ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2020.COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION In Copyright Reproduced according to U.S. copyright law USC 17 section 107. Contact dcc@library.uiuc.edu for more information. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Preservation Department, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2020t*OF THE U N I VERS ITY OF ILLINOIS 9H.3434- ALICE IN MOVIELANDMarion Davies The Prettiest Blonde in the Movies. {Photo, R. H. Louise")ALICE IN MOVIELAND by ALICE M. WILLIAMSON (Mrs. C. N. Williamson) H Z § D. APPLETON & COMPANY NEW YORK :: MCMXXVIIICOPYRIGHT - 1 9 2 8 - BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICACONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Down the Rabbit-hole: I Mean, Getting to Hollywood .... i II. So This Is Hollywood! .... 8 III. The Sky of Stars....................25 IV. “S.A.” . . . .......................33 ,V. “Mary and Doug” in Their King- dom ..............................38 VI. Cecil B. de Mille and His Studio Stars...................................61 VII. There Are Goldwyns and Goldwyns- 88 VIII. Close-up of Marion Davies . . . 119 IX. The High Mount of Paramount . 128 X. Close-up of Pola Negri .... 147 XI. “United Artists”....................158 XII. Close-up of Gloria Swanson . . 164 XIII. The City on the Hill .... 175 XIV. They’re Different Now . . . 187 XV. The Comedy Beehive..................193 vCONTENTS XVI. Dynamic Directors—Men . . . 223 XVII. Dynamic Directors—Women . . 239 XVIII. The Powers behind the Screen . . 264 XIX. Star Dust.....................276 viILLUSTRATIONS Marion Davies.......................frontispiece FACING PAGE Lewis Stone.....................................io John Gilbert....................................io Rod La Rocque...................................io Laura La Plante.................................16 Bebe Daniels....................................16 Jackie Coogan...................................22 Reginald Denny..................................28 Mary Pickford...................................42 Cecil B. de Mille, the Producer, and Jeanie Mac- Pherson, Scenario Writer...................64 Private Office of Cecil B. de Mille .... 84 William G. Carruthers...........................84 Greta Garbo....................................102 Louise Du Pre..................................102 Ralph Forbes and Dolores del Rio...............108 Lloyd Hughes...................................116 Lillian Gish...................................116 Mary Brian and Richard Dix.....................130 viiILLUSTRATIONS Adolphe Menjou............................. 138 Clara Bow...................................144 Pola Negri and Her Husband..................152 Norma Talmadge..............................160 Carl Laemmle................................178 Rex.........................................184 Dynamite.................................. 184 Molly O’Day.................................190 Ronald Colman...............................202 Thomas Meighan..............................202 Marion Nixon................................226 Don Alvarado................................234 Maria Corda.................................242 Jetta Goudal................................254 Vilma Banky.................................254 Esther Ralston..............................262 viiiALICE IN MOVIELANDALICE IN MOVIELAND CHAPTER I DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE: I MEAN, GETTING TO HOLLYWOOD Alice on her way to Wonderland thought as she fell down the Rabbit-hole that things got more interesting, or “curiouser and curiouser” the further she went. That is the feeling which this Alice has about Movieland, the new Wonderland; and the Rabbit-hole couldn’t have been more thrilling than the journey to Hollywood in the “Santa Fe Limited.” There’s a new Santa Fe train now, nobly named the “Chief,” which rushes from Chicago to Los Angeles in five fewer hours than the “Limited.” But that’s why Alice wouldn’t go in it. She didn’t want fewer hours. Of the two, she would choose more. You see, it isn’t just an ordinary journey. It’s an extraordinary one. In fact, it really is the Rabbit-hole up-to-date. I don’t count going from New York to Chicago. It’s hardly worth while to take a drawing-room iALICE IN MOVIELAND or a compartment for one night; and even a whole section in the nicest American Pullman car isn’t Paradise. The true Rabbit-hole opens only in Chicago where the Santa Fe line begins to stretch itself across Illinois towards the green farmlands of Kansas, the purple mountains and pink-gold deserts of New Mexico and Arizona, on to the roses, the palms and orange groves of Southern California. You see, too, the Santa Fe Limited is no ordinary train! When you first approach it in the big station at Chicago, you think it more like an exciting fleet of brand-new bungalows on wheels than a train. But, when you are shown into the cosy blue room you will occupy for three nights and two days in your own particular flying bungalow, you feel that you are setting sail in a new sort of airship or ocean liner, rather than starting off for a trip by rail. That’s part of the