It’s No Act When Maitre d’ Talks About Movies, Show Business

Patrons of La Jolla’s tony Marine Room restaurant may not realize it, but their maitre d’, Dennis Rush, had an acting lesson from James Cagney, kissed Miss Universe, cried on Dorothy Malone’s shoulder and appeared at the Academy Awards--all before the first grade.

At the age of 5, the now 37-year-old Rush was being featured in his first film, “Man of a Thousand Faces,” with Cagney, Malone, Jim Backus and Jane Greer. That cinematic version of the life of Lon Chaney was the start of a film and television career that lasted until hormones and the draft conspired to turn his life in another direction.

Rush’s career began in storybook fashion during a lunch with his father, Jack, a film archivist at the then Universal-International Studios.

“If you were good all week, you got to go have lunch with dad at the studio,” recalled Rush, during a recent interview. “Well, one week, I got to dress up and eat with dad at the commissary. It turns out that Jimmy Cagney was sitting at the next table. He had been casting for the part of a 5-year-old to play his son without any luck. So he turns to my dad, says he’s looking for a kid to play his son and says, ‘Your son is the spitting image of me at that age.’ ”

Rush began filming around Christmas in 1956. He required a little coaching.

“I just remember them kneeling down and saying stuff like, ‘Now, in a few minutes I’m going to say ‘Hello’ to you. Say ‘Hello’ back.’ ”

Not exactly the Method, but it worked.

Technicians tickled his feet to make him laugh, but the real acting lesson came on Christmas Eve when Cagney took him for a little walk and helped him get in the mood to cry.

“He says, ‘You know, this has all been make-believe,’ ” Rush recalled being told that night. “ ‘But you know how much fun Christmas can be and being with your folks and all that? Well, this little boy is never going to see his mom or his dad again. No more Christmases. No more good food.’

“He kept that up for a walk around the sound stage and had me in tears. We went right in and did the scene in five minutes. Whenever I had to cry from then on, I remembered that.”

Commercials and television Westerns kept Rush busy for the next several years.

“You talk about fantasy growing up,” he said, “I got to play Western with real cowboys, real Indians, real guns and real horses.”

As a commercial actor, Rush introduced such products as Nestea, Downy fabric softener and jif peanut butter.

His career took off and he became one of the busiest

child actors in Hollywood. Rush doesn’t link his success to any special acting ability, however.

“Directors just remembered the important stuff like, ‘Did he show up on time?’ ‘Did he have his lines down?’ And, ‘Was he a total brat?’ It was also the face. When you’d go in for these things, they always wanted the tall, blond kid, the fat kid, and the freckle-faced kid. That was my stereotype and it worked.”

With dozens of “Virginians,” “Laramies” and “Wagon Trains” under his belt (“I died twice in one year on ‘Wagon Train,’ ” he said, laughing), acting became nearly a full-time job. He enjoyed it, but there were drawbacks.

Even when he wasn’t working, his social life suffered.

“I’d get home from school at 3, and most days I had to be somewhere at 3:15 for an interview. The after-school fun was not there.”

But for Rush, the worst part was damage to his budding sports career.

“When the priority was set with my parents, there were a couple of heated exchanges with my folks. It was, ‘What’s more important, a Little League game or work? The opportunity to sit in a hall with about 100 other kids and having your five minutes saying your name and your credits or going to a Little League game?’ ‘Hey, don’t ask me what’s more important! I’m 12 years old. I’m too young for a job.’ ”

But he continued to work in what has become classic television: “Kraft Television Theater,” “Alcoa Premier,” “General Electric Theater,” “Perry Mason,” “The Lucy Show” and a host of short-lived series like “Going My Way,” “Checkmate” and “McKeever & the Colonel.” Along the way, he acted with Gene Tierney, Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelley and Leo G. Carroll.

He was even directed by the great John Ford in “The Colter Craven Story,” a special episode of “Wagon Train,” and got firsthand experience with Ford’s renowned temper.

