Advertisement

One Thing After Another

She Forsook the Microphone for

In 1929 a production of Cyrano de Bergerat of the University of Wisconsin set a record. It ran 10 nights, played to more than 3,000 people. Victor Wolfsohn was "Cyrano," his "Roxane" was a chubby, attractive Stanford graduate, Kathleen Fitz, who was teaching education and studying for an M.A. in psychology. Eight years later Victor Wolfsohn had written a successful Broadway play, last year's Excursion, and Miss Fitz was acting in One Thing After Another in New York.

Kathleen Fitz must be set down as a Kappa Alpha Theta with determination. Like Don Ameche, another of Prof. William C. Troutman's alumni at Wisconsin, she took the hard way to learn to face the footlights. Her teaching days and M.A. didn't help when she was batted about in Pacific Coast stock. Star in Pirandello and Shaw plays at Wisconsin, Kathleen toured the U. S. as the heroine in The Drunkard, playing in hotels as well as theaters. She trimmed her figure for pictures, only to get a "bit" no one noticed. She had the lead in Three Men on a Horse when the leading lady was on vacation. After that period of glory, she went on tour with Boy Meets Girl, in a part you could find only with a microscope.

Turning to radio, Kathleen auditioned herself into the lead in a nationally known domestic serial, Doc Harding's Wife. When a part opened for her in One Thing After Another, she gladly forsook the microphone.

One of these days Stanford's and Wisconsin's Theta, Kathleen Fitz, hopes to be the bride instead of the bridesmaid in the theater.

Advertisement
Advertisement