Iam Jean Darling, actress in the original OUR GANG/LITTLE RASCALS, starred in the original Carousel on Broadway, and was Aunty Poppy on the radio in Ireland! AmA

How do you remember Hal Roach? What kind of a person was he? Thanks!

Well he was always very nice to me. He had heard that I could write when I was 4 years old and he brought some pictures I could sign, he dropped by my dressing room with them, I was supposed to sign "From Your Little Friend Jean Darling." But I left the -r- out of friend...

When he saw I left the -r- out, I went to his film department and autographed a negative with the correct spelling of friend!

What was it like growing up as a child star?

Well it's very easy, just a different kind of life than most people have. You met a lot of people and worked, it could be very interesting. A lot of people say their childhood was stolen, mine was never stolen, I just worked a lot! I might have had more fun if my mother hadn't spent all my money, but that's it!

Any advice for the younger generations? :)

To stop thinking of themselves. And don't pay attention to anybody else. I never joined anything, I never felt that I had to be a part of anything, I worked hard and the thing that is most important, before you try, know what you're doing so you can do it well.

How does it feel to see today's technology, that didn't exist in 1923?

I think it's the saddest thing in the world and I feel so sorry for children. Technology can't be policed. It's going to be our Armageddon. At one time if you wanted a scooter you got a wooden box and split it, got a skate and made a scooter. And you had something you could be proud of. Now everything is spoonfed and there is no imagination. That's just my opinion. Everybody can have their own opinions and that's all right with me. Otherwise everybody would be lawyers. Can you imagine a world full of lawyers? We'd all be suing each other!

Doing 850 performances is quite a lot it seams like, how often did you perform? And did you ever make any mistakes while performing, and/or had to adapt to someone's mistake onstage?

8 times a week. 6 performances and 2 matinees on wed. and sat. Sunday we could go kill pigeons in the park.

Of course, I've gone off on my lines and when you go off on your lines, the person who dislikes you the most in the cast will remind you right before you go on in your next performances. I've done every asinine thing you could do and still come out alright at the end.

You say what they are supposed to be saying to you and you move the words around until you get to a point where what you say will hit some kind of a memory bug in their head where you can continue. Waffle around until a point where they're sensible without blank eyes and such

Sunday we could go kill pigeons in the park

that's an old saying, right? The kids would just go play, not actually kill birds? I can't google it now or else I might look like a weirdo.

Don't google and don't be a weirdo. It's just an expression. You're a weirdo to ask me!

damn, I just got told, by one of the Little Rascals!

Ha ha! That's cute!

How well do you think Steven King compares to Alfred Hitchcock and do you see any similarities between the two. If you do, may you share them?

I liked CARRIE. Some of the Hitchcocks are wonderful, but I can't say anything because I write stories for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, so I better keep my mouth shut.

I have heard Stan Laurel in particular was a generous man with his time and experience. Do you have a favorite bit of advice from him? Any memories of working with him?

Stan was nice, kind, a ladies' man. Because he didn't want me to be drowned, he took me to Bimini baths to teach me to swim. I revolted and said I wasn't going to wear anything except a bathing suit, so he came to work in a bathing suit too. I was cold at night and said I'd put my clothes back on and so we came to an agreement and put normal clothes on again.

Thanks for doing this AMA, you've led an amazing life. In recent years child stars have had a bad name. Some contribute their downfall to the heightened media craze with celebrities, paparazzi and more recently, social media. Do you think you would have "survived" growing up a child star in later generations? What piece of advice would you give the child stars of today?

They should realize that it's best to try for something else because they can never attain the same stardom they had as a child. When you're a child you're in a different place, you're cuddly, you're treated differently, people like to pet you.

Thank you for your reply. You've done quite well for yourself in diversifying your talent and remaining successful in the industry. What do you contribute that to? Luck, good advice or something else?

Getting fed up with what I was doing and trying something new.

What are your memories of Hollywood's evolution? You would have been born at the same time as it began its big city heyday, it will have grown up at the same time as you. What did the birth of all that 'glamour' look like? What about the relationship between actors and the press?

Movies were well on the way by the time I arrived!

I was in silents and I remember when the talkies came in, they were quite a revolution because now on set we had these giant fuzzy sausages hanging too low and we always hit our heads on them.

Everyone was going blind because of the lights, they said, we'll make all the actors blind. They were Kleig Carbon Arc lights. I tried to work and the board of education wouldn't let me work because of the lights when I was 6 years old. So I got glasses.

People wanted to go out and have the photographers take pictures of them, get written up in the newspaper. A lot of Hollywood was people, the nuvo-riche, that look good in furs and don't have a brain in their head. A lot of so-called stars were going to Europe and trying to marry a Lord or Prince.

It was actually a nicer time then than it is today, and nobody now will get a city meeting them, like this little rat did, and like anyone in show business did at the time.

Hi! You look fabulous! Our Gang was a big part of my childhood thanks to my father. I'm 25 years old today and still love Hal's Rascals. Did you keep in touch with any of the gang for a while after working with them? I remember reading about George McFarland (Spanky) staying in touch with many of the cast. Thanks for your time and talent!

I never kept in touch with anybody except Edith Fellows, and then only because she was on Broadway when I was.

What do you miss from old movies that aren't in new movies? And do you still keep in touch with your fellow actors and actress friends?

I like the lighting and that I could recognize one from the other. Today it seems that everyone is cloned.

What was it like back then for child actors? Were you on the set all day? Did you go to school? Were the hours long? I love the original little rascals and you were adorable in those episodes!

