In 1933 a disheartened young actor who had pounded Manhattan's pavements far oftener than he had trod its boards saw some kids swapping candy for marbles, and got an idea. Thereupon young Robert Porterfield, with fire in his eye, a dollar in his pocket and 21 famished actors in his wake, went back where he came from, to Abingdon in the Virginia mountains. There he opened a summer theatre, offering tickets for 35ยข in cash or the equivalent in barter.
To show business, the barter idea sounded as crackbrained as opening a theatre at the bottom of a...
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