HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 959, 30 April 1930, Page 14

HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP

ONE ON THE TEACHER Tommy Clifford, the 11-year-old boy from Dublin, Ireland, brought to America to play the role of “Tad” in John McCormack’s first talking 1 screen picture, ‘Song o’ My Heart.” produced l>y Fox Movietone, von his role, in reality, by a bit of quick thinking, or extraordinary luck or whatever one chooses to call it. Arriving in Ireland, Frank Borzage, the director, Tom Barry, the author of the story and Joseph M. Kerrigan, who plays a featured role, went to a . little school house, close by the McCormack estate in Monesterevan where they made known their desires to find a boy to play a role

in the .picture. The teacher of the little school selected three boys as prospects and none of them was Tommy Clifford. Thi.s Piqued the little lad who, as the trio was being questioned, sneaked around in back of Borzage and kept repeating “Teacher’s pets! Teacher’s pets!” He was so insistent that Borzage couldn’t help noticing him and said: “Let’s give this lad a test with the other three.” All four took tests, reciting some school piece that came to their minds and Tommy won the coveted role and a long-term contract. He is now in Hollywood and will appear next in “Fox Movietone Follies of 1930,” doing his harmonica specialty.