Thank you. We worked four hours a day, with a lunch break in the middle. Plus however long it took to get there before and then to get home. Usually 7-7 was my day.

Hi Jean!

What are your thoughts on the so called "curse" of the Our Gang crew? There was a lot of tragedy that followed many of you.

Thanks Jean!

That was a bunch of balderdash written by someone who probably walked past Culver City stop on the train. A book was named that. Three kids out of hundreds came out badly. Hardly the average for any business. The curse is a lot of nonsense.

how is your health?

I'll put it this way, I'm very happy with what I've got left :)

Did you know Joe Cobb and, if so, was he as nice as he seemed on screen? Joe was one of my favorites.

Joe was very nice and he was the prime instigator of my being able to read and write. His father and Farina's mother were two of my favorite people on the lot.

Was vaudeville an experience akin to Broadway, or more of a 'bus and truck' experience through cowtowns? I find the era really interesting, and without a real comparison to any part of show business today. Is there anything like it anymore?

No, there's nothing like it any more. And it wasn't cowtowns. I played Chicago twice. You played different places. Some theaters loved you and the audiences loved you too. And in the next town they hated you. Vaudeville was a wonderful experience and the best time of my life. And a place to learn your trade, pay your dues.

Thanks! What was your act?

Song, dance and patter. It was 12 minutes. I entered through a breakaway screen that showed snips from the comedies and the last one was me getting married to Harry Spear. And I walked through the screen in my wedding gown, singing "Little Things of Life."

After touring the world and doing 850 consecutive performances on Broadway, what made you decide to settle in Dublin?

I didn't. I stopped there. The only thing I wanted to do was to spend the rest of my life on tramp steamers, go everywhere else in the world nobody had been. I had a pet and the flat that I wanted to rent wouldn't allow it, so I bought a house for the cat.

How delightful! So glad to see you here. OG/LR provided a big bonding opportunity between me and family members of earlier generations, and your character specifically is one of my favourites.

As a freelance journalist, what do you prefer to report on?

A person's life, not that they take drugs or get drunk. For instance, I asked Bob Geldof's wife Paula Yates to tell me something people didn't know. She said when they go to bed, they have a dog who pulls Paul's socks off, brings them to his bed and sleeps with the socks on his head. That's the sort of thing I like writing about.

Oh, how I wish that was the type of the thing the endless celebrity mill was more about - just getting to know them as people, not climbing down into all of their dark corners (real or, often, imagined).

In case you've time for a follow-on question, does your own experience with having people digging into your history and challenges inform this preference?

Well, in answer to your question, don't believe 99% of the crap you read in the newspaper. A lot of it is made up. Somebody interviewed me and asked me if I ever drank or took drugs and I said no, because I didn't want to lose myself. When the article came out it said I had given up drink and drugs. I repeat, don't believe what you read in the papers.

Hi! How did you get into acting? What do you think of recent movies?

I love Guarding Tess (which is 20 years old). I like that one.

Who's the person that inspires you the most ? :D

Marie Dressler. When I congratulated her on winning an Oscar for Min and Bill with Wallace Beery, she said "What do you do when you get to the top? The most fun is climbing the ladder, so all you can do is find another ladder to climb."

What was the highlight of your experiences on stage with Carousel? And do you have any good stories about Rodgers and Hammerstein?

We went out to White Castle for a hamburger after a show in Boston, and all of a sudden Dick Rodgers sees a man and takes off after him. The man keeps running and we start running after Dick. When he gets out of breath, we ask him what it was all about. He says, "The man was whistling 'If I Loved You!' [from Carousel, which had just opened in Boston.]"

Highlight: primarily that I got the part! It was a continuing highlight.

Moving Pictures by Budd Schulberg seems to me to be the best account of the silent era I have read. What did you think of it? What are your favorites?

What I like about the silent movies is mostly we had actors and even when we got into the early talkies we had people you could recognize, now i am firmly of the belief that what we have now in Hollywood is clones, because you could hardly recognize one star from the other without a computer program.

What was your name in Our Gang? Who were you?

Jean. little blond curly haired girl. Don't be so silly, if you've never watched the silents YOU HAVE NOT LIVED.

Was your mom and dad in vaudeville? How did you get your start at only 6 months old? I am just curious to know what made your parents decide to put you to work in the movies.

My grandfather Frank C. Hamilton was a producer on Broadway. He died of Influenza in the 1918 epidemic. My mother went into a road company of a show that went belly up in Savannah. She then for 15 minutes became a Sob Sister, but the call of the movies was too strong so she went to Hollywood and started in movies doing second leads. Then she married a oil wildcatter who said if you take her to central casting, I won't be here when you get back. She did and he kept his word and that was the end of my father.

What are you nostalgic for? If Our Gang is from 50 years before most of us on here were born, do you have an equivalent?

I am not nostalgic for anything, what was yesterday was yesterday. Looking at myself as a child, I don't feel a connection to that person although I know it's me, I've grown past it. Like looking at myself in Carousel, I don't look back, what's done is done.

My parents literally gave us all of the Little Rascals videos on VHS so I have grown up with "Our Gang", thank you for doing this AMA! Where in Ireland did you work and how did you get to Ireland?

My husband and I were in Amsterdam and we were booked for Magicadabra at the Olympia theater 2 weeks before Easter By boat. We got a residency in Dublin because storage in England cost 25 pounds per month, and in Ireland 2 pounds per month.

Do you still have this hat?

no it wasn't a hat, kind of a tiara thing