WAR SOUVENIR -- Roddy McDowall displays shrapnel
    fragment to Actress Alice Faye on first visit to motion-picture
    set after adventurous trip from London.


Young Refugee Relates Thrills
on Flight From London Raids

Boy Actor Reaches Hollywood After Bombs Peril
Ship and Submarine Stops It in Mid-Atlantic

     Master Roddy McDowall, just turned 12, arrived in Los Angeles yesterday from bomb-racked London with fantastic adventures to tell.
     The Jerries dropped bombs around Master Roddy’s ship, the Scythia, for three days and nights before it sailed from Liverpool. A submarine tried to stop it in mid-Atlantic.
     He arrived in New York with his mother and sister, with only $42 among them, and they spent the last dollar on streetcar fare making the rounds of motion-picture company offices. Yes, Roddy is an actor.


WALKED INTO LUCK
     It was then, just like in the movies, that Roddy saved the day for the McDowalls. He walked right into one of the most important movie roles of the year.
     That’s why he was here today, to go before the cameras shortly on the 20th Century-Fox lot.
     "It’s exciting over there," said Roddy, who thinks Los Angeles is too quiet. "The Jerries used to come over every night.
     "We live rather near the Croyden Airport and they got us once. They ripped a hole in our roof and I couldn’t take a bath at home after that. They smashed all our windows, too, and the wind came right into our house."

FATHER STAYED
     Roddy’s mother, Mrs. W. L. McDowall, and his sister Virginia fled the country at the insistence of the British government, which they said was trying to clear London of as many women and children as possible.
     "Father stayed behind," said Roddy. "He runs lorries and he’s got to move explosives for the government and get the Jerries out of the air. He’ll do it, too. He fought in the last war and got rid of the Germans rather quick."

- - - - -


RM Tribute: Frames | RM Tribute: No Frames | Contact Us | Musgrave Foundation