Who are all these people?
From left to right, we have:
Cyril Ring, in This Gun For Hire (scion of a distinguished acting family, played hundreds of bit-parts, including many waiters);
Glen Cavender, in Dark Victory (hero of the Spanish-American war, often played waiters);
George Humbert, in Bringing Up Baby (played dozens of waiters);
Irving Bacon, in His Girl Friday (appeared in over 500 films, frequently as a waiter);
and George Sorel, in The Blue Dahlia (dabbled in waiter roles before finding true calling as a bit-part Nazi).
Frauds! Flimflammers! Mincing mountebanks!
These people are supposed to be waiters? They think that, just because they can carry a menu elegantly or place a cocktail on a table without spilling it that they can play a waiter? Just because they perhaps have an exotic, old world accent and can pull out a chair for a lady, this qualifies them to represent the American waiting profession to the world? That might be good enough for you and the rest of the movie-going herd who could never hope to set foot in a genuinely sophisticated establishment, but it was not good enough for the discerning eye of Henri Desoto. He knew more about high-class waiting than those phoneys would ever learn. How? Because, when they were merely impersonating waiters in hundreds of movies during the 30s and 40s, he was waiting on the stars of those movies in places like this:
(1)
It's the Victor Hugo, the first exclusive restaurant to open in Beverly Hills(2), and Henri was its maître d'. Indeed, this photograph, taken at Basil Rathbone's 11th anniversary party in 1937 (at which, it seems, the female guests had been asked to wear their wedding dresses), just might show Henri at work. If I'm right (I admit that it would be quite a coincidence if I were), he's the senior-looking waiter in the centre of the picture.
Henri knew all the stars, all the directors, all the studio bosses. He counted them among his best friends. The stories he could tell! Stories like this one: Whenever Joan Crawford would stroll in for what a journalist who interviewed Henri in 1939 imagined would be "an evening of tasteful dining and rhythmic dancing", Henri would suavely ask, "The usual dinner this evening, Miss Crawford?" Usually, she would reply, "Yes." Presently, she would be served a thick, broiled New York cut sirloin steak, very rare. "That is her preference, and that's what she gets."
Such stories! He had a million of 'em. Listen: George Raft liked his steak burned to a crisp, with no seasoning. Jackie Cooper always ordered a double filet mignon with fried potatoes and at least three kinds of vegetables. Al Jolson liked to have a rack of lamb, but, instead of potatoes, which he never ate, he'd order a double portion of broccoli. Louis B Mayer, despite his great wealth, wanted nothing but broiled chicken, very dry, with no butter and very little seasoning. Hedy Lamarr, by contrast, "goes ultra-swank occasionally with orders of pheasant and quail."(3)
Obviously, working so closely with the greatest movie stars of the age provided Henri with many such profound insights into the acting profession. Little wonder, then, that he began to develop some ambition towards appearing in the movies himself. Why not? You think being a headwaiter in a place like the Victor Hugo isn't an acting job of the most supreme level? You think it doesn't take skill to present oneself to every guest, from the aristocrats of Hollywood to the vulgar mogul who grew up in a lower-east side slum and has manners straight from the shtetl, as the most agreeable, amenable and efficient servant? Of course he could act. And what's more, he could play a better waiter than those charlatans he saw onscreen practically every time he went to the movies. What did they know of waiting? Nothing! Who knew of waiting? Henri Desoto!
Not long after America entered the war, the draft robbed Hollywood of many of its able-bodied young actors, which opened up many roles to men who would previously have been overlooked or considered only for supporting parts. That's a large part of the reason why someone with a face like Humphrey Bogart's was able to become a romantic lead, for example(4). The horrible global fight against genocidal fascism also had a bright side for Henri, and, in 1942, he was able to begin moonlighting as a waiter in the movies. Many of his roles were without dialogue, like this one from Scarlet Street (1946):
But, before long, the world finally heard the voice of Desoto. The same year as Scarlet Street came out, Henri appeared in Somewhere in the Night:
In this scene, John Hodiak walks into Henri's restaurant and asks whether Mr Cravat (a mysterious, Keyser Söze-like figure) has reserved a table. Henri consults his booking list and says, just as suavely as if he were addressing Joan Crawford herself, "I'm sorry, Mr Cravat doesn't have a reservation tonight." When Hodiak says that Mr Cravat must have forgotten and that he'll wait for him at the bar, Henri nods, as if to say that that is the wisest thing a guest of the restaurant has ever said, even though, of course, if Mr Cravat has forgotten about dinner, there's little chance he'll show up at the bar. That nod of the head, calculated to smooth over the awkward situation and remove the possibility that the customer might feel the slightest bit embarrassed at having quite obviously been snubbed by a potential dinner companion -- that's a move that Henri surely cultivated over years of genuine experience of accommodating the fragile egos of Hollywood stars in places like the Victor Hugo. Such a nod you do not get if you hire some jobbing bit-part actor.
Henri was the real thing.
Strange, then, that he doesn't appear to have had any more work in films after 1946. It can't just have been because of the flood of newly demobilised bit-part actors returning to resume their faux waiting careers. Surely Henri had proved himself far superior to those play-acting impostors.
I assume it has something to do with this story, which was in newspapers across America in June 1947:
(5)
Oh dear. Charged with tax evasion by a federal grand jury after failing to declare the $150-a-day tips he got at his new job in the racetrack restaurants. According to the prosecution, he paid the Government only $485, when he should have paid it ten times that, based on a yearly income of $13,469. How big a deal was the charge? Pretty big. In today's money, the undeclared tips would be worth $1,387 a day, amounting to a secret yearly income from tips alone of $50,000. A major scandal for a man in Henri's position.
He was found guilty and fined $2,500(6) ($23,000 these days), and so ended a promising film career.
I don't know whether his retirement from cinema had anything to do with his crime, and the newspaper record is silent on the question of whether he continued working as a top-class maître d'. All I can tell you is that he spent the last years of his life in Miami(7), where he died in 1963.
Sources -- imdb.com; (1)basilrathbone.net, image copyright unknown; (2)Wannamaker, Marc, "Beverly Hills: 1930-2005" Arcadia Press, p97; (3) Lowell Sun, 30 October 1939; (4) "Biesen, Sheri Chinen, "Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir", JHU Press 2005, p13; (5) Morning Herald, Hagerstown, MD, June 6 1947; (6)Long Beach Independent, 4 Sept 1947; (7) Winnipeg Free Press, 9 Sept 1963 (newspapers via newspaperarchive.com). Scarlet Street still, public domain; Somewhere in the Night still (c) 20th Century Fox.
WAITER STILLS: Cyril Ring from This Gun for Hire (c) Paramount; Glen Cavender from Dark Victory (c) Warner Bros; George Humbert from Bringing up Baby (c) Warner Bros; Irving Bacon from His Girl Friday, public domain; George Sorel from The Blue Dahlia (c) Paramount.
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