NEW RULE FOR SCHOLARSHIP AID: KNOW DONOR.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

The young film student gladly accepted the $4,000 scholarship from the Jack Oakie Foundation a few years ago, but she flunked the test when asked if she knew who her benefactor was.

``No,'' she admitted. ``I guess I should have Googled him.''

The line got a laugh, but it didn't sit well with the foundation's trustees. It is their job to perpetuate the memory of the venerable comedic actor, whose career spanned four decades and more than 100 movies, and to disburse the $5 million left in the Oakie estate after his widow, Victoria, died at 91 in 2003.

``Give the money to the kids,'' Oakie had once told his wife, a former character actress.

Not their own kids; they didn't have any.

Oakie was talking about kids who had the same aspirations he and his wife had in the 1920s and 1930s -- kids who could use a little financial help in the 1990s and 2000s to help those dreams come true.

So that's what Victoria Horne Oakie did after Jack died in 1978 at age 74. She organized Jack Oakie tributes at film festivals, and she awarded hundreds of scholarships to aspiring actors to study with film schools and small theater groups.

Giving the money to the kids.

And here was one of those kids saying she knew nothing about the man who made her scholarship possible -- conceding she should have looked him up online.

``We laughed, but the answer didn't cut it,'' said David Sonne, one of three trustees of the Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie Charitable Foundation.

To change that, every potential scholarship recipient now must watch at least one Jack Oakie film and write a synopsis or critique of the movie.

And because of that, something inspiring has been happening. The man who shared the screen with Clark Gable, Shirley Temple and Charlie Chaplain is making kids laugh again.

``The student responses we've been receiving after watching his movies have been totally positive and appreciative of his work,'' said Barry Pascal, one of the foundation's trustees.

``Funny is funny. It doesn't matter how old you are or when the movie was made.''

The Oakies were regular customers at Pascal's Northridge Pharmacy, which he owned for 32 years before closing it in 2005. The Oakies lived nearby, on the Oakridge estate at Devonshire and Reseda boulevards, which they bought from actress Barbara Stanwyck in the 1960s.

``The story is it took Stanwyck two years to build the house, and she moved in right before one of our big Northridge rain-and-wind weeks,'' Pascal said. ``She moved out two weeks later, and the Oakies bought it.''

The 11-acre site was donated to the University of Southern California after Victoria Horne Oakie died. The site has been sold to a developer who plans to build 29 homes on the property.

The Oakie home has been designated as a cultural heritage monument and will remain on the site, possibly as a community center.

In the meantime, word of the Oakie Foundation's requirement is spreading to other foundations set up by the estates of former movie and TV stars who wanted to help aspiring film students, Pascal said.

The message is loud and clear: Don't give the kids the money until they know who you are.

And Googling doesn't count.

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

A poster of comedic actor Jack Oakie at the height of his movie career in the 1930s and 1940s appears in front of the real Oakie and his wife, former character actress Victoria Horne Oakie, in their later years together before his death in 1978 at age 74. She followed his wishes to fund scholarships until her own death at 91 in 2003, and she left $5 million to continue the effort.