Paill Ford-He Found
It's Never Too Late
He began acting at 40 after failing at everything else; now,
at 61, he's one of entertainment's biggest successes
By JACK RYAN
Paul FORD is the balding actor with
the perplexed expression and queru
lous voice, and you might say he came
by both naturally.
Fate has dealt him a life no script-writer
would dream up and while it might amuse an
audience, it only baffled Paul. He's 61 now, star
of the Broadway comedy hit, "Never Too Late"
(which also might be the title for his life story),
and costar of the movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad,
Mad World." Movie audiences first acclaimed him
as the colonel in "Teahouse of the August Moon,"
and tv audiences remember him as another colo
nel in Phil Silvers' "Sergeant Bilko" show.
But at the age of 40, Ford was cooking fudge
and peanut brittle in a Brooklyn apartuent and
selling it on used-car row during lunch time. His
wife was working as a practical nurse. "Nell had
to," he says. "How else could our Ave kids eat?"
At that time Ford never had acted profession
ally nor had any training for the stage. But an
idea was slowly hatching. "I didn't mention it to
Nell," he recalls nowadays. "She would have
thought I was crazy."
One night in 1941 Nell Ford forced the issue.
"You can get the job of superintendent of this
building," she said. "It pays $60 a month and
free rent. For once we can feel secure." Security
to Nell was a dead end to Paul who, despite a
history of failures, was certain he'd "hit it big."
"No super's job for me," Ford said. "I'm going
to be an actor. I'll be making $100 a week soon."
"You're crazy," Nell said positively.
Today Ford looks back and observes: "I re
spect my wife's opinions, but I don't let them
interfere. I went and got an audition for radio
under my full name, Paul Ford Weaver."
Nervous, he botched his first tryout A pro
ducer's assistant scratched his name off the list
"Sorry, Mr. Weaver, no second chances," he said.
Nobody at home was surprised at Pop's failures;
that's the kind of guy he was.
In earlier years, Paul Ford's future had
seemed bright enough. Hib father, a well-to-do
Baltimore businessman, sent him to Dartmouth
and envisioned an affluent career for him in law.
Then his father's new soft drink, Gypsy Cola,
went' flat and so did the family fortune.
Ford left school to become a newspaper proof
reader. "Even today," the actor says sadly, "I
find myself correcting typos in scripts." Next
came a long-term job as chief of a group of
traveling magazine salesmen. In 1923 Ford
entered Horn's Department store in Altoona,
Pa., and gave his magazine pitch to a pretty
salesgirl. She in turn countered with some hard
sell on perfume.
"That's how I met Nell," Ford reminisces. "It
was a contest of selling wills, and I won!" Then
that famous perplexed expression clouds his
slack face. "But we ended up getting married,
and she never did pay for the subscription."
Five children and about 12 years later. Ford
was weathering the depression selling magazines
in the Midwest, But traveling from city to city
was no way to raise youngsters, now of school
age, and Ford felt increasingly certain he was
destined for bigger things somehow, some
where. "I just never knew where my talent was,"
he explains, "but anyway we moved to New York,
settled down, and I looked around for my niche." :
He was a gas-station attendant until his boas
found it took him four hours to lubricate an auto
mobile. ("I am very thorough,", he says earnest
ly.) He was a nightwatchman in a Brooklyn
garage until his supervisor caught him napping
on truck seats placed on the floor for comfort
Next he decided to be a "serious writer."
"I teamed up with a fellow who was good with
words. I would act out the story line, and he'd
write it. We never sold anything, but I learned
that I was better telling a story than trying to
write it"
Frustration and failure played havoc with
Ford's nerves and stomach, so he went to a psy
chiatrist. "You're always acting," the doctor
said. "Why don't you be yourself? Go out on
Long Island do some farming stop being
somebody else."
Ford dismissed the farming advice, but the
word acting intrigued him. "If I were always act
ing, I thought, why not get paid for it? But I
hesitated, and I think it was because of my
father. He had no use for actors. When he
thought a man was no good, he'd say 'That one
is an aetorV I still remember the disgust he put
into the word."
Ford dabbled in small theater productions, be
came adept at puppeteering, and also learned
that Bhow-business people are just that people,
no better or worse than other people. He decided
to take the plunge and promptly sank.
A few days after that first audition failure,
however, Paul showed up at the studio
again. This time he registered as Paul Ford.
"Ever auditioned here before, Mr. Ford?" the
assistant asked.
"No." As Paul points out, this was true. Mr.
Ford hadn't auditioned, just Mr. Weaver. Paul
got the job, and others followed.
"I never had stomach trouble or bad nerves
again," Ford concludes.
Ford beat his own money-making prediction
by earning $300 a week within six months.
Established as a radio performer, he next sought
Broadway roles. "The fact that I had no experi
ence didn't matter," he recalls. "Producers figured
anybody my age must have experience and never
questioned me. When I finally got a Broadway
part, it was for $85. I'll never forget the look on
Nell's face when I told her I was dropping big
radio money for that !" '
Today he regularly rings the cash register in
movies, television, and plays, and he and Mrs.
Ford live in one of New York's glossiest New
York co-operative apartments in the Greenwich
Village area. Mrs. Ford's main interest is her 13
grandchildren; she doesn't share her husband's
deep interest in the theater except as Paul says,
to "keep me informed on who is marrying who.
Sometimes I suspect she might still think that
superintendent's job was the best thing."
A placid man off stage, Ford riles slightly
when people seem amazed that an "old man" of
40 should have taken on a whole new challenge.
"There's a kind of tradition in this country," he
says, "that after you finish school you shouldn't
attempt to learn anything more. Your capacities
are set and you stick to them.
"I don't think there is any time in life when a
person can't learn something new, develop a new
talent All you need is the nerve to do it and to
forget that business about being 'too old.' "
Fomlly Wnklv, May 5, IMJ