“It was a pretty heated show, and Ward Bond and Ford and some others got pretty intense with each other. Everything was ‘F’ this and ‘F’ that. The teacher walked onto the set and told John Ford that I didn’t have to listen to that sort of language and that, if he didn’t stop, she was going to yank me off the set. I just thought, ‘What’s the big deal? I hear this at home all the time from my good Irish father.’ ”

Ford continued to swear, and Rush was given a private trailer.

There were no such problems with “The Andy Griffith Show.” Rush played Howie, one of Opey’s best friends. He relished every appearance.

“It took a normal show about five days to film. It took ‘Andy Griffith’ three,” he recalled. “On lunch breaks, we’d just run to the lunch truck and run back. Ronny Howard had a short basketball hoop set up for him, so we got pretty close to dunking. Andy and some of the others were pretty good guitar players, so it was a regular hootenanny right through lunch.”

Today, the Howie role is the one for which he is most remembered by rerun connoisseurs.

Rush came to the attention of Disney studios thanks to his role as Horrible Horace, the “brat next door” on “My Favorite Martian.” His first Disney role was in “Kilroy” for “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” The four-part film was later recut and released theatrically.

By 1966, Rush was a frequent Disney player.

“That was the best you could do as a kid actor,” he said. But Disney also spelled the end of his career.

“You’d always play parts younger than you, so you’d have that little extra maturity and experience,” he said.

That led to the improbable sight of Rush driving himself to work in “little-boy short pants.” But puberty could not be held off forever and, in 1967, when Rush returned from a summer hiatus to dub lines for the film “Follow Me Boys,” nature had taken its course.

“We started dubbing and they go, ‘Hey, wait, you’re not Jimmy,’ ” he recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, believe me. I’m Dennis Rush. I played Jimmy.’ But my voice had dropped. I did two more ‘Andy Griffiths’ and that was it.”

Eighteen months later, Rush, whose draft number was 3 (“It was the only lottery I ever won”), quickly joined the Marines.

“It was so weird. One minute, you’re at Walt Disney in total fantasy eating popcorn and watching yourself on the screen. The next minute, it’s total reality and you’re on a military transport plane for Vietnam.”

Fortunately for Rush, he was ordered off the plane in Hawaii, where he remained, taking casualty reports, for the rest of his hitch.

There was more somber reality waiting when he got back. As a child actor, he had earned as much as $500 a week and said he had been told that it had all been put away. But, when he came out of the Marines, there was nothing--”Not 10 cents,” he sighed.

Rush refused to detail the family politics involved.

“It was as ugly as ugly can be,” he said. “That’s the biggest stinger of this whole thing. It was nothing but good times going through it and a real ‘Errr’ (he twists an imaginary knife) at the end to find out, ‘Oh? Nothing?’ ”

He entered the University of San Diego on the GI Bill and bank loans, with an eye to becoming a history teacher. While in school, he worked as a bartender at Elario’s in La Jolla.

“When I finally got my credential and found out how much teachers made, I realized I was making more than that in tips every year.”

Now, the restaurant business is his chosen career. He claims to be content with an occasional letter from “Andy Griffith” fans and a few residual checks from the Screen Actors Guild. He retains his SAG membership but has no pretensions.

“I’ll take whatever roles Dustin Hoffman doesn’t want,” he laughs. “Hollywood has done quite well without me.”

A 1976 letter from Cagney in response to a Rush get-well note may have confirmed his decision.

“I had speculated over the years as to just what had become of you,” Cagney wrote. “Your strong, disciplined writing suggests that you have made your way successfully in your chosen field. I am very pleased, of course, that you have done just that in as much as I know how precarious the acting business is. It was purest wisdom on your part and not for any lack of talent but simple economics.”

Besides, Rush argues, his current job is very similar to being a stage manager.

“I’m directing a play every night with a cast of characters. At 6 o’clock you have an audience, and you’ve got to feed them. In a way, I’m still in The Business.”