Rabbit-hole effect! Alice en route for Movieland has brought as much luggage as if she were to spend the best (or worst) part of a week at sea. And she has as a piece de resistance a miniature wardrobe trunk. She spreads this open and fastens it in place as she would on board the Aquitania, the Majestic, or the Leviathan. In Alice’s room, technically called a “compartment,” there is plenty of space for the rest of her impedimenta, 2DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE including books, magazines, flowers, and choco- lates. She has around her “all the comforts of home” within her own oak-painted steel walls, including toilet and bath possibilities. The place is hers, not to be shared by friend or foe. She hangs up her hat (in a paper bag), and is at home. A brown-faced porter pretends politely that she is his one and only interest on earth. A less brown-faced maid manicures Alice’s nails, and volunteers to mend her stockings or clean her gloves. A white--aproned man appears from somewhere and offers iced orange juice. Alice dresses for dinner, as if she were on shipboard; not exactly in evening dress, but one of those chic “little” frocks we all know so well; and she has definitely abandoned a hat for the rest of the trip—I’d almost said “voyage.” Even when she saunters up and down pink- paved platforms while the Limited pauses at miniature, model cities in Kansas, new as to- morrow’s bread; or at picturesque places in New Mexico with backgrounds old as Egypt and not unlike it, she is still without a hat. It is not the etiquette of the Rabbit-hole to wear a hat! Cooled by an electric fan and shielded from desert dust by a wire screen, she rests among freshly covered pillows in her “cabin,” reading and writing. When she goes to the restaurant car, welcomed by a superintendent with a flat- 3ALICE IN MOVIELAND tering “the world is yours” manner, she realizes as she has not yet quite realized, that the Rabbit- hole leads to Movieland. It is leading not only Alice to that illustrious place, but is taking home many of those who have helped to make Holly- wood’s fame. Even the most celebrated stars tire of eating all their meals haughtily in the exclusive grandeur of their drawing-rooms. They come out—not to show themselves I oh no, that could not be!—but for a change of scene. What dreamlike beauties of girls! What Arrow-collar heroes of men! . . . Poor Alice has fancied her own frock. She has looked upon her face and hair in the mirror and found them not so bad. But now!—she might as well not have face or hair for all the good they do her in comparison to these visions! She is stabbed to the heart by the sharp point of an inferiority complex, and has to drown her sorrow in soup and other “eats” that follow. But luckily the soup and the rest of the things are delicious. The Santa Fe prides itself upon rivalling any hotel in the land! Altogether, to Alice’s idea, this Limited beats every “crack” train of the world, and she has sampled most of them. There is just nothing else like it; and she is sorry when on the third day the journey ends at Los Angeles. Los Angeles—old Spanish mission town of 4DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE “the angels!”—new town of parks and palms, lakes, fine boulevards, shops and sky-scrapers I Here it is at last, in all its charm. But Alice hasn’t quite come to the bottom of the Rabbit- hole yet. She won’t reach that till she gets to Hollywood. Once, a long, long time ago, as time counts in Movieland, where ten years is more than fifty years elsewhere, Hollywood was a pretty little suburb about eleven miles out from the heart of Los Angeles. Maybe it was called Hollywood because a few holly bushes sprouted there. Maybe it was called Hollywood because there wasn’t any holly within miles. In any case, no mystery or legend save that of the holly that was, or wasn’t, attaches to Hollywood’s past. . . . As for Hollywood’s history, it was simple. The land there belonged mostly to two men. It con- sisted largely of barley fields, and trees. The owners wished to sell, and in order to advertise the property more or less, a small but pretty hotel was built. Its luncheons, provided for the benefit of tourists brought by stage from Los Angeles, became famous. Years went on. Automobiles ran instead of stages, and continued to stop at Hollywood en route to some gay little beach be- side the blue Pacific. 19 n came, and Al Christie and his brother Charlie, Scots by blood, leased an old road house for a studio. A few months later 5ALICE IN MOVIELAND Jesse Lasky leased a barn or stable at Hollywood. Universal ran up a small roofless studio, where those movie winds we noticed in early film days followed heroines into drawing-rooms and bed- rooms to blow their hair as if with an invisible bellows. That’s about all there is to tell about old Hollywood. But what does it matter? Los Angeles is welcome to her legends, so far as Hollywood is concerned. In the eyes of moving picture “fans” throughout the world, it is Los Angeles which has become a suburb of Hollywood. But, we haven’t got to Hollywood yet! Alice is met at Los Angeles by one of those Dreams, too beauteous to be real anywhere