Stadium, Olympics, Hollywood

Herman Brix '24

Do either of these pictures look familiar?

AN INTERVIEW WITH HERMAN BRIX ('24) ON 2/13/04 as told to Marc Blau '69

I was born in Tacoma on May 19, 1906. I grew up at 646 South State Street in Tacoma and I have a dream to see my old home once again. My dad was kind of an entrepreneur and since there were five children in the family he built a house with five bedrooms, a furnace, hot water, and an indoor bathroom which was really considered a luxury. Our home was a real showpiece at the time.

The childhood environment that I grew up in always involved a group of kids playing games around the neighborhood and I started early playing softball and soccer in the vacant lots around the home. In high school I played in the midget program in football and basketball my first two years. I started out at under 125 pounds and then exploded to 145 pounds and finally to 180 pounds by my senior year. In college I hit 190 pounds and then 195-200.

Sports were natural for me. The interesting thing was that in high school I was always interested in the Glee Club and I got to play the lead in the Pirates of Penzance. We had an enterprising instructor and he talked me into playing the lead. Every year there seemed to be a contest between the music director and the coach of the sport that I was playing as to who would get me. So, I really got my start in performing in high school. Chief Carr was my football coach at Stadium and we ran up and down the stairs in the bowl just like they do today. He could not understand why I would opt to be on stage rather than playing football.

In college it was just athletics. What motivated me at the University of Washington was the fact that I had an older brother, Egbert, who was also on the football and track team and I was darn if he was going to be better than I was. My sophomore year he was a senior and that was one of the few times we got to play together. He only had sight in one eye so he had to play right guard in order to perform and therefore I played left tackle.

I'll never forget playing in the Rose Bowl my sophomore season in 1926 because that was my first big highlight in sports. We took the train down to Pasadena which took two or three days. Due to our failure to kick the extra point we lost 20-19 to Alabama. The next day we went over to the studios of Douglas Fairbanks and got a tour as well as had our picture taken with him.

I graduated from the University of Washington in 1928. I had been puting the shot put and had been undefeated in the U.S. for several years. I won the U.S. National Championships in the shot put that spring and then I won the Olympic Trials which qualified me for the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. John Kuck, two Stanford boys, and myself were the weightmen for the U.S. track team and the U.S. team went over by boat. Eleanor Holm was a 14 year-old diver on the U.S. team and she was so small she would curl up into a ball and the four of us would get our exercise by throwing her from one to the other to get our practice in. When the shot put event was held I broke the world record and Olympic record on my first throw with a distance of 51' 8 1/4". Kuck always threw well in practice but not always in competitions so I told him to lay down and relax and close his eyes and imagine that he was at home in Kansas throwing in front of his parents. Well, on his next turn he three the shot 52' 3/4" to break the records that I had just set. I only had one throw left and couldn't beat him and settled for the Silver medal.

Douglas Fairbanks was really the person who got me started in the motion picture business. After the Olympics I came down to southern California to compete for the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Fairbanks was a great patron of the youth movement in athletics and since the Junior Olympics were being held one weekend at one of the universities they asked me to come out and give a demonstration which I was happy to do. Well, Fairbanks had come out to watch and afterwards he invited me to come over and train at the United Artists Studios. That offer sounded pretty good to me so I joined him for regular workouts and we became good friends. We would golf together, sun bathe, work out and then he would always have a big table set for lunch with sandwiches and all sorts of good food. Later on he would leave for dinner but I would stick around and finish the food which was great. That was quite the life!

I was on top of the world in the shot put and there was a big meet going on up in Vancouver, British Columbia and I was invited to come up and participate. The AAU said that the outstanding athletes at the meet were going to be sent to Europe on tour and even though I was working for a telephone company at the time I told my boss that I was quitting because I figured I would be going to Europe. Well, I went up to Vancouver and won the shot put and set a record in the process but then the AAU changed their mind and decided to cancel the European tour. I had to rely on friends in Seattle to loan me enough money to get back to LA. I was without a job but because the LA Athletic Club had sponsored me in the past I had made a few friends who were well-known citizens. They were well acquainted with me and so the club put me up for a short while until I got a job.

Shortly thereafter I started my career in the motion picture business but it wasn't a fast start. I was a glorified extra at the beginning and would do anything that would pay a little extra. One day Sam Wood, a motion picture producer and director who was one of the directors for Gone with the Wind, called me over to ask why I was volunteering to do stunt roles. I just told him that I needed the money and needed to do what I could to work, even if it meant jumping off balconies into swimming pools which I had already done.

He asked me how much I needed to live on and then offered to pay me that amount as long as I agreed to let him guide my career. He was a big sports fan and even arranged for me to take dramatic lessons. Sam Wood supported me this way for about a year. I was at MGM when I got my first speaking line. I played a cashier and a woman came in, gave me some money for me to put in her account. I was so damn nervous I could hardly talk, but my career mushroomed from there.

I guess the one thing I really learned from participating in sports was to just never say "no", never stop trying, and to always believe that you can do better than the next fellow. I tried to follow this throughout my life, but I always tried to be respectful about it.

Herman Brix/Bruce Bennett

Please Don't Call Me Tarzan

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

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