"Cooper caught a break with a featured role as a doomed aviator in Wings (1927), but Walter remained on the periphery, observing the unwritten rule that extras did not consort with stars, yet taking pride in work that reinforced the function of character actors. As character actress Beulah Bondi said, "We are the mortar between the bricks." For Walter Brennan, it was enough to know that a chosen few--Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable--began as extras and ended as stars. For a television documentary, the actor Richard Arlen, one of the stars of Wings, was asked what Walter Brennan was like in these early days as an extra. "He was not too unlike Gary Cooper in his mannerisms in those days. A slow way of talking--very much like Will Rogers," said Arlen. "Walter sounded very much like he does today. Very dry and one of the nicest men I've known."