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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
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* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
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* *
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* Issue 53 -- May 1997 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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Louella Parsons Interviews with Actors:
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Monte Blue, Douglas Fairbanks, George Fawcett, Robert Harron,
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Sessue Hayakawa, Houdini, Harold Lloyd, Tom Mix,
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Wallace Reid, Ben Turpin, Rudolph Valentino
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
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TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
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Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
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death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
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scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
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(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
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murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
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silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
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toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
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for accuracy.
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Louella Parsons Interviews with Actors:
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During the years that William Desmond Taylor was in Hollywood, Louella
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Parsons had not yet been enthroned by Hearst as Queen of the Hollywood Gossip
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Columnists. From 1918 to 1923 she was Motion Picture Editor of the NEW YORK
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MORNING TELEGRAPH. The following interviews with male actors of the time are
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presented as background into the silent film era in which Taylor worked.
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[Other interviews by Louella Parsons can be found in TAYLOROLOGY 28 (Roscoe
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Arbuckle), 31 (Douglas MacLean), 33 (Olive Thomas), 46 (Charlie Chaplin), and
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51 (Anita Loos).]
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Monte Blue
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February 19, 1922
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Louella Parsons
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NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
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I had to go to Albany to meet Monte Blue, the intrepid Danton of D. W.
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Griffith's "Orphans of the Storm." In New York, Mr. Blue has been making
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personal appearances here, there and everywhere, sometimes with the Griffith
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picture and then again as the feature attraction in the Marcus Loew circuit.
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During such time as he was out shaking hands or smiling at the women who make
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no secret of their interest in this young man, he has been finishing scenes
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for Pyramid's "My Old Kentucky Home" and getting in readiness for "The Queen
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of the Moulin Rouge," the next picture promised by Walter Green of the above-
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named company.
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So you can readily see why Mr. Blue and I have never met. He has been
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very busy since he left the Golden West flat and came to New York to seek
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adventure. An exhibitors' convention may not be the most desirable place in
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the world to hold an interview, but at least it furnishes plenty of good
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color.
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While we tried to find a nook where the theatre owners were not
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discussing the 33 1/2 per cent discount on films, we were faced with the
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difficult problem of keeping away from the delegation of girls and women who
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arrived at the Ten Eyck Hotel to welcome the New York stars with whom
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Mr. Blue arrived to be a guest of honor at the ball.
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We would get nicely started on a subject, and some Albany flapper would
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step up, take a long look at Mr. Blue, and shriek with delight:
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"It is Monte Blue! I knew it, he looks just like his pictures."
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In between the spasmodic convulsions of delight, Mr. Blue managed to
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tell of his entrance into motion pictures, which is dramatic enough to
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furnish a plot in the story of some boy's book written to inspire courage and
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perseverance in the hearts of our American youths.
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Monte Blue was working with pick and shovel when D. W. Griffith saw him
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and beckoned for him to come into a scene in "The Absentee" he was
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supervising for Triangle. Yes, actually, Monte Blue was a day laborer, and
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the beautiful part of the whole thing, he is proud of it. He feels no
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embarrassment in having risen from the ranks; in fact, I suspect he rather
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glories in the fact he is one of the people. He had come down from Canada,
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where he was, to use his own expression, "cow punching," and had taken a job
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at the Triangle studios, when a beckon of D. W. Griffith's finger settled his
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fate. And if you think he does not appreciate what Mr. Griffith has done for
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him, you should hear the paeans of praise he bestows on his teacher.
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"Mr. Griffith is the sort of man," said Mr. Blue, "who is not too big to
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accept ideas from the humblest worker on his staff. I have heard him say to
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Tony, the property boy:
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"'What was that idea you had yesterday, Tony? Sounded pretty good to
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me. We will try it.'
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"This day when I was singled out from a group of my fellow-workmen,"
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went on Mr. Blue, "Mr. Griffith had sent for all the workers in the studio to
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stage a scene of striking miners. He said: 'Now, how do you think these men
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would feel, fired with the thought that grave injustice had been done to them
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and to their families?'
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"I had an idea how a man in that state of mind would feel and I
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proceeded to illustrate it to the best of my ability. Mr. Griffith saw me
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and said: 'Come down here, and do that scene for me alone.' I did, and he
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cast me as one of the extras. After that," went on Mr. Blue, "I wanted to
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continue my experience as an actor, and I set out to find work."
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A dramatic story would lift young Mr. Blue immediately into stardom.
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But such was not the case. For many weary months he served as a double for
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actors who did not care to risk their lives in performing stunts. He thought
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he was never to get his name on the screen. When the chance did come, he was
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given villain roles, and could never play the hero parts his soul craved.
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When he was reciting how his ambition was sidetracked for so many months
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I could not help smiling at the thought of this tall lad, with the pleasant
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smile and ragged Abraham Lincoln type of features, figuring as a villain.
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My first recollection of him is in "Pettigrew's Girl," where he played
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the buck private whose adventures in the army camp were amusing. I remember
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at the time Ethel Clayton spoke to me of young Blue. She said she had been
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particularly anxious that Famous Players-Lasky keep his part intact and not
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sacrifice a line of the boy's part to build up her role. After seeing the
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picture I realized how sensible Miss Clayton had been, for Monte Blue gave a
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performance that still lingers in my mind.
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Just as Monte Blue has a friendly word for every one, so every one seems
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to have a friendly word for him. He is a fine exponent of the idea we get
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what we give. All the players who came down with him said:
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"Isn't Monte Blue a nice boy?"
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The exhibitor said: "Great lad."
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The fans said: "Isn't he a dear?"
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And with it all Monte goes along apparently unmoved by all these things.
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He says he has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. The books that were
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denied him in his boyhood are now being sought as the basis of a learning he
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is trying to build for himself.
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"When Mr. Griffith told me I could play Danton," said Mr. Blue,
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"I searched the library for stories of his life in France. I read every line
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I could find. I read the 'French Revolution' over and over again."
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Mr. Blue said Mr. Griffith asked him to give an opinion of "Orphans of
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the Storm."
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"I could not do it the first time I saw the picture," he said. "I was
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so overcome. I sat through it like some one in a trance. Please do not
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think it was because I had a part; it was because I think the picture is so
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wonderful. I had to go again and look at it all a second time.
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"On the opening night," said Mr. Blue, "I was so embarrassed I went to
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the box to tell Miss Lillian and Dorothy what I thought of their work, and
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they didn't give me a chance. Dorothy said:
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"'Come right here, Monte Blue. Oh, wait until I tell you what we think
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of your work.'
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"Then I started to tell her what I thought of her performance, and
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before I could tell either one of the girls a word they had said all the
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pretty things to me.
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"But that's like the Gishes," he explained. They are so real and
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sincere. It never occurred to either of them to think of their own
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remarkable work.
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"Miss Lillian is the greatest actress in the world," said Monte. "She
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is an artist. She never thinks about getting in front of the camera or
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trying to manage the scene. She is always determined to get the most out of
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every part of her work."
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Mr. Blue also paid a fine tribute to Mae Murray, and spoke of how much
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he enjoyed playing in "Peacock Alley" with her.
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We sat and talked until nearly seven. Time for both of us to be dressed
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for dinner and the ball. And as we walked away, I heard a woman say:
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"Yes, that is Monte Blue. I saw his Danton in New York. Isn't he
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wonderful?"
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I wondered if Monte had heard her. If so he never showed it in his
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expression.
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Later at the ball, when he was besieged by all the young girls in Albany
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for his autograph, and they classified him as "sweet," I thought of the woman
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who had called him wonderful. But then they had not yet seen his Danton.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Douglas Fairbanks
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November 24, 1918
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Louella Parsons
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NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
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When you whisper the name of Douglas Fairbanks, you follow it with the
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though of what more can be written and said about this star, who has been so
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much written about and so widely quoted. But when the folk who read your
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department and incidentally help fill that weekly pay envelope request an
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interview, it's up to you to find something to write about, if it's only what
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he eats for breakfast, and the name of his favorite breakfast food.
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Mr. Fairbanks was in New York helping with the United War Drive, and
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incidentally raising a small sum like $26,000,000 for the boys over there,
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when I was asked to write a story about him. He was staying at the Biltmore
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and spending every spare hour coaxing dollars away from the unsuspecting to
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help our sailors and soldiers get the tobacco and goodies they so much need
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and want.
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Our appointment was for 11 o'clock in the morning. I made it by 11:30
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and found Mr. Douglas pacing the floor, coat and hat on and patiently waiting
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to get away.
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"Will you go shopping with me?" he asked, before I had both feet well
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over the threshold.
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"Where?" I asked, wanting to be quite sure this was no trick to get the
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$1 I had left that had not been pledged to the Liberty Loan or the War Drive.
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"Oh, I need a few neckties and some trifles like that before I go back
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to the Coast. Have to look New Yorky, you know, after having been here so
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long."
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So we went to a Fifth avenue shop and spent thirty whole minutes
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selecting neckwear for the smile star of the world.
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I said we, even editorial we is barred in this case, for it was I who
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selected every last tie, and there were about three dozen in all.
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"Do you like this one?" Mr. Fairbanks would ask.
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If I said yes, into the waiting basket would go the tie, whether it was
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green, blue, gray, or red.
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It was a great temptation to pick up a terrible creation of orange, red
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and purple and express my admiration just to see if Mr. Fairbanks would buy
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it, but such trust as he had in my judgment of masculine neckwear was
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entirely too complete to be upset by such a mean trick.
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After the tie orgy, we joined Ted Reed and Bennie Zeidman and walked
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down Fifth avenue. I felt very much like the circus rider in the grand
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parade. Not because any one looked at me, because they ddidn't as much as
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give me a fleeting glance, but about five hundred pairs of eyes in our march
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down the avenue were all focused at Douglas.
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"It's Douglas Fairbanks," said more than one well dressed woman to her
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companion.
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Even the occupants of the limousines stopping before the Fifth avenue
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shops stared at the upright figure in the tan coat stalking down the avenue.
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This reception was what might be called a well bred greeting. There were
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only stares of interest, with no audible comment.
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Then we walked over toward Eighth avenue to a garage to have a look a
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look at the French car Mr. Fairbanks had just purchased. We managed to get
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in front of a public school during its noon recess and here, at least, were
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no more well bred stares.
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"It's Douglas, it's Douglas!" shouted fifty small boys.
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"Come on, Doug, climb a telegraph pole, jump out a window, or do
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something, can't you Doug. Oh, come on."
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The refuge of the garage was insufficient; these sturdy youngsters
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refused to be barred out of the building which held their hero. Over the
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windows, through the doors they poured, until no army ever more completely
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surrounded a desired fortification.
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The garage man tried to shoo them out like so many troublesome flies,
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but they refused to be shooed. They climbed over cars, balanced on rafters
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and got under every one's feet, until Mr. Fairbanks and his party walked out,
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despairing of ever making arrangements for the shipping of the car with this
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mob of wild Indians blocking the traffic.
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If Mr. Fairbanks thought to get rid of his hero worshippers so easily he
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had another thought coming. He walked over to Broadway and they followed.
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Forgotten was lunch, forgotten was school or any other trivial thing
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like time. They flocked down Broadway calling to Mr. Fairbanks and watching
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him until the passerby wondered what new sensation had struck New York.
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In the intervals of a few peaceful moments we talked pictures.
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Mr. Fairbanks exploded a bomb shell by announcing that he did not believe
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the heretofore considered absolutely essential director of pictures was the
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really important factor in picture making.
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"The director," said Mr. Fairbanks, "is much overestimated. It is the
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actor and the scenario writer who should get credit for the success of a
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production. A director is entirely too unreliable and uncertain. To his
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seven successes he is apt to have three "'flivvers.' I am confident as we
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progress in the art of picture making the public is going to be brought to a
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realization of the importance of the photoplaywright as compared to the
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relative non importance of the director."
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To this radical statement I had no answer. It sounded as if it was
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being uttered by a man who had lived and suffered with the mistakes of
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directors. But of course we looking in from the outside really know little
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of what is actually taking place on the inside of the studios.
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Mr. Fairbanks also quoted Charlie Chaplin as having the right idea of
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picture making.
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"Charlie," said Mr. Fairbanks, "only makes a few pictures, but he keeps
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people waiting so long they await his next comic with eagerness and flock to
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the theatres. Of course there is not so much money made for the stars who
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have our own companies in this conservation of pictures, but I am not so sure
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that Chaplin isn't wise in the long run. It will do much to keep his
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popularity at its present high tide."
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We also discussed the high salaries of the stars, Mr. Fairbanks giving
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as his opinion that a $10,000 a week pay check did not really amount to any
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more than $2,000. "All of us, Chaplin, Miss Pickford, myself and any other
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independent star having his own company have so many expenses the amount of
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our salaries does not really amount to the figures quoted," Mr. Fairbanks
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explained.
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We chatted on until we reached Forty-fourth and Broadway where I had a
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luncheon engagement. The small boys had by this time returned to their
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school, and Mr. Fairbanks, having been sufficiently bored to the point of
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tears by the stares and comments of the busy Broadway crowd, said au revoir
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and went back to the Biltmore.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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George Fawcett
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November 13, 1921
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Louella Parsons
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NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
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Even in the days of early five-reel pictures--when Bosworth was
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releasing through Famous Players--George Fawcett succeeded in getting himself
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mentioned as one of the few artists on the screen. Coming from the stage
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with a long career of character parts varied and numerous, he brought with
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him a certain wealth of knowledge and experience that he has used effectively
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in our motion pictures for the last seven or eight years. George Fawcett was
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the first man who wrested honors away from a star without any consciousness
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on his part of having played a role too well. The star, a young woman with a
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sense of humor, said:
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"I cannot have Mr. Fawcett in my next picture, he is too good an actor.
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All the fans write and ask about him, and all the critics speak of him as
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having made the picture. I shall have to get some one who is less finished
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in his work."
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The director brought this information to Mr. Fawcett, who thought there
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must be a joker somewhere. No man had ever been accused of playing a part
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too well. Many had been recalled for inefficiency, but no one for
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overefficiency.
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The story came to the Chicago papers over five years ago and it was
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printed, much to the annoyance of Mr. Fawcett, who was as ashamed of having
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played too well as most men would have been of getting scored for not playing
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well enough. He was considered one of the few actors entitled to be called
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an artist by the little band of Chicago critics who in those days were trying
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to write constructive criticism of motion picture plays. A little later he
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came to Chicago with D. W. Griffith, with whom he was associated. The
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newspaper clan rushed to see him and he shared honors in the published
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|
|
stories with the producer, who was then coming into his own as the world's
|
||
|
|
greatest exponent of the new art. Mr. Griffith had no fear that the veteran
|
||
|
|
actor would take away the honors from the leading men and women. He gave Mr.
|
||
|
|
Fawcett leeway to do his best with the roles he gave him, and once again the
|
||
|
|
world was talking of the man who made the characters he created live on the
|
||
|
|
screen.
|
||
|
|
Then George Fawcett left the Griffith studios, where he had been helping
|
||
|
|
as an assistant director as well as acting, and set out to direct on his own.
|
||
|
|
He made several pictures for Vitagraph, but the lure of the stage and the
|
||
|
|
screen is equally potent, and the first thing, Mr. Fawcett was back with an
|
||
|
|
engagement in a Broadway production. But it was not the stage play that
|
||
|
|
brought him into notice this last time. "The Wren," like many of is
|
||
|
|
contemporaries on the stage, just breathed and died. It was a picture,
|
||
|
|
"Peter Ibbetson," that made every one who saw it say with bated breath, "Here
|
||
|
|
is a performance that is almost flawless." People went to the picture--and
|
||
|
|
came away to marvel that a part too small to be one of the principal roles
|
||
|
|
and too big to be called a bit could take such a hold on every one who saw
|
||
|
|
it.
|
||
|
|
I had luncheon with Mr. Fawcett shortly after I had seen his work as the
|
||
|
|
Major in "Peter Ibbetson," and I asked him to tell me something of the art of
|
||
|
|
conveying thought to the camera.
|
||
|
|
"The reason some people do not register what they are trying to
|
||
|
|
express," said Mr. Fawcett, "is because they are too much engaged in studying
|
||
|
|
their technique. This devotion to the mechanical side of acting takes their
|
||
|
|
minds off the character they are trying to build, and it shows in the
|
||
|
|
picture. The camera is canny. It gets every thought behind an act. If an
|
||
|
|
actor is thinking of his luncheon and trying to play a dramatic scene, the
|
||
|
|
effect is poor; it shows he is not giving the scene the thought it requires.
|
||
|
|
Forget the camera, forget the studio, forget everything but the scene you are
|
||
|
|
playing.
|
||
|
|
"I have played every sort of man from an old sea captain to a nobleman,
|
||
|
|
and I have had to get myself in the character before I dared work. You
|
||
|
|
cannot cheat the camera. It is all-seeing."
|
||
|
|
Most seasoned players who have traveled all over the world and played
|
||
|
|
the wide range of parts Mr. Fawcett has been called upon to play have a
|
||
|
|
sneaking feeling in the back of their minds they would like to leave pictures
|
||
|
|
some day and return to their first love. Many of these old-time actors look
|
||
|
|
upon the screen as a necessary evil--a way to make money--and do not hesitate
|
||
|
|
to say so. Not George Fawcett.
|
||
|
|
"I love motion pictures," said Mr. Fawcett. "At the time they came into
|
||
|
|
being the stage was growing archaic. We had sent out inferior companies and
|
||
|
|
poor actors to the smaller towns until the people were beginning to feel fed
|
||
|
|
up with the stage. Then came pictures, and the small-town people could see
|
||
|
|
the plays with the best actors in the world. They had a chance to see the
|
||
|
|
same picture the city folk saw, and it came as a welcome respite after the
|
||
|
|
years of having poor plays in the village opera house.
|
||
|
|
"Then, too, the stage is so uncertain. One year I played in fourteen
|
||
|
|
plays that were failures, and out of that I only had a very few weeks' work.
|
||
|
|
We are not paid while we are rehearsing, and we are always dependent upon the
|
||
|
|
whim of the public. Some little thing in the play may not please and the
|
||
|
|
whole production is condemned. There are certain things that a producer
|
||
|
|
learns to avoid, but he can never be sure he has eliminated everything that
|
||
|
|
he should leave out or change.
|
||
|
|
"There is a curious psychology about plays. One little thing will
|
||
|
|
change the whole trend of the public, or one line spoken in a different
|
||
|
|
intonation may save a play. I have seen plays condemned to be taken off at
|
||
|
|
the end of two weeks revive and come back for a long run. You can never tell
|
||
|
|
a thing about it.
|
||
|
|
"This profession is the most difficult in the world," went on Mr.
|
||
|
|
Fawcett. "The actor never knows whether it is a feast or a famine. But he
|
||
|
|
is always cheerful. You never hear an actor complain. He is always
|
||
|
|
optimistic and hopeful and always ready to tell of what he expects will come
|
||
|
|
his way. He has chosen his life and he is loyal to it, even in its
|
||
|
|
vicissitudes, and in its unfortunate moments."
|
||
|
|
Since the "Peter Ibbetson" role, Mr. Fawcett has had innumerable offers
|
||
|
|
to do something like it for other companies. He said he did not think he had
|
||
|
|
created anything out of the ordinary until the papers started to comment on
|
||
|
|
it and his friends spoke to him about it. When he was called upon to play
|
||
|
|
the old major who entertained the children with fairy tales, he studied the
|
||
|
|
play, "Peter Ibbetson," and learned the character of the eccentric old
|
||
|
|
soldier. The few hundred feet devoted to his later appearances as the
|
||
|
|
decrepit old man who has lost his reason and his ability to remember is one
|
||
|
|
of the finest things ever presented on stage or screen. It stands out in
|
||
|
|
cameo clearness, and any one who has seen this highly artistic picture made
|
||
|
|
by George Fitzmaurice will never forget the "major."
|
||
|
|
We stoke of the tendency of the screen to repeat its successes. One
|
||
|
|
successful mother play brought an avalanche of others with the same theme.
|
||
|
|
"It is only natural," said Mr. Fawcett. "Every one responds to the fine
|
||
|
|
sentiment of motherhood. Father and daughter, mother and son, has the same
|
||
|
|
appeal. The real things of life are the subject that hold interest. They
|
||
|
|
are the foundations of big plays and will be until the end of time."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Fawcett related an amusing story of the first problem play brought
|
||
|
|
to this country. He said it was very mild compared with some of the sex
|
||
|
|
tales now unfolded on the stage, but in those days it seemed the acme of
|
||
|
|
wickedness. Some of the producers who went to see it thought the man who was
|
||
|
|
bold enough to produce such a thing was crazy. But it was a success. Now it
|
||
|
|
would be considered Mellin's [baby] Food.
|
||
|
|
George Fawcett's popularity as an actor is exceeded only by his
|
||
|
|
popularity as a man. Everywhere he goes he is surrounded by friends who want
|
||
|
|
to shake his hand and greet him. He says when he was on the stage he was
|
||
|
|
like a bear, because he had to argue with producers on the way to play
|
||
|
|
certain parts, "but now," said Mr. Fawcett, "I am as gentle as a lamb,
|
||
|
|
because I never have any trouble with my directors; they let me do as I
|
||
|
|
please."
|
||
|
|
And rightly. Any director who would attempt to improve on George
|
||
|
|
Fawcett's technique needs an alienist to examine his mental status. And I
|
||
|
|
say technique advisedly, for if any one person can be said to have acquired a
|
||
|
|
technique that is beyond question, I think that man is George Fawcett. Wise
|
||
|
|
enough not to attempt to play youthful parts, and sensible enough to know the
|
||
|
|
love interest can be sustained only by a juvenile part, he has learned in
|
||
|
|
some miraculous way to make the characters he gives the world human beings.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Robert Harron
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
February 8, 1920
|
||
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
||
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
||
|
|
At the juvenile age of 26 Robert Harron is a pioneer. Conjure up, if
|
||
|
|
you can, a mental image of what a pioneer means to you. An early explorer
|
||
|
|
who drove his team of horses across the country while it was in a state of
|
||
|
|
abject wilderness. A feeble, white-haired man, who braved the perils of a
|
||
|
|
land where cultivation had never bloomed. A man whose hardy youth is on the
|
||
|
|
wane, but whose deeds of valor in blazing a trail still lives. This romantic
|
||
|
|
definition then of the word does not apply to a young man of 26.
|
||
|
|
And yet, Robert Harron is a pioneer. He has been a screen actor for
|
||
|
|
exactly twelve years. In the steel, railroad or mercantile business this
|
||
|
|
length of servitude would scarcely entitle a man to be thus classified, but
|
||
|
|
in the young motion picture industry twelve years equals a half century.
|
||
|
|
If Bobby Harron had not been a very good boy at school he might never
|
||
|
|
have been an actor. What a monumental argument in favor of the 100 in
|
||
|
|
deportment lads. Not that Bobby was ever that kind of a boy from choice. He
|
||
|
|
must have been as full of tricks as Peck's Bad Boy or the more modern Penrod.
|
||
|
|
His brown eyes, which have a way of dancing even now, attest to this fact.
|
||
|
|
But, like the universal goodness of childhood at Christmas time, when there
|
||
|
|
was something worth while at stake Bobby could be angelic both in looks and
|
||
|
|
disposition.
|
||
|
|
It was in one of these same evangelic moods that he was selected to be
|
||
|
|
sent to the Biograph studios. He went to the Christian Brothers school in
|
||
|
|
Greenwich Village, and the boys were frequently recruited from the ranks to
|
||
|
|
serve as "extras" in the then new motion pictures. Bobby, being the sort of
|
||
|
|
lad who is willing to try anything once, worked so hard to be sent to the
|
||
|
|
studios he was finally elected. He and James Smith were sent together.
|
||
|
|
That was twelve years ago, and in all that time neither of the boys have
|
||
|
|
ever worked under any other management. David Griffith was their first
|
||
|
|
director, and as far as a mutual understanding goes he is very likely to be
|
||
|
|
their last. Mr. Smith assembles and cuts the film, while his wife, Rosie,
|
||
|
|
who is a small town girl, gives the final word on what will pass and what is
|
||
|
|
taboo in hamlets where the mid-Victorian code still reigns.
|
||
|
|
Bobby Harron needs to be coaxed to even divulge this much about himself.
|
||
|
|
He is one actor whose ego does not precede every other through. I have
|
||
|
|
wanted to interview him ever since he came on to New York, but he lives at
|
||
|
|
Gedney Farms when he is not working at the studio in Mamaroneck, and when he
|
||
|
|
is in New York it is to rehearse. Mr. Griffith rehearses his players at the
|
||
|
|
Claridge before he films the picture at the studios.
|
||
|
|
Gedney Farms and Mamaroneck sound like the ends of the earth. Like the
|
||
|
|
place La Salle set out to discover when his wanderlust brought him from the
|
||
|
|
court of France in search of a new country. Perhaps--one of my readers urged
|
||
|
|
in her every week letter asking that Mr. Harron be interviewed--he will come
|
||
|
|
to New York. Having a single track mind it never occurred to me Mr. Harron
|
||
|
|
might purposely make a trip to this city at my request. But that is exactly
|
||
|
|
what he did, and in such a nice way before he left he made me believe I was
|
||
|
|
the one who had gone out of my way to see him.
|
||
|
|
We met at the Algonquin. No, I won't tell you what we had to eat. I am
|
||
|
|
dieting, and he, wishing not to make me envious, ordered exactly what I did--
|
||
|
|
"Twelve years ago I was 14," answered Bobby. "Jim and I were earning $5
|
||
|
|
a week. At that time $5 was considered a big salary for a boy. We were
|
||
|
|
proud of ourselves until we started playing regular parts and then we used to
|
||
|
|
hold indignation meetings and say if the company didn't realize our value we
|
||
|
|
would leave. A threat which never worried any one and which we never carried
|
||
|
|
out."
|
||
|
|
"Do you remember your first picture?"
|
||
|
|
"Do I? As well as if it were yesterday. 'Bobby's Kodak' was the title.
|
||
|
|
I was the enfant terrible, and I snapped my father kissing the maid, mother
|
||
|
|
flirting with the butler, the nurse maid having an affair with the cop.
|
||
|
|
Later I showed all the pictures and the pandemonium that followed has some of
|
||
|
|
our best slap-stick comedies looking lifeless. There was a chase--Edward
|
||
|
|
Dillon played father, and it was from his irate grasp I had to escape."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Harron was in the original group in which Mary Pickford, Lillian
|
||
|
|
Gish, Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, Mabel Normand, Blanche Sweet, Owen Moore,
|
||
|
|
Florence Lawrence, Arthur Johnson and other famous members of the film
|
||
|
|
industry started their career in pictures. Of that group only he and the two
|
||
|
|
Gish sisters have remained under one direction.
|
||
|
|
"I have never worked for any one else, excepting one time when Mr.
|
||
|
|
Griffith loaned me to the Goldwyn Company to play in a Mae Marsh picture.
|
||
|
|
My ideas on pictures and picture making have all been gleaned from my
|
||
|
|
association with Mr. Griffith. In that length of time you grow to know a
|
||
|
|
man, his faults and his virtues, and the fact that I have never wanted to
|
||
|
|
work for any one else sums up my honest opinion of David Griffith as a man
|
||
|
|
and as a director better than any mere words could possibly do."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Harron has a great admiration for Charles Ray.
|
||
|
|
I waited to hear some if and buts wedged in between the almost
|
||
|
|
extravagant words of praise he has for his colleague, but there were
|
||
|
|
strangely missing. His whole-hearted sound liking for young Ray is free from
|
||
|
|
any underlying meaning. He did not qualify his original opinion. He
|
||
|
|
considers Charles Ray the greatest screen star of his kind.
|
||
|
|
"I cannot think of another actor who can play the roles Ray does with
|
||
|
|
the same fine shade and feeling. His rise has been gradual, and I believe he
|
||
|
|
stands as an example of what gradual development means to the picture star.
|
||
|
|
There is so much to learn, the star who becomes great overnight is seldom
|
||
|
|
lasting in his popularity."
|
||
|
|
Robert Harron has never been on the stage. And he has no qualms nor
|
||
|
|
longing to learn what he has missed.
|
||
|
|
He shook his head doubtfully over the stage idea.
|
||
|
|
"No, I have never wanted to go on the stage," he said. "I know nothing
|
||
|
|
of its requirements, and I should be a fizzle if I tried to say my lines over
|
||
|
|
the footlights. You see, I have no illusions on the subject. I know myself
|
||
|
|
and my own limitations. I also know an artist when I see one."
|
||
|
|
"Who do you consider an artist?"
|
||
|
|
"Ethel Barrymore," he answered without hesitating for the shadow of a
|
||
|
|
second. "I went to see 'Declasse' the other night, and I met her after the
|
||
|
|
performance. If I were a girl, I would probably say it was the most
|
||
|
|
wonderful moment in my life when I stepped into her dressing room. It was
|
||
|
|
just that. I knew Lionel at the Biograph. He was one of the original
|
||
|
|
Biographers. In those days he weighed over two hundred pounds. I thought he
|
||
|
|
was the fattest man I had ever seen.
|
||
|
|
"'If you think I am fat now,' he said, 'you should have seen me six
|
||
|
|
months before. I weighed fifty pounds more.'"
|
||
|
|
Lionel Barrymore is slender now, so he cannot possibly resent Mr.
|
||
|
|
Harron's allusion to his fat days. In fact, I should think he would find
|
||
|
|
enjoyment in comparing his now and then self.
|
||
|
|
"'The Jest' is another play I am glad to have seen," Mr. Harron said.
|
||
|
|
"I suppose John Barrymore is considered the best actor on the American stage
|
||
|
|
today, but it is interesting to know Ethel Barrymore considers he has a
|
||
|
|
rival. She said:
|
||
|
|
"'Oh, yes, John is a splendid actor--but Lionel--well Lionel is the
|
||
|
|
actor in the Barrymore family.'"
|
||
|
|
Robert Harron does not believe the world has failed to properly judge
|
||
|
|
him. He is not dissatisfied, nor has he any envy in his heart. It is
|
||
|
|
refreshing, indeed, to hear any single person in this world who is satisfied.
|
||
|
|
In these days of Bolshevism it is so unexpected. There are no regrets in
|
||
|
|
young Mr. Harron's mind for what might have been. He believes he has chosen
|
||
|
|
his career sanely, and doesn't hesitate to say so.
|
||
|
|
Now that there is the slightest angle of egotism in this attitude,
|
||
|
|
I took it as rather an indirect compliment to David Griffith. To work under
|
||
|
|
any other direction is as far away from his thoughts as the moon. To him
|
||
|
|
there is but one director in the world, and he is the great Griffith.
|
||
|
|
Sometimes it sounds sentimental and saccharine to speak of how much a
|
||
|
|
director likes a star or a star likes a director. Often it is so apparently
|
||
|
|
a pose one is bored. In the case of Robert Harron, his liking for Griffith
|
||
|
|
as a man, as a director and as a comrade is unmistakable. He believes his
|
||
|
|
influence not alone in pictures, but in his general outlook on life has been
|
||
|
|
the greatest thing in his life.
|
||
|
|
Bobby Harron is a lot of fun. He has a great sense of humor and sees
|
||
|
|
the funny side of everything. He has a fund of stories and a good-natured
|
||
|
|
talentage for other people's foibles that has made him one of the most
|
||
|
|
popular men in pictures.
|
||
|
|
He will go a long way in pictures, will this young pioneer with the
|
||
|
|
laughing brown eyes and the boyish, happy disposition.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Sessue Hayakawa
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
July 3, 1921
|
||
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
||
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
||
|
|
"If you want to see Mr. Hayakawa," said a voice over the telephone, "be
|
||
|
|
at the Biltmore at 2 o'clock. A minute earlier or a minute later will not
|
||
|
|
do. He has engagements every hour of the day."
|
||
|
|
In ordinary cases I should have answered gently but firmly--the
|
||
|
|
interview is postponed indefinitely. But this time feminine curiosity and
|
||
|
|
interest triumphed and I permitted this very important individual to hand me
|
||
|
|
out orders without a word.
|
||
|
|
"Very well," I said, "I shall be at the Biltmore at 2 o'clock."
|
||
|
|
To accomplish this I had to swallow my luncheon and risk an attack of
|
||
|
|
indigestion in order to reach the hotel at the very moment the clock was
|
||
|
|
striking the hour.
|
||
|
|
I found--
|
||
|
|
Every one assembled.
|
||
|
|
But Sessue Hayakawa.
|
||
|
|
He was not there.
|
||
|
|
"I am so sorry," said his wife in a soft voice, and a smile that no one
|
||
|
|
could resist, not even an irate interviewer. "My husband has been detained."
|
||
|
|
"But I was told--"
|
||
|
|
"I know," she said, still smiling, "but he went to Washington to see the
|
||
|
|
President--and he was detained a little longer than he expected. He
|
||
|
|
telephoned me from the station to ask you to please wait.
|
||
|
|
"You will forgive him?"
|
||
|
|
Seeing it was President Harding who had interfered with my 2 o'clock
|
||
|
|
engagement and that I had been given such an adequate substitute in Tsuri
|
||
|
|
Aoki--Mrs. Hayakawa--I did not see how I could maintain a grouch.
|
||
|
|
Mrs. Hayakawa was entertaining a friend she had not seen for twelve
|
||
|
|
years.
|
||
|
|
"I knew Tsuri," said Mrs. Pulsifer, "when she was a little girl,
|
||
|
|
spending the Summer at Colorado Springs, and haven't seen her for twelve
|
||
|
|
years."
|
||
|
|
Mrs. Hayakawa then went on to tell me she had been in this country
|
||
|
|
twenty years and was really more American than Japanese.
|
||
|
|
"My uncle," she said, "was an artist and he was busy on a special
|
||
|
|
assignment the Summer we met Mrs. Pulsifer."
|
||
|
|
"And you have kept up your friendship all these years?"
|
||
|
|
"Yes, I always keep my friends after I make them," replied the little
|
||
|
|
Japanese with a quaint dignity.
|
||
|
|
Just then Mr. Hayakawa came into the room, followed by two of Robertson-
|
||
|
|
Cole's representatives who had accompanied him to Washington. After greeting
|
||
|
|
his wife and meeting Mrs. Pulsifer who had come in from her country home to
|
||
|
|
see if her little friend had found a husband worthy of her, Mr. Hayakawa was
|
||
|
|
presented.
|
||
|
|
"I have come East to find what the public likes," he said. His accent
|
||
|
|
is much more marked than his wife's. He speaks very slowly in the English
|
||
|
|
tongue with some difficulty, and I had to listen very attentively to get
|
||
|
|
every word.
|
||
|
|
"How can you answer that important question?" I asked him.
|
||
|
|
"I shall ask to see whether they want me in dress clothes or in Japanese
|
||
|
|
costume, or in the dress of a coolie, like I wore in 'The First Born'."
|
||
|
|
"Which do you like?" I asked him.
|
||
|
|
"I prefer the costume, but in some cities they object, so I must find
|
||
|
|
out what the people want before I start my Fall plans for Robertson Cole."
|
||
|
|
"What else are you doing here," I asked him.
|
||
|
|
"Going to the theatres," he answered. "I saw 'Lightnin'' and I think
|
||
|
|
the whole success of the play is in the courtroom scene.
|
||
|
|
"When Lightnin' asks Mrs. Lightnin' if she received her $6 and then says
|
||
|
|
he will go away forever, there is a strange mixture of comedy and tragedy.
|
||
|
|
Only an actor could have played on his audience's emotions the way Frank
|
||
|
|
Bacon has, bringing the tears and the laughter so close together--they meet."
|
||
|
|
Then Mr. Hayakawa explained the value of comedy and the value of drama
|
||
|
|
when they follow each other. He says he likes the American theatre because
|
||
|
|
all the science of the drama and its effect has been worked out so carefully.
|
||
|
|
"I like America anyway," he said. "In Japan we are much more formal.
|
||
|
|
If two friends are separated for a long time and they meet they bow and bow
|
||
|
|
and bow. They keep bowing without exchanging a word.
|
||
|
|
"Here they slap each other on the back and say:
|
||
|
|
"'Hello, old man, how goes everything.'
|
||
|
|
"I like that way better or the kiss. In Japan they do not kiss after a
|
||
|
|
long separation; they bow politely. The American custom is warmer."
|
||
|
|
I was interested in that because Mrs. Hayakawa had greeted her husband
|
||
|
|
on his return from Washington with a real American kiss and hug and I failed
|
||
|
|
to see her salaam her lord.
|
||
|
|
"That is one reason so many of the Japanese pictures are not good," said
|
||
|
|
Mr. Hayakawa, "they cannot spare all the footage necessary for that bow,
|
||
|
|
which is repeated over and over again."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Hayakawa was deep in a discussion of Japanese customs when we were
|
||
|
|
interrupted. You are behind in your schedule, he was told--you must end your
|
||
|
|
interview.
|
||
|
|
In my years' experience as an interviewer I have been urged to remain
|
||
|
|
many times, but I was never shown the door. My Hayakawa flushed at the
|
||
|
|
preemptory manner in which I had the exit pointed out for me. He seemed
|
||
|
|
embarrassed.
|
||
|
|
"It is all right," I assured him, "this always happens."
|
||
|
|
He looked at me with pity, as much as to say, "Your life must be very
|
||
|
|
sad." Sessue Hayakawa is a student and a man who has much to say if one has
|
||
|
|
time to hear him say it. There is a certain serious dignity about him that
|
||
|
|
is charming. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hayakawa impress one as people worth
|
||
|
|
cultivating.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Houdini
|
||
|
|
November 10, 1918
|
||
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
||
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
||
|
|
When Houdini became a legitimate subject for a motion picture story,
|
||
|
|
there seemed to me no reason why I should not pay him a visit and ask him to
|
||
|
|
tell me how he managed to wriggle his way out of a straitjacket while he was
|
||
|
|
suspended sixty feet in the air, where he concealed the yards and yards of
|
||
|
|
gay colored silk he apparently extracted from a water-filled bowl, how he
|
||
|
|
unlocked a bolted and barred box without key or chisel.
|
||
|
|
The Rolfe studio way out in Yonkers didn't help solve this problem for
|
||
|
|
me because it is too far from the haunts of man to permit a busy woman to
|
||
|
|
wander there while there is work to be done. But his name on the Hippodrome
|
||
|
|
program as one of the integral parts of "Everything" gave me an opportunity
|
||
|
|
to visit him at the theatre.
|
||
|
|
We saw his performance first from one of the loges and heard him speak
|
||
|
|
in a Liberty Loan voice, now the fashion among people who have done service
|
||
|
|
for Uncle Sam. Then he disappeared from view, and Mr. Conway of the
|
||
|
|
Hippodrome staff came and told me Houdini would see me in his dressing room.
|
||
|
|
"Find out how he does it," shouted all four voices. "Don't come back
|
||
|
|
until he tells you," instructed an enthusiastic female in our party. With
|
||
|
|
all these whispered words of advice simmering in my brain I followed Mr.
|
||
|
|
Conway down the devious and mysterious back-stage passageways of the
|
||
|
|
labyrinth-like Hippodrope. It was dark, and I had a sort of shaky feeling
|
||
|
|
akin to the sensation one gets when the lights go out and a spiritualistic
|
||
|
|
seance is put on with a ghostly voice sighing its way into the party.
|
||
|
|
A cheerful voice, a bright light and an interesting personality--all
|
||
|
|
belonging to Houdini--made me forget the spooky feeling of a few moments
|
||
|
|
earlier.
|
||
|
|
"Won't you come in?" invited Mr. Houdini. His pet eagle echoed the
|
||
|
|
invitation by flapping his wings, and so I entered the presence of the master
|
||
|
|
magician with the thought uppermost in my mind, "How do you do all this
|
||
|
|
magic?"
|
||
|
|
The thought is twin to the voice and in two minutes I had put into words
|
||
|
|
what had been singing in my mind.
|
||
|
|
"Won't you tell me how you untied yourself?" I asked.
|
||
|
|
"If I tell you," he said, "it will be no secret."
|
||
|
|
"But if I promise never to tell?"
|
||
|
|
"Ah, many have asked the same thing, but I have promised myself to carry
|
||
|
|
my secret to the grave," he said. "If you knew, you would not consider the
|
||
|
|
feat marvelous or even interesting."
|
||
|
|
Houdini, and his name has been legalized, comes from a small town called
|
||
|
|
Appleton, Wis. Appleton is famous also as the birthplace of Edna Ferber and
|
||
|
|
Dr. John Murphy, Chicago's great surgeon.
|
||
|
|
"When I was a small boy in Appleton," said Houdini, "my mother used to
|
||
|
|
bake apple pie. She would lock it in a pantry and it would disappear. I was
|
||
|
|
the guilty culprit. Apple pie is probably the only thing which would drive
|
||
|
|
me to such desperate deeds--and even today, for a piece of my mother's pie,
|
||
|
|
I would commit a theft."
|
||
|
|
"Doesn't she bake any more pies for you; and do you really think such
|
||
|
|
rich pastry is good for you?" I asked, wondering if he didn't have to diet
|
||
|
|
with so much depending upon his physical perfection.
|
||
|
|
He handed me a photograph of himself and two women. Pointing to the
|
||
|
|
elder of the two, he said: "My mother left us five years ago. This is my
|
||
|
|
wife, and we are unfashionable enough to still like each other after twenty-
|
||
|
|
four years of married life."
|
||
|
|
Then we came to the subject of pie as a diet. Houdini makes no
|
||
|
|
restrictions in eating when he likes. He is extremely proud of his stomach,
|
||
|
|
an endowment, he says, of an ancestral cleanliness. He is proud of his
|
||
|
|
family and spoke not only in tender, proud tones of the sweet-faced little
|
||
|
|
mother, but of his rabbi father, who brought him up in the strict Hebrew
|
||
|
|
church. Houdini is a Jew, and proud of it.
|
||
|
|
"Once I went to a talk with Billy Sunday," he said. "He talked about
|
||
|
|
the Bible to me and I went home and read it; the next day I was a better Jew
|
||
|
|
than I had ever been in my life--that is what Billy Sunday did for me."
|
||
|
|
We talked about every subject in the world but moving pictures. We
|
||
|
|
talked about reincarnation, transmigration of the soul, the Sir Oliver Lodge
|
||
|
|
theory, and in merely a superficial discussion, just scratching the surface
|
||
|
|
as it were, Houdini betrayed himself as being a rarely well-read and well-
|
||
|
|
educated man. He does not talk to get an audience, but after the manner of a
|
||
|
|
man who knows his subject.
|
||
|
|
Finally we came to motion pictures. Houdini is right now nursing a
|
||
|
|
broken wrist and a bumped head.
|
||
|
|
"I had to go into pictures to get these," he said, pointing ruefully to
|
||
|
|
his injured members. "You see, I don't have any doubles. I do all the
|
||
|
|
stunts myself. Some of the business Arthur Reeve left out of the scenario,
|
||
|
|
with instructions for me to get out of any predicament I was in as best I
|
||
|
|
could. Well, I followed his advice and got these."
|
||
|
|
But Houdini likes making pictures. He says it is a sinfully easy way to
|
||
|
|
make money. Attention here, all you hard-working stars, who sigh over the
|
||
|
|
vicissitudes of the picture-making game.
|
||
|
|
"Why, the director tells you what to do, and you do it. One thing,"
|
||
|
|
said the master magician, "there are no fakes in the serial we are making.
|
||
|
|
I have done everything called for, without calling in any help, and our
|
||
|
|
fights have been real fights."
|
||
|
|
The Rolfe serial, "The Master Mystery," is the subject of great
|
||
|
|
enthusiasm with Houdini. He likes it, and thinks the public will enjoy the
|
||
|
|
tale of adventure it unfolds.
|
||
|
|
"You know the only thing that worried me," he said, "when I was taking
|
||
|
|
the picture. I have never acted with women and I was afraid my wife would
|
||
|
|
not exactly like my making love to these girls, even if it was only for the
|
||
|
|
benefit of the camera."
|
||
|
|
"Did she mind," I asked, amused at this naive confession from a man who
|
||
|
|
had been learnedly discussing philosophy and religion but a few seconds ago.
|
||
|
|
"Not a bit," he said. "We both like the young ladies very much. They
|
||
|
|
are sweet girls. You see, I am not much of a ladies' man."
|
||
|
|
I should say Houdini is very modest. He has nice gray eyes, a
|
||
|
|
singularly attractive smile and a most engaging manner. The picture taken of
|
||
|
|
himself some years ago with his wife and mother shows a very handsome young
|
||
|
|
man. He is older now, with hair just beginning to grow thin at the temples.
|
||
|
|
Every few seconds we came back to his art. I call it art, for, black
|
||
|
|
magic though it may be, he has certainly raised it to the plane of artistic
|
||
|
|
endeavor. He stands unique and alone. There is only one Houdini. There
|
||
|
|
will probably never be another one, for he is determined to bury his secret
|
||
|
|
with him.
|
||
|
|
"I have not betrayed my secrets on the screen, though I have had some
|
||
|
|
difficulty in keeping them from the watchful eye of the camera," he said.
|
||
|
|
I had to return to my box at the Hippodrome without the secret, but
|
||
|
|
Houdini, much after the manner of pleasing a child who has been grievously
|
||
|
|
disappointed, showed me how he can disjoint his thumb, a trick I have never
|
||
|
|
before seen done.
|
||
|
|
Just as I was leaving Houdini's dressing room he confessed to me I was
|
||
|
|
entirely different from what he expected to see. "I had a mental picture in
|
||
|
|
my mind," he said, "and you are just the opposite."
|
||
|
|
He didn't tell me whether I had failed to measure up to his expectation,
|
||
|
|
but then, as I said--Houdini is a gentleman.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Harold Lloyd
|
||
|
|
November 16, 1919
|
||
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
||
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
||
|
|
Whenever the name Harold Lloyd is mentioned, everyone says in one
|
||
|
|
breath:
|
||
|
|
"Oh, yes, he is the young man with the glasses!"
|
||
|
|
And just as Theda Bara's name has become the synonym for vampire, and
|
||
|
|
curls have entwined themselves indelibly with every thought of Mary Pickford,
|
||
|
|
so have spectacles become a part of Harold Lloyd. They are his great stock
|
||
|
|
in trade. Not so much of a stock in the telling, but worth an evening full
|
||
|
|
of laughs in the seeing.
|
||
|
|
So when this youthful comedian walked into my office the other afternoon
|
||
|
|
sans his tortoise-shell specs, the first question was a natural one.
|
||
|
|
"Where are your glasses?"
|
||
|
|
"In the studio on the Coast," he answered. "You don't expect me to wear
|
||
|
|
my trade mark when I am vacationing?"
|
||
|
|
"Oh, then your specs are not donned for seeing purposes, just to help
|
||
|
|
you get a laugh?"
|
||
|
|
"Solely for the purpose of making me look owlish and wise. This
|
||
|
|
camouflage is the only invention I can think of which can be used
|
||
|
|
successfully in more than one picture."
|
||
|
|
This spectacled young man has, indeed, become singularly successful
|
||
|
|
within the last few years. He has jumped--and jumped is the word I am using
|
||
|
|
advisedly--into public favor with an amazing rapidity. Likewise, his worldly
|
||
|
|
goods took the same leap. From a comedian of several hundred dollars a week
|
||
|
|
he became a stock owner in his company with a drawing account in lieu of a
|
||
|
|
salary of enough dollars to warrant buying all the clothes he wants.
|
||
|
|
Our conversation was held in sections. He came to the office to pay his
|
||
|
|
respects and between whizzing telephone bells and other numerous
|
||
|
|
interruptions decided that conversation held under these circumstances was
|
||
|
|
too much like trying to talk in an engine room, so he suggested we postpone
|
||
|
|
our visit to luncheon the next day.
|
||
|
|
And so it was finally over the luncheon table at the Claridge that we
|
||
|
|
talked of Mr. Lloyd and his picture-making ventures.
|
||
|
|
In the beginning, Harold Lloyd is a very surprising young man. He looks
|
||
|
|
more like he might be a college student than an actor. In fact, he looks
|
||
|
|
more like anything else in the world than an actor. He says he is 25, but he
|
||
|
|
looks 19. And he doesn't think he has discovered the only receipt in the
|
||
|
|
world for making folks laugh. He believes there are other young men just as
|
||
|
|
capable of rising to the top, and that he cannot make good pictures alone.
|
||
|
|
He believes he must have a leading woman with beauty and brains, a first-
|
||
|
|
class director, a first-class camera man and an adequate supporting cast.
|
||
|
|
"It's bunk for any actor to think he is the whole show," said Mr. Lloyd.
|
||
|
|
"For every man or woman in the cast who gets attention the star is building
|
||
|
|
up just that much more for himself. It's the most foolhardy thing in the
|
||
|
|
world to stifle another player's act in a picture. In the end it's bound to
|
||
|
|
react on the star, for the public is fickle and if he tries to be the whole
|
||
|
|
show the world is going to sicken of him in a twelve-month."
|
||
|
|
And best of all, young Lloyd was not talking to the grandstand. He is
|
||
|
|
quite sincere, and actually is as square in his dealings with his company as
|
||
|
|
the above sounds. How do I know? Well, a little bird whispered to me.
|
||
|
|
New York to Harold Lloyd is a joy. He hasn't had a playtime in years
|
||
|
|
and this, despite the fact that he is in New York on a rather serious
|
||
|
|
mission, is one wonderful vacation.
|
||
|
|
"I made five shows in one day," he said.
|
||
|
|
"Five?" I gasped. "Weren't you ready for an ambulance?"
|
||
|
|
"I was ready to see five more. I love the theatre, the cabarets, and
|
||
|
|
all the dazzling lights along Broadway. I don't mean to live here or for a
|
||
|
|
steady diet, but just for a recreation."
|
||
|
|
"What did you see and what did you like best of all?"
|
||
|
|
"I liked 'Lightnin' as well as anything I saw. But dear old Frank
|
||
|
|
Bacon, I would like him anywhere in anything. When I was a youngster I
|
||
|
|
played in 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' with him. He was always improvising
|
||
|
|
and the only line in the play we could be sure he would repeat according to
|
||
|
|
the manuscript was 'Up the road to Margate.'
|
||
|
|
"I went back stage to see him the other night and the moment he laid
|
||
|
|
eyes on me, he said:
|
||
|
|
"'Hello there, up the road to Margate.'
|
||
|
|
"Everyone is glad Mr. Bacon, after his years of hard work, has his name
|
||
|
|
in electric lights. Of course, it meant waiting a long time, but such a
|
||
|
|
triumph is worth waiting to the very end to achieve."
|
||
|
|
We spoke of prohibition, and Mr. Lloyd said it had not hurt him very
|
||
|
|
much.
|
||
|
|
"Didn't you need to reform?"
|
||
|
|
"I never drank," he said. "All my friends drink, but I was afraid if I
|
||
|
|
started I wouldn't know where to stop, and so I decided never to give old
|
||
|
|
Johnny Barleycorn a chance to get the best of me. I intend to always keep
|
||
|
|
ahead of him, and the best way to do this is to stay out of his way."
|
||
|
|
In some young men a temperance lecture of this sort would sound prudish.
|
||
|
|
In Harold Lloyd it meant just one more thing in his favor. It made his
|
||
|
|
common sense stock go up 100 per cent.
|
||
|
|
Mr. Lloyd has one ideal in pictures. He takes Cecil de Mille's work for
|
||
|
|
a pattern, a regular cinematic textbook.
|
||
|
|
"I see Mr. De Mille's pictures again and again," he said. "It sounds
|
||
|
|
funny, but after I see a De Mille production I try to pattern my comedies
|
||
|
|
along the same lines. The same smooth story continuity and motive for every
|
||
|
|
action."
|
||
|
|
And when we discussed Cecil De Mille it was the most natural thing in
|
||
|
|
the world to speak of Bebe Daniels. She is the little dark-eyed, dark-haired
|
||
|
|
girl who has played with Mr. Lloyd for so many years. There wasn't a thought
|
||
|
|
of what he might be missing in losing his leading lady in the genuine ring of
|
||
|
|
pleasure in Mr. Lloyd's voice when he spoke of how well Bebe Daniels is doing
|
||
|
|
and what it means for her to have Cecil De Mille for a director. "She has
|
||
|
|
one of the big parts in 'Why Change Your Wife?'" he said; "and I am told she
|
||
|
|
has done some exceptionally fine work."
|
||
|
|
The new Lloyd leading woman is a petite blonde, Mildred Davis, chosen,
|
||
|
|
the creator of these comedies says, because of her fresh good looks and
|
||
|
|
talent. He expects to keep her in all of his pictures, refusing to believe a
|
||
|
|
constant companion in his films can deprive him of any of his merited
|
||
|
|
attention.
|
||
|
|
I have heard so many stars speak of the bad judgment in having the same
|
||
|
|
lead, it was refreshing to have young Lloyd speak up and say he expected the
|
||
|
|
public to want to see Miss Davis just as much as they want to see him.
|
||
|
|
His success on the screen young Lloyd attributes to fate. Fate may have
|
||
|
|
had a hand though I am rather inclined to the belief it is his own good
|
||
|
|
common sense which has played a large part in getting his name in the
|
||
|
|
electric signs in front of the Strand and Rialto. And speaking of these
|
||
|
|
signs, Mr. Lloyd admits he had the thrill of his life when he saw the name
|
||
|
|
Harold Lloyd twinkling merrily at him on Broadway.
|
||
|
|
"It is the most wonderful thing that every happened to me in New York or
|
||
|
|
anywhere else," he confessed.
|
||
|
|
Remarks like the above and the refreshing freedom from boredom and blase
|
||
|
|
mannerisms makes the youthful Mr. Lloyd a very pleasant young man indeed. We
|
||
|
|
talked for some time and then he taxied with me over to the Commodore to see
|
||
|
|
Mrs. Clare West, where there was some more conversation about Bebe Daniels.
|
||
|
|
But I am saving Mrs. West's interview.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Tom Mix
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
June 21, 1921
|
||
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
||
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
||
|
|
"If you want a good story," said Winfield Sheehan, "go over to the
|
||
|
|
Biltmore and talk with Tom Mix."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Sheehan gave me this sage advice following a call on him during
|
||
|
|
which he did not give me the material I was seeking. Believing he was
|
||
|
|
softening the blow of his refusal to discuss certain matters with this
|
||
|
|
suggestion, I thanked him politely and decided to think over the Mix matter.
|
||
|
|
Next day another friend and some one not connected with the Fox Company said:
|
||
|
|
"I hope you will not miss seeing Tom Mix. He is one of the best scouts
|
||
|
|
I know."
|
||
|
|
Said I to myself, there must be something in this Mix man. Besides
|
||
|
|
having written his name since he did one-reel Western companies for the Selig
|
||
|
|
Company, I confess to a feminine curiosity in seeing him as he looks off the
|
||
|
|
screen. Accordingly, I made an engagement to meet the hero of all those
|
||
|
|
cowboy romances in the Biltmore hotel.
|
||
|
|
Tom Mix belongs as much in the elaborate suite at the Biltmore as the
|
||
|
|
famous bird in the gilded cage. What he needs is the broad sweep of the
|
||
|
|
plains with a mountain or two in the background. All this fancy furniture
|
||
|
|
and brocade effect is not Mix atmosphere. But for all that we managed to get
|
||
|
|
along fairly well.
|
||
|
|
"New York," he said, trying to find a comfortable position for his 5
|
||
|
|
feet 11 and great, broad shoulders, "is a fine city. I was here once about
|
||
|
|
sixteen years ago during the exhibition of riding at Madison Square Garden.
|
||
|
|
Will Rogers and I each had our glimpse of the big town at that time. But I
|
||
|
|
couldn't live here--no, siree. New York has me licked. Why, if I came here
|
||
|
|
I would be a truck driver or a street car conductor; that is absolutely the
|
||
|
|
best I could do. I believe every man should live where he belongs. The same
|
||
|
|
holds true of a city man who goes to the great stretches of uncultivated land
|
||
|
|
in Alaska and other places. They are whipped before they begin. I have
|
||
|
|
known men to go West during the gold strike and never move out of a saloon.
|
||
|
|
They are afraid."
|
||
|
|
Strange psychology and reasoning coming from a man who has spent his
|
||
|
|
life on ranches. I said as much.
|
||
|
|
"I never went to school," Mr. Mix went on. "I cannot remember anything
|
||
|
|
but the primer. As soon as I was old enough to think at all I took stock of
|
||
|
|
myself. I realized my physique was my best asset, and I set out to train.
|
||
|
|
I believe in outdoor exercise and right living. Why, that is the only way to
|
||
|
|
live. I went on a ranch and learned the cow-punching business. I like to
|
||
|
|
ride, and I discovered what I believed to be my forte. Then I won a prize
|
||
|
|
for riding and roping and Colonel Selig sent for me to make a motion picture.
|
||
|
|
At first it seemed a great joke. Me an actor. But I only had to do before
|
||
|
|
the camera what I did in real life, so I stayed right along with the Selig
|
||
|
|
Company until Mr. Fox made me an offer to make features, and I guess I am
|
||
|
|
fixed for some time to come."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Mix likes motion pictures. He enjoys making a comfortable salary.
|
||
|
|
Not because his wants are many, but he enjoys doing things for his family and
|
||
|
|
friends. There is a mother and father in Oklahoma, a mother-in-law and a
|
||
|
|
wife. His mother-in-law, he says, is a living proof that all the jokes on
|
||
|
|
friend wife's mother are piffle. She is with Mr. and Mrs. Mix at the
|
||
|
|
Biltmore.
|
||
|
|
"I'd like to have you know my mother-in-law," said Mr. Mix. "You would
|
||
|
|
like her. She is a fine woman and lots of fun."
|
||
|
|
What better tribute could any man pay a woman?
|
||
|
|
As for his wife, well, Mr. Mix thinks she makes the earth rotate on its
|
||
|
|
axis.
|
||
|
|
"My wife isn't like me," he said. "She is refined and educated. I let
|
||
|
|
her do anything she wants with the house, and she knows what looks right.
|
||
|
|
If I didn't have her I would probably bring my horse into the parlor."
|
||
|
|
Which suggestion led up to the famous Tony.
|
||
|
|
"Now, honest and truly," I asked, "tell me the truth, is your horse
|
||
|
|
really coming to New York?"
|
||
|
|
"Why, of course," he answered.
|
||
|
|
"Because you couldn't bear to be parted from him?"
|
||
|
|
He laughed at that. "I will tell you the real reason," he said.
|
||
|
|
"I have to do a roping act at the Academy of Music. I cannot do fancy
|
||
|
|
roping like Will Rogers. I have to have something to rope. Tony is trained
|
||
|
|
and I couldn't do my act without him."
|
||
|
|
"Training animals must be another of your accomplishments?
|
||
|
|
"Oh, I don't know about that," he said. "I love to train them. I have
|
||
|
|
dogs, horses and mules at Mixville, where I make my pictures and where I have
|
||
|
|
a ranch. Perhaps you saw that little donkey in Mary Pickford's picture--that
|
||
|
|
is my little mule. I am training him for one of my pictures."
|
||
|
|
"You must be accomplished. Aren't mules the most stupid animals in
|
||
|
|
captivity?" I asked him.
|
||
|
|
"Now, that's all wrong," he said. "They are much more intelligent than
|
||
|
|
horses."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Mix is very fond of music. He carries his phonograph with him.
|
||
|
|
"It's sort of lonesome on the train," he said, "and I had this one made to
|
||
|
|
carry with me." He showed me the traveling case into which the music box and
|
||
|
|
records fit. In another corner is his silver-mounted saddle, with a pearl-
|
||
|
|
handled revolver. I have a sneaking feeling Mr. Mix never rides with all
|
||
|
|
that gorgeous trapping, but it was added to his property list by the Fox
|
||
|
|
Company as good exploitation. He doesn't look like the sort of man who would
|
||
|
|
care anything about a fancy saddle, despite his new Palm Beach suit and fancy
|
||
|
|
red necktie.
|
||
|
|
One reason that brings our cowboy hero to New York at this time is the
|
||
|
|
Dempsey-Carpentier fight. Jack Dempsey and Tom Mix are old neighbors and
|
||
|
|
friends. They have had their pictures taken together, and have had many a
|
||
|
|
boxing match.
|
||
|
|
"Will Dempsey win?"
|
||
|
|
"I am betting on him. Say, you ought to see him fight. He has a punch
|
||
|
|
that is strong enough to knock out ten ordinary men.
|
||
|
|
"Are you going to the fight?" I told him prizefighting was a little out
|
||
|
|
of my line, but I would like to see some of those Dempsey punches.
|
||
|
|
"Mrs. Mix is going," he said. "Her first fight. But I want her to see
|
||
|
|
it." Then he said:
|
||
|
|
"Do you know, I have talked more today than I ever talked in my life."
|
||
|
|
I assured him I appreciated his effort to help me get an interview, and
|
||
|
|
said I hoped to see him again. Usually one says that as a polite means of
|
||
|
|
saying au revoir. In this case it was sincere, I do hope to see him again.
|
||
|
|
Tom Mix is, as Winfield Sheehan said, worth a story. There is such evident
|
||
|
|
sincerity about him and a beautiful absence of the veneer we sometimes get
|
||
|
|
with stage and screen people. He is like Washington Irving's description of
|
||
|
|
the American Indian--real honest and free from all pretense.
|
||
|
|
As I was leaving he came to the door with me.
|
||
|
|
"Won't you come again?" he said. "I want Mrs. Mix to meet you."
|
||
|
|
I assured him I would be delighted.
|
||
|
|
"I'll tell you what," he said. "I will telephone you and you come and
|
||
|
|
have luncheon with her. You women will have a lot to say to each other."
|
||
|
|
I hope with the Dempsey fight on, an engagement to meet President Harding
|
||
|
|
next week and all this reception stuff at the City Hall, he will not forget
|
||
|
|
to telephone.
|
||
|
|
And it may interest William Fox to know Tom Mix has no intention of
|
||
|
|
leaving the Fox organization.
|
||
|
|
"Why should I?" he said. "They have spent money making me what I am,
|
||
|
|
and I wouldn't treat any one that way, much less a man that has been the
|
||
|
|
means of helping me make a success."
|
||
|
|
Perhaps Mr. Mix is what he is because when he was very young he said his
|
||
|
|
father never spared the w. k. shingle in the woodshed.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Wallace Reid
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
May 22, 1921
|
||
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
||
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
||
|
|
If the men with wives and sisters who spend their lives admiring Wallace
|
||
|
|
Reid could hear Mr. Reid talk they would be less upset by all this adulation.
|
||
|
|
Wallace, who was mobbed on Fifth avenue by the female shoppers when he
|
||
|
|
strolled along New York's center of fashion last week, was not in the least
|
||
|
|
impressed at the commotion he caused. He was much more thrilled over Pat
|
||
|
|
Casey, a traffic cop, who threatened to arrest the cameramen for taking his
|
||
|
|
picture.
|
||
|
|
"It's against the law for us to take a man's picture against his will,"
|
||
|
|
said Pat, "and us Irish has to stick together. Ain't it right, Mr. Reid?"
|
||
|
|
Mr. Reid explained the cameraman was a part of the Famous Players-Lasky
|
||
|
|
paraphernalia, and he was being photographed because it was a part of his
|
||
|
|
business. He did agree with Pat, however, that the women who congregated to
|
||
|
|
gaze upon him were a nuisance.
|
||
|
|
The men with sweethearts who sigh because their best beaux do not look
|
||
|
|
like Wallace Reid would be amply revenged if they knew how bored this all
|
||
|
|
makes the man who thinks being called a matinee idol is a deadly insult.
|
||
|
|
"You know," said Wallace, chatting with me on the side lines while a
|
||
|
|
director was rehearsing Constance Binney, Wallace McCutcheon and a score of
|
||
|
|
celebrities for the sketch to be given at the Famous Players-Lasky ball in
|
||
|
|
which he has a part, "this thing about the women liking me is 'bunk.' If I
|
||
|
|
have any popularity it is as much with the male element as with the
|
||
|
|
schoolgirls.
|
||
|
|
"It never flatters me to hear that a lot of school girls want my picture
|
||
|
|
or that some man is jealous because his wife visits the theatre where my
|
||
|
|
picture is showing. I would much rather hear about a picture that has good
|
||
|
|
acting and direction."
|
||
|
|
To be a director is the ambition of Mr. Reid's life. He is working with
|
||
|
|
that idea in vain. He started out to direct pictures and was one of
|
||
|
|
Universal's prize wielders of the megaphone when David Griffith gave him a
|
||
|
|
part in "The Birth of a Nation." That was the beginning of the change in his
|
||
|
|
plans. They simply wouldn't let him direct. He was made a leading man, and
|
||
|
|
since that time his popularity has made such strides he has been kept busy
|
||
|
|
acting on the screen.
|
||
|
|
"But," said Mr. Reid, "if the demand for my pictures begins to wane and
|
||
|
|
I feel myself slipping I am going to take off my makeup and get into the
|
||
|
|
director's end of the business as quickly as possible. I directed my wife
|
||
|
|
the first year we were married at Universal. She was the star and I was the
|
||
|
|
director's--"
|
||
|
|
"Come on Mr. Reid. Your cue is next."
|
||
|
|
"The film is scratched and we will have to have a retake," said Mr.
|
||
|
|
Reid, rushing into the scene.
|
||
|
|
"I am the camera man in this playlet," he explained, coming back to
|
||
|
|
resume our chat and calling his lines from where we sat.
|
||
|
|
"You say you were your wife's director. Did she obey you?"
|
||
|
|
"To the letter. When I am directing my word is law, and that is as it
|
||
|
|
should be--the director should be the general in command of the entire
|
||
|
|
situation."
|
||
|
|
I expected to hear an exciting account of theatres, the midnight
|
||
|
|
entertainment and the secret places to buy hooch in town. Instead, Mr. Reid
|
||
|
|
said he had been at Sea Gate with his mother ever since he came to town.
|
||
|
|
"Mother never stopped talking from Sunday night until Tuesday morning,"
|
||
|
|
laughed Mr. Reid. "She hadn't seen me in three years and she had so much to
|
||
|
|
say. Last time Dorothy and the baby came with me and she directed her
|
||
|
|
attentions to them; but this time she had me alone and she made up for lost
|
||
|
|
time."
|
||
|
|
"You look like you enjoyed her long conversation."
|
||
|
|
"The best time I have had in months. It's great to be with your own
|
||
|
|
people--and of course there isn't any one like one's mother."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Reid says he is a little worried over his part in "Peter Ibbetson."
|
||
|
|
"They have me dissolved in tears most of the time. I shed enough briny
|
||
|
|
drops, according to the script, to fill an ocean. My public expects to see
|
||
|
|
me in comedy--and I wonder how they are going to like this tragedy. I am not
|
||
|
|
very fond of gloom myself and I think I understand how my friends in the
|
||
|
|
small towns feel."
|
||
|
|
These Main street habitues are very important to Wallace Reid. Whereas
|
||
|
|
the average motion picture favorite is more interest in what Broadway thinks
|
||
|
|
of him. Mr. Reid is far more concerned with Keokuk, Iowa, or Oscaloosa, Mich.
|
||
|
|
These are the people who are responsible for his popularity, and he does not
|
||
|
|
forget it. He has no inclination to head his own company although there have
|
||
|
|
been several flattering offers made him, because these same residents of the
|
||
|
|
small towns do not care in the least whether he is heading a company or
|
||
|
|
playing leading roles just so he gives them what they want in the story line.
|
||
|
|
When it became necessary for the pseudo cameramen to go on with the part
|
||
|
|
I left Mr. Reid in the mercies of the stage director wondering how much he
|
||
|
|
meant of his statement that it did not flatter him to hear how much the women
|
||
|
|
like him.
|
||
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Ben Turpin
|
||
|
|
October 2, 1921
|
||
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
||
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
||
|
|
New York to Ben Turpin is bounded on the north, south, east and west by
|
||
|
|
the Capitol Theatre. Ever since he arrived last Sunday his route has been a
|
||
|
|
straight line from the Astor Hotel to the Capitol and back again. They even
|
||
|
|
took his morning last Monday and made him pose for a picture on the Capitol
|
||
|
|
roof. When I saw him he was gently reminding the photographers, press agents
|
||
|
|
and admiring ensemble he was but a human being and when the noon gong sounded
|
||
|
|
its merry chime he wants his chow. He might have had it, too, but when I
|
||
|
|
came upon him at this inopportune time he had to stop long enough to talk
|
||
|
|
Essanay. He was one of the old crowd and considered himself in affluent
|
||
|
|
circumstances when the cashier handed him $20 every Monday evening.
|
||
|
|
He returned to Chicago a hero, wined and dined and feted. And he says
|
||
|
|
exaggerating the cast in his eye and making himself more cross-eyed that
|
||
|
|
nature intended brought this change in his fortune. They didn't realize in
|
||
|
|
the old days Ben's brand of humor was funny enough to be starred. Every one
|
||
|
|
liked him at Essanay and laughed at his jokes, but he was never in the
|
||
|
|
Francis Bushman-Bryant Washburn class. It took Mack Sennett to capitalize
|
||
|
|
Mr. Turpin, and the little comedian says he will never cease being grateful.
|
||
|
|
"You know," he said, "I owe everything to Mr. Sennett. What chance did
|
||
|
|
I have until he featured me?"
|
||
|
|
"How did you happen to go to the Coast?" I asked Mr. Turpin after we had
|
||
|
|
discussed all the old crowd and laughed at some of the old-time jokes.
|
||
|
|
"Mr. Chaplin added me to his company. He wanted me for 'Carmen,' so I
|
||
|
|
thought it would be a good time to broach the delicate subject of a raise.
|
||
|
|
G. K. offered me $30 per and I jumped at it. 'Say, Charlie,' I said to Mr.
|
||
|
|
Chaplin, 'thanks to you I have a two years' contract with Essanay.
|
||
|
|
"'Great,' said Charlie.
|
||
|
|
"'Yep,' I said, pleased with myself. 'I am to have $30 a week.'
|
||
|
|
"'What,' cried Chaplin. 'You fool. Do you mean you signed for $30 a
|
||
|
|
week?'
|
||
|
|
"'Sure, don't you think I am lucky?'
|
||
|
|
"'I think you need a nurse. I thought you were getting at least $300.
|
||
|
|
Why didn't you come to me before you signed that foolish paper?'"
|
||
|
|
That, Mr. Turpin says, was the beginning of his dissatisfaction.
|
||
|
|
Then he played in "Carmen" and was so funny Mr. Chaplin is said to have
|
||
|
|
told him:
|
||
|
|
"See here Turpin, you are funny enough to be starred yourself."
|
||
|
|
Mack Sennett thought so, too.
|
||
|
|
He sent for the comedian and offered to pay him four or five times $30
|
||
|
|
just as a starter.
|
||
|
|
"Oh gee," moaned Turpin, "I got myself all tied up on that contract with
|
||
|
|
Essanay." And because he had come to the Essanay with Gilbert Anderson when
|
||
|
|
the company was first organized he just felt he couldn't be disloyal.
|
||
|
|
Charlie Chaplin, who liked the unaffected little comedian, who wanted to
|
||
|
|
be loyal even when it meant his future success, said to him:
|
||
|
|
"Don't mind about that contract. There isn't anything for you here
|
||
|
|
anyway. I will fix it for you." And he did.
|
||
|
|
Mr. Turpin, who never had any illusions of his importance with Essanay,
|
||
|
|
had a terrible feeling his former employers didn't mind losing him, and so he
|
||
|
|
moved to the Sennett lot with a very clear conscience.
|
||
|
|
Mack Sennett was clever enough to see the funny side of Mr. Turpin. He
|
||
|
|
exaggerated the crossed eyes and let him do all the clownish tricks that
|
||
|
|
always brought a laugh to both the members of the staff and the lounge
|
||
|
|
lizards at the Essanay plant.
|
||
|
|
The result was sure and certain. For three years Ben Turpin has been
|
||
|
|
gaining in favor until he is now considered the favorite of some of our most
|
||
|
|
discerning film fans, among them Agnes Smith, who considers no boudoir is
|
||
|
|
complete without a picture of Mr. Turpin.
|
||
|
|
The ladies who admire Benjamin may consider it a crushing blow to hear
|
||
|
|
he never travels without his wife. He feels it isn't safe in these days when
|
||
|
|
the movie scandals are so numerous. Mrs. Turpin was in an automobile
|
||
|
|
accident several years ago and was injured in such a way she has not been
|
||
|
|
able to hear a sound since that tragic day. No one could see the little
|
||
|
|
comedian with her without being touched by his solicitation for her welfare.
|
||
|
|
He consults her on his photographs, his engagements and, one suspects, even
|
||
|
|
on the matter of his clothes.
|
||
|
|
"Got the same wife," he told me. "Been married sixteen years and I'm
|
||
|
|
satisfied and so is she.
|
||
|
|
Although she could not hear, we did not doubt Mr. Turpin's boast that he
|
||
|
|
had made her happy. She has diamonds, good clothes and is looked after in
|
||
|
|
her affliction in a tender manner that should put a long credit mark after
|
||
|
|
his name. Duty, you say. Probably, but there is something more than duty
|
||
|
|
that makes a man as thoughtful as the funny little cross-eyed man in the loud
|
||
|
|
checked suit.
|
||
|
|
In all his life Ben Turpin never had anything please him as much as his
|
||
|
|
return to Chicago. He played next door to the theatre where Francis X.
|
||
|
|
Bushman and Beverly Bayne were playing. In the old days Mr. Bushman was the
|
||
|
|
star and Mr. Turpin was just an extra man doing utility jobs for his
|
||
|
|
benefactor, G. M. Anderson. The box office receipts prove the Turpin
|
||
|
|
attraction brought in more money than any other similar entertainment in the
|
||
|
|
history of the Windy City.
|
||
|
|
It wasn't the idea that he was as good an attraction as Bushman and
|
||
|
|
Bayne that pleased him. It was the reception given him by his old friends
|
||
|
|
and neighbors that made the warm glow come to his cheeks and put a sunny,
|
||
|
|
happy feeling in his cardiac region known outside of medical journals as his
|
||
|
|
heart.
|
||
|
|
To cap the climax and to add to the joy of the occasion, Aaron Jones
|
||
|
|
presented him with an Elk's gold card.
|
||
|
|
"Say," said Mr. Turpin. "I just wanted to bawl. Mr. Jones has always
|
||
|
|
been on a pedestal with me. I worked for him once and they don't make them
|
||
|
|
any whiter than Aaron J. Think of his noticing me. It was the finest thing
|
||
|
|
that ever happened to me. And, say, no one could get that away from me
|
||
|
|
without dynamite."
|
||
|
|
"Over his dead body," suggested one of the numerous gathering, who were
|
||
|
|
suggesting it was time to take another picture.
|
||
|
|
But Ben was firm. He was going to eat whether school kept or not, and
|
||
|
|
because I knew just how hungry he was, I left him in the hands of the crowd
|
||
|
|
who are bent on working him to death.
|
||
|
|
"I want to see you again," he said, "if I can give them the slip,"
|
||
|
|
winking in a manner that included the whole room and was really, I gathered,
|
||
|
|
intended for me. "The Mrs. and I will come over to your office. Gee, I want
|
||
|
|
to see some shows, too. I am tired of work."
|
||
|
|
When Mr. Turpin finishes his contract in twenty-one months with Sennett
|
||
|
|
he is going abroad for a long vacation and rest.
|
||
|
|
"Other plans with other producers," some one hinted.
|
||
|
|
"Not me," answered Mr. Turpin. "I owe any success I have to Mack
|
||
|
|
Sennett and you can bet your last dollar I am going to stick with him."
|
||
|
|
His language may be more picturesque than elegant and he may wear loud,
|
||
|
|
checked clothes, but there is a heart of gold there and, thank Heaven, he
|
||
|
|
hasn't acquired an English accent, nor does he talk of his valet and his
|
||
|
|
great wealth. He saves his money, and he says he isn't a star. Yes,
|
||
|
|
really--Ben Turpin is as real and natural as the old oak tree in the country
|
||
|
|
school yard. All the pretense and glitter that comes to most people making a
|
||
|
|
good salary has passed right over his head. And because of this I am for
|
||
|
|
him, and I hope he will continue to make people laugh as long as he lives and
|
||
|
|
they live.
|
||
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Rudolph Valentino
|
||
|
|
September 11, 1921
|
||
|
|
Louella Parsons
|
||
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
||
|
|
Rudolph Valentino is a very polite young man. I know because he waited
|
||
|
|
for me for over an hour and never frowned or acted as if one of his relatives
|
||
|
|
had disinherited him. To keep a man waiting whether he is an actor or merely
|
||
|
|
in the ordinary walk of life is the surest test of his disposition. Most of
|
||
|
|
the other sex consider it a personal affront if they are kept waiting over
|
||
|
|
five minutes, and few men can control their temper if they have to cool their
|
||
|
|
heels for any longer time.
|
||
|
|
No one could be blamed for being late Tuesday night. The rain came down
|
||
|
|
in torrents and held all the theatregoers stranded waiting for taxis that
|
||
|
|
passed back and forth without any thought of stopping. I waited, too. In
|
||
|
|
the lobby of the Lyceum Theatre after the opening of "The Easiest Way" for
|
||
|
|
some conveyance to get me the block and a half.
|
||
|
|
Mr. Valentino had been more fortunate. He had found a cab and reached
|
||
|
|
his destination some minutes earlier. He was not difficult to identify--the
|
||
|
|
Julio of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." His straight hair and very
|
||
|
|
dark eyes photographed on the screen as they are. He is one of the people
|
||
|
|
who looks exactly in real life as he does on the screen. The same trick of
|
||
|
|
expression, the same smile and the same bow are all there making one expect
|
||
|
|
for a moment that Alice Terry as Margaret or perhaps as Eugenie Grandil will
|
||
|
|
step into the scene, and take her place beside young Valentino.
|
||
|
|
Since his Metro engagements--both of which brought him pleasantly before
|
||
|
|
the public, Mr. Valentino has made another picture--"The Sheik" for Jesse
|
||
|
|
Lasky--and in this he plays the colorful role of the leader of the Arabs, a
|
||
|
|
lawless but captivating bandit of the desert. Mr. Valentino characterizes
|
||
|
|
his work under George Melford.
|
||
|
|
"As wonderful, great, marvelous," and a few more adjectives, indicating
|
||
|
|
he liked his stay at the Lasky studio.
|
||
|
|
But it is to June Mathis young Valentino pays his greatest tribute.
|
||
|
|
"She discovered me," he says. "Anything I have accomplished I owe to
|
||
|
|
her, to her judgment, to her advice and to her unfailing patience and
|
||
|
|
confidence in me."
|
||
|
|
Up to the time June Mathis insisted that Mr. Valentino be cast as Julio
|
||
|
|
in "The Four Horsemen" he had been playing "heavies." He made several
|
||
|
|
pictures for Universal, and it was in a minor role Miss Mathis saw him and
|
||
|
|
decided he was the type for the young Spanish boy. In this she had to meet
|
||
|
|
the objections of several people on the Metro lot who believed it was
|
||
|
|
ridiculous to give the young inexperienced boy this important part.
|
||
|
|
"I worked hard to justify her belief in me," he said. "We all worked
|
||
|
|
hard in 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.' We were striving to reach an
|
||
|
|
ideal--it was Rex Ingram's first big picture; my first and Miss Terry's
|
||
|
|
biggest chance. There was no thought of any personal ambition in that one
|
||
|
|
picture; we were all working for a cause."
|
||
|
|
"Perhaps that is one reason the results were so satisfying," I
|
||
|
|
suggested.
|
||
|
|
"I am sure of it," he replied. "No picture can be great, unless the
|
||
|
|
mental atmosphere is clear. Every one is influenced by the spirit that is
|
||
|
|
present--whether it is kindly, helpful and unselfish, or whether it is
|
||
|
|
malicious, envious and unfriendly."
|
||
|
|
Mr. Valentino speaks with an accent. He looks Spanish, but he is
|
||
|
|
Italian. He was born in Genoa and came to this country seven years ago.
|
||
|
|
"I was only a boy," he said.
|
||
|
|
A child, I thought, and he must have read my thoughts, because he
|
||
|
|
replied: "I was eighteen. I am now twenty-five."
|
||
|
|
He looks younger. He was very poor when he first landed here. In Genoa
|
||
|
|
he had planned to be a famous agriculturist.
|
||
|
|
But New York was not conducive to furthering that ambition. There are
|
||
|
|
no farms in the city here and he had no money to go to the country, so he
|
||
|
|
danced.
|
||
|
|
"Please," he said, "do not talk much about my dancing. I never liked
|
||
|
|
it, but it was the only thing I could do." His dance engagements led to the
|
||
|
|
screen, not an unnatural metamorphosis by any means. And now he is here to
|
||
|
|
talk business. He has an offer from a film organization, but he says he is
|
||
|
|
superstitious and will not mention names until his contract is all signed,
|
||
|
|
sealed and delivered.
|
||
|
|
Mr. Valentino is a Nazimova enthusiast. Either people like madame or
|
||
|
|
they do not. There is no middle ground where she is concerned. He belongs
|
||
|
|
to the former class. He played Armand in "Camille" and says he owes much to
|
||
|
|
her suggestions and to her instructions.
|
||
|
|
"Madame had a hand in the direction, too," he said. "Ray Smallwood
|
||
|
|
directed the picture, but madame told me how to play the big scenes. Some
|
||
|
|
people think my portrayal of Dumas's Armand is better than anything I have
|
||
|
|
done, even Julio."
|
||
|
|
Still one thinks of Rudolph Valentino as Julio. He may do many things
|
||
|
|
--possibly better things, but always there will be the remembrance of the hot-
|
||
|
|
blooded Spanish boy, who stands out as one of the finest characters the
|
||
|
|
screen has given us. Yes, it is as Julio one thinks of young Valentino, and
|
||
|
|
it will be as Julio he will progress and win a place for himself.
|
||
|
|
Mr. Valentino does not regret the years he has spent playing villains.
|
||
|
|
He says the experience has made him see from two angles--first as the villain
|
||
|
|
would act, and secondly, in the eyes of the hero.
|
||
|
|
"I always recall what Mr. Tourneur said one time.
|
||
|
|
"'If only the screen heroes would not be so perfect the villains would
|
||
|
|
once in a while do a good deed.'"
|
||
|
|
"And that," said Mr. Valentino, "is what I consider fundamentally wrong
|
||
|
|
with motion pictures. We distinguish too much between people. After all a
|
||
|
|
bad man may have a kindly impulse some times. No one is entirely evil, and a
|
||
|
|
good man may be motivated by a spirit that is not all good. We are all
|
||
|
|
human. I believe if it were possible to picture human nature as it really is
|
||
|
|
with good and bad in all of us the motion pictures would be better."
|
||
|
|
And I am not sure that Rudolph Valentino is not right.
|
||
|
|
There is indeed so much that is bad in the best of us and so much that
|
||
|
|
is good in the worst of us that it should be filmed as is.
|
||
|
|
Mr. Valentino is having the time of his young life in our big city.
|
||
|
|
Will all the theatres opening and the tennis matches being played, he is
|
||
|
|
being royally entertained. He had much to say about Suzanne Leglen and her
|
||
|
|
tennis playing, having seen her last Sunday in her double match.
|
||
|
|
"The American people were so generous," he said. "They applauded and
|
||
|
|
applauded her quite as if her unfortunate mistake at the opening game had
|
||
|
|
never occurred."
|
||
|
|
"The Japanese player who lost won just as many cheers as the victor.
|
||
|
|
I like that spirit. It is typical of the America people. They are so warm
|
||
|
|
hearted and so good. It's a great country," he said, squaring his shoulders,
|
||
|
|
"and I am glad I am here."
|
||
|
|
Young Valentino still likes to dance, if not for the entertainment of
|
||
|
|
others at least for his own pleasure. It was after 12:30 when we left the
|
||
|
|
Claridge and he was headed straight for the Palais Royal to join a party. He
|
||
|
|
is young and gay and happy, with all the spirit of youth and the impulse to
|
||
|
|
get the most out of life while he may. But whatever happens he says he will
|
||
|
|
never forget June Mathis. She is his guiding star or some other equally
|
||
|
|
poetic symbol in his life. He is, you see, an Italian and expresses himself
|
||
|
|
in the extravagant language of his race.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
||
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
||
|
|
Back issues of Taylorology are available from the gopher server at
|
||
|
|
gopher.etext.org
|
||
|
|
in the directory Zines/Taylorology;
|
||
|
|
or on the Web at
|
||
|
|
http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology
|
||
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|