else than in Movieland where all female things (except the most virtuous screen mothers) must be young and exquisite or disappear off the map. The Dream has a motor car as perfect as her- self, and while Alice’s (comparatively) small luggage is being stowed within, Alice and the Dream converse. Each having told the other that she looks lovelier than ever, and duly ex- claimed, “Oh my dear, what a divine hat!” Alice tentatively points out a few dazzling creatures who travelled with her in the Limited. They are all on the station platform; some complete with Mammas who accompanied them in the 6DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE train, others alone save for a large family of wardrobe trunks. “New stars?” asks Alice. The Dream sweetly sneers, “Heavens, no, and never will be stars till the sky falls, I should say by the look of them. Can’t you tell the differ- ence? Can’t you see that every one of those girls has won a beauty prize in her home town— Puddleville or somewhere—and has dashed out here to take Hollywood by storm? Poor kids! The storm will be in their own brains if they have any, when they discover that chocolate-box beauties are old stuff in this burg. Everybody’s searching for new faces, but not faces like that! Look, my dear, there is the latest screen Find! Just queer, you’d say! But wait till you see her in her new film. A type!99 “In France,” says Alice, “if you call a person a ‘type’ it’s an insult.” “Well, it isn’t in Hollywood,” replies the Dream. “It’s a compliment—with a salary tied to its tail.” Avenues of tall palms: a tidal wave of motor cars: glimpses of grand houses in glorious gar- dens, all under a sky bluer than any land except Africa has a right to boast: and lo! Alice has at last been whirled to the Heart of the Rabbit-hole, Hollywood.CHAPTER II SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! Why do girls leave home? The youngest answer to this aged question is, “They leave home to go to Hollywood, of course 1” Girls from all over the world do it: Italian girls, Scandinavian girls, Czecho-Slovakian girls, English and French girls, Japanese and Chinese girls, especially Spanish and Russian girls and even American girls. Yes, girls from everywhere on earth, but for heaven’s sake, no, unless they are wonderful or think they’re wonderful! And even to think they are wonderful there must be something to encourage the opinion, if only trifles light as hair (golden hair), eyes large as napkin rings, lashes an inch long, a mouth shaped like a heart, an irresistible nose, or a complete assort- ment of dimples. Of course, it’s rather late in the day now for newcomers, and when Alice arrives most of the most marvellous (so to speak) world-wide beau- ties are already in “the pictures.” Those next in rank are anyhow on the spot, trying to get into 8SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! pictures; which makes of Hollywood a continuous kaleidoscopic beauty show. The trouble would be to go out in the street and find a plain woman. A prize might be offered for one, and it would be hard to win. If there were a chance, it would be in front of some casting director’s door at a big studio where crowds and “types,” male and fe- male, are wanted. And there, the women who weren’t pretty wouldn’t stop at being merely plain. They’d be fantastic. As for men! Alice would not be human if she didn’t note that the male figures of Movieland are almost as remarkable as the women. There are of course the character stars, such as Lon Chaney, Victor McLaglen, the Beerys, and a few others whose success is carved in the rough hewn lines of their strong, arresting faces. But most of the Hollywood men are young and handsome. They have to be! Consequently, taking the girls and boys together—as they wish to be taken!— their youth, their good looks, their fortunes and the uses to which they put their fortunes, make Hollywood, California, unique on the globe. What other place of its size (and Hollywood is big nowadays, stretching far with its bungalows and boulevards towards its frame of little, pointed, Japanese looking mountains) what other place of its size is practically populated by per- fectly beautiful young girls and women, dazzling 9ALICE IN MOVIELAND children, and astonishingly handsome young men, all dressed by the smartest modistes and tailors of Europe and the U.S.A.? What other place has no slums? In what other place is almost everyone young, and practically everyone rich? Of course, this is speaking from the surface, and on flashing impressions. There is a Holly- wood which resents and tries to ignore the moving pictures and the people of the pictures, though they have built it up from a pretty little bungalow suburb of no importance, into the wealthy and wonderful town it is. This Hollywood has a Society of its own, with a big, big S. It is affili- ated with Society in Los Angeles, and there is an inner circle into which not even the most brilliant star of the picture world can poke her pretty, powdered nose. It is possibly rather a dull circle compared with the concentric circles of stars. It is terribly cold because of its rarified atmosphere, but satisfac- torily select. In it, people can dare to become middle-aged and even old, if their blood is blue and their bank balance at high pressure. But in the gay, bright Hollywood which is the sky of stars, only certain personalities are permitted to age in peace. These are the professional parents of sweet, pure heroines of the old-fashioned sort, especially those fated by film writers to be be- trayed by the villain of the picture. Or, they ioLewis Stone The Beloved Englishman (First National) John Gilbert A Great Screen Lover (Photo R. H. Louise) Rod La Rocque A Cecil B. de Mille Star (Photo H. D. Carsey)SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! may be fathers and mothers of nice young boys who go forth from happy village homes to be killed in war. Mothers of modern flappers may, indeed, must be young, about as young as their daughters, though their hair had better be done in a slightly more dignified mode. But the exception may be in the case of Dukes and Duchesses of any nation. For film purposes these must have arrived at a ripe age before they are noble enough to look the part expected of them on the screen. Dukes should be tall, thin, and slightly withered. Their noses should be high and their chins weak; whereas Duchesses should be stoutish, with double chins preferred. Otherwise, unless you are a cream puff in a Hollywood cake shop window (cream puffs have such succulent double chins!) or unless you are a “type” for a casting director (in which case you may have chins rippling down to your waist) at the first sign of plumpness in the southern part of the face, you must rush at once to a beauty surgeon. Beards, too, are among the things never seen in Hollywood, except among distinguished film foreigners, “types” for wild western or Russian pictures, or else hanging weirdly from badly groomed palm trees. As for the cake shops where the double-chinned iiALICE IN MOVIELAND cream puffs are displayed, they are many and most attractive. Yet I wonder who buys their wares, since all the lovely ladies I know at Holly- wood live on lamb chops and pineapple, or a slice of wholemeal bread and a glass of sauerkraut juice. Chins, beards, and cake shops are side issues, however! Here you actually are, in Movieland, dreamlike as it seems! Can it be true that you, in flesh and blood, are walking along one of those well-known, palm- lined boulevards so fantastically familiar on the screen? How many times, in picture theatres of London, Paris, New York, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, and even Algiers and Cairo, have your eyes, though not your feet, dawdled in front of these shops, or rested before these artistic doorways? Dare you believe in the solidity of these adorable houses and bungalows built behind lawns along the straight, endless boulevards, or vanishing into a blue horizon at the end of fairylike, tree-shaded side streets?—houses large and small, houses of every architecture: Tudor, Spanish, Mexican, Italian, Georgian, Pullman? Won’t they all slip past your eyes as the machine clicks? But no, they appear to “stay put”; and it’s you who move, not the thoroughfares of Holly- wood. Yet one fact remains; they do not seem 12SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! as real as they have seemed on the screen. That’s because in theatres you have paid to see things happen on these boulevards and in these pretty streets; therefore things must happen, exciting, melodramatic, or screamingly comic Christie things. If you didn’t get a thrill every minute or two, you could complain of not receiving your money’s worth. In Hollywood itself, the right scene is set; the characters are there. You have travelled thou- sands of miles to see them, and you do see them; but instead of being abducted the lovely girls drive about in their expensive automobiles and nothing at all happens to them, except that they bow and smile to their friends, or descend grace- fully in front of large, handsome shops. The gorgeous young men do not hate each other or knock each other down because they are rivals in love. They saunter along with tennis rackets in their hands and greet one another with grins or slaps on the back. And yet, despite the lack of sensations, the place isn’t disappointing. It is too beautiful for that. It is too amusing to walk from street to street, and see a Marie Antoinette pavilion next door to an Egyptian temple or a Chinese pagoda (really it’s a house!) or a simple Colonial dwell- ing, a miniature copy of Mount Vernon, elbowing a tiny Escorial, or a pocket edition of a Florentine 13ALICE IN MOVIELAND palace. Many of the less pretentious ones do elbow each other across green pocket-handker- chief lawns; and neighbors must be able to hear next door eyelashes wink. That’s a slight draw- back, perhaps, but there are few others; for the little dolls’ houses, even the most meretricious, are so quaintly fascinating that you can’t help longing to live in them. You hardly know which you would choose if you could! Most of the doors stand wide open, and pass- ing by, you glimpse gay, pretty furnishings, and quantities of flowers. In front, motor cars shin- ing and new are generally parked. Beautiful girls dash out