty hotels, sometimes pay-packets going missing. But he thinks the movies have destroyed America’s nationwide theatre network, depriving young actors of a chance to learn their trade. (He is writing in 1926, just before the Talkies, so he may have gone on to change his views.) Interestingly, he remembers this happening before, when the roller-skating craze “had the theatre on its back for three years”, something we don’t always think of, as it also doesn’t occur to us that the game of baseball once had its own poet laureate. He was a shy little fellow who could never have got up and recited his own work in public - so, who better than Hopper to declaim the cherished verses of ‘Casey at the Bat’?
If this was the first-ever baseball poem, then it deserves credit, but I think it creaks, as Newbolt’s immortal school-cricket verse from a few years later (‘There’s a breathless hush in the close…’) does not. Yet it followed Hopper wherever he went. For the rest of his life, he would not be allowed to leave any stage without giving them his famous rendering of it.
Only the last section of the book disappoints, because it is all about social life, which does not translate well into memoirs - the reader is simply not able to share the experiences that so excite the writer. But the book as a whole provides plenty of insights into the acting craft, drawn from a long life in the theatre, wholeheartedly lived.
January 10, 2024
After going through a Wikipedia hole about Hedda Hopper, I found this memoir on Google Books. I was going to skim it just to see, but got drawn in with the fun antics and stories told by de Wolf.
Although written almost 100 years ago, the storytelling is so hilarious and well-written that I couldn't put it down. Stories about wild theatre productions in drunk cities, pranks with friends, and theatre life at that time highlighting his key baseball poem were especially enjoyable.
I was so surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I will say, the best parts of the book are the first 150 pages. After that, the writing gets dull.
Have a spare couple of hours? I would recommend reading about de Wolf's antics.
Although written almost 100 years ago, the storytelling is so hilarious and well-written that I couldn't put it down. Stories about wild theatre productions in drunk cities, pranks with friends, and theatre life at that time highlighting his key baseball poem were especially enjoyable.
I was so surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I will say, the best parts of the book are the first 150 pages. After that, the writing gets dull.
Have a spare couple of hours? I would recommend reading about de Wolf's antics.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews