Donald Wayne
Donald Wayne
The Guild News, April 1941, page 18
Author, Actor, Father
He is an author. Of all the things he has authored, a seven-months-old son whom he has never seen, is his favorite. He's now writing nursery rhymes, while at the same time plotting a play (which he thinks he can sell), and a novel (for which he is under contract).
The author is Donald Wayne, Brooklyn, 28 years ago, and Cornell, Class of 1934. He missed pacing the floor on the baby situation by exactly one week, Will Rogers Memorial Hospital having then become his home.
The play has the Adirondacks as its locale, and has nothing to do with tuberculosis. The novel Scribner's is willing to wait for; his last one, "Fine Flowers in a Valley," having been a success.
Asked what the latter was all about, he said the blurb on the jacket stated it was the tale of the "spiritual regeneration of a young girl." He remarked that it still has him baffled.
The contract for that novel followed on the writing of a short story, "Ring In My Hand," published in Scribner's Magazine. It has a prison locale, and was so authentic that Mr. Wayne's fan mail consisted of letters asking him if he was really and truly an ex-convict. He isn't.
Writing was simply something he happened into. Previously he had been stage manager for Max Gordon. To save money for the producers he sometimes took bit parts. He appeared in "The Farmer Takes A Wife," "Ethan Frome," and "St. Helena," the latter a starring vehicle of Maurice Evans, for whom he has a great admiration.
Incidentally, Max Gordon was a booking agent when Mr. Wayne first met him. Wayne was still in high school when the acquaintanceship began. Gordon promised him a job after he finished college. Wayne got the job.
Mr. Wayne's wife is a former newspaper woman, once with the Daily Mirror. She's doing juvenile fiction now, and her husband fancies that the seven-months-old son might, just possibly, have something to do with that inspiration.
In continuing his writing at Will Rogers Memorial, Mr. Wayne was at first handicapped by the fact that he wasn't permitted to use a typewriter. But he's at long last learning to write in long-hand, and not finding it such bad going either.
Lots of other writers whom he's known intimately have managed long-hand. Among them was Thomas Wolfe who wrote a million words every time he set out to do a novel.
Six-feet-six in height, he found it convenient to prepare most of his copy on the top of the ice box. Mr. Wayne isn't tall enough to do that, nor has he an ice box. He finds he gets along very nicely with a wooden board and a paper clip.
Mr. Wayne's nursery rhymes are in the A. A. Milne-sweetness-and-light manner. They're a bit Lewis Carroll and since Mr. Wayne admits Lewis Carroll is his favorite author -- that son, whose name happens to be Arthur Westcott Wayne, is going to have some good reading when he's old enough to read.
Mr. Wayne is a student in the Spanish class, conducted by Alfredo Gonzalez, one of the Guild instructors.