of front doors, and leap into their auto- mobiles. They are dressed in white, or pale tinted sports frocks. Their hats, if any, are the latest cri de Paris; and their hair, golden, copper, or jet black, is bobbed and plu-perfectly waved. You feel that these visions must certainly be well known stars. But no! They are just average, every day Hollywood inhabitants, because all the stars—or nearly all—have moved away from Hollywood, and have built palaces on acres of ground at Beverly Hills, or in that fashionable region. The male visions are brown and manly looking; just nice boys: but the girl visions have all done tricky somethings to their hair, and had their eyebrows plucked and retraced, not as Nature 14SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! meant, but as they think Gentlemen Prefer. One hears that, since delightful Anita Loos (who is herself inclined to brunetteness and looks sixteen at most) wrote a certain book the sale of per- oxide and camomile preparations in Hollywood has bounded sky high. Anyhow there’s an over- powering percentage of blondes and demi-blondes. Their complexion is whiter than snow, and their cheeks rosier than roses. As for their lips, no attention is paid by the owners thereof to the original design. Heart shape is fancied, with a Cupid’s bow effect reaching nearly to the nostrils in the upper storey, and coming close to the chin in the lower. Any tint from bright vermilion, through strawberry shades to deep magenta, seems to be liked. And even bright young co-eds from twelve to fourteen, in the Hollywood High School, have already turned their baby faces into Benda masks. No doubt this is due to the feeling that when in Movieland one should do as Movielanders do. But the funny part is that, if the great stars ever did bleach and enamel and rouge, and smear themselves inch deep with lip stick, when off the screen in more or less private life, they have now tired of the practice and left it to obscurer lights of Hollywood. The stars do make up, of course, outside their studios. In the blazing sunshine of Hollywood, i5ALICE IN MOVIELAND I must admit one looks a little drab and unin- teresting without a touch of powder, a hint of rouge, a coraline smile, and a dark shadow on the lashes. But the brightest stars have brought the art of make-up down so fine that you couldn’t swear in a court of justice whether the top note of beauty was put on by Heaven or the hand of the lady. That is as it should be, in Hollywood or else- where, isn’t it? But we haven’t got to Beverly Hills yet, where most of the real stars live, or into the studios, where they work; so let’s go back for the moment into the streets of Hollywood; back among the beauty parlors, the face lifting experts, the fat reducing specialists de luxe. Even the shops of Wonderland—I mean Movieland—are different from other shops. Or, if they are like any others, they resemble the shops of Monte Carlo. At “Monte,” you would never think of going out to buy anything really useful. It would seem quite sordid to do that, and so it is at Hollywood. I suppose there must be one or two shops where you could purchase pins, but you might have to visit a number of places before you could find these paltry objects. And why disgrace yourself by trying to discover things so dull in a place of such radiance? Why not go to Los Angeles for pins? It’s only a motor spin of eleven miles, and 16■ A I > * Laura La Plante The Prettiest Dimples in Movieland {Universal) Bebe Daniels The Girl with the Greek Profile {Paramount; photo E. R. Richee)SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! quite a good excuse for a charming excursion. You can of course take a bus, or a train (one says “trolley” here) as big as an uprooted bungalow gone mad. But all your friends have motor cars, fleets of them, last year’s and this year’s models. The husbands use last year’s models to run out to the studios and direct films or write scenarios or whatever they do. The wives use this year’s ones to take you into Los Angeles in order to buy pins, or lunch, or go to a matinee of a play just out from New York; or else to see a film newly “released.” But there are plenty of theatres at Hollywood itself, even if there are not many pins: two magnificent and amazing theatres, to say nought of many somewhat less sensational places of amusement. If somebody would build an Egyptian theatre and a Chinese theatre, like the two chief thrillers of Hollywood, in London, the newspapers would print columns about them every day for weeks. But they suit Hollywood, and settle down into the landscape. They wouldn’t suit London, unless they were to be used as museums for Egyptian and Chinese art. Everything at Hollywood has to be aston- ishing in order to live up to the climate and fauna, if for no other reason. And there are lots of reasons! Paris can’t show such dresses and hats, and especially shoes, as the best Hollywood shop win- 17ALICE IN MOVIELAND dows display. No doubt they all came from Paris; at least, that’s the legend which accounts for the expense. But they don’t look the same in Paris. It takes Hollywood to put on the extra dazzle-dazzle! Wouldn’t you say, if asked to guess, that the place where moving pictures are made, discussed, and sent out to all four corners of the globe would be the very last place where moving picture theatres could draw crowds by day and night? Wouldn’t you imagine that the inhabitants must be utterly fed up with films? But not at all. Quite the contrary. It would be useless to count the movie theatres of Hollywood, for probably several new ones would have been opened before you put the number into print. On a first night of a film made by a popular star, London couldn’t beat the crush with a royal birthday. But to tell the whole truth (a thing seldom done in pleasant places like Hollywood), the crowds don’t almost trample women and children to death for the sole purpose of seeing a film produced for the first time, even if its members have paid ten dollars each for the privilege. They fight and push to gaze upon the kings and queens and princes and princesses of the screen arriving “in person” at the theatre in gorgeous automobiles, and looking more marvellous in flesh than in any film that was ever produced. 18SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! Policemen have to keep back the throngs who have come only to stare. At least, they have to try. Sometimes they fail. The stars are almost mobbed. The photographers from the news- papers must guard their precious cameras as if from a charge of elephants in Africa, but all are good-natured. It is part of the game. It is Hollywood I And of course, if you are a star and not mobbed, you may as well give up. It’s a sign that your next picture will be a “flop”! Even when it isn’t a first night, the movie theatres of Movieland are always filled. Moving picture people love to ogle each other’s films, if only to see how little worth seeing they are! And it is great fun to go to a picture with the man who has written the scenario and “continuity” for it. He writhes in his chair and groans aloud. He is even inclined to be profane over the liberties some beast of a director has taken with his script! Hollywood isn’t forever faithful to many idols, but there are four outstanding features to which everyone has long been and will be loyal: the wonderful Bowl, the gay restaurant flaunting the name of Montmartre, the old and delightfully cosy (old means a few years in this environment) hotel known as the “Hotel Hollywood” in its charming garden; and also the Stadium. The Bowl is called the “world’s largest natural amphitheatre.” It would be! But acci- 19ALICE IN MOVIELAND dentally, it really is, and maybe the most beautiful. On a night of moon and stars, the vast hollow among the hills turns a deep sapphire blue. The night pours into the great round cup in an azure flood. One sits—a small “one” among twenty thousand—drowned in liquid blueth (there ought to be such a word as blueth, even if there isn’t) and drowned also in heavenly floods of music. “Symphonies under the Stars” is what some inspired person has named a series of musical entertainments for summer nights in the Bowl. And there are other entertainments also; Shake- spearean plays and operas, with great artists from the east and from Europe; but even mediocre music wouldn’t sound mediocre, spraying up to that high dome of spangled sapphire and silver. What could be more different from the Bowl than Montmartre? . . . Montmartre is just one of the gayest little restaurants in the world. It is even more amusing than Ciro’s or the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo—which is saying a good deal! At a Monte Carlo restaurant the most stared at celebrity after the Prince of Wales, perhaps, would be a famous film star. But Monte Carlo might get Gloria Swanson, or Lillian Gish, or Norma Talmadge, or Jackie Coogan. It would never be able to grab all four at once. At Mont- 20SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! martre the average stars of “first magnitude” present at a luncheon any day of the week would be thirty or forty; while on the restaurant’s big day—Saturday—the tables and dancing floor blaze like an eastern zenith at midnight. The effect of so much beauty is dazzling to the eyes. One needs dark glasses I And the stars never seem to tire of revolving in each other’s circles, for they give luncheon parties and dinner and supper parties for each other at Montmartre. There are also the neigh- bouring beaches which are alluring and beautiful, especially in summer; and if other people are like Alice, the thrill of bathing in the Pacific can never die; yet Montmartre is always full to capacity from the hour it opens till the hour it shuts after its smart cabaret shows. But what the latter hour is, I don’t expect ever to find out! Speaking of Montmartre, at the time of writing one of its chief attractions is an unofficial attrac- tion. It is of the female sex, young, and “easier to look at” than many of Hollywood’s famous “visions.” She is like a girl in a story book. Indeed, I be- lieve several stories and a play or two have been secretly founded on her. She has wavy auburn hair (natural) and quantities of it. Her eye- brows are delightful, although, or because, they’re not plucked. Her curled dark lashes are not less 21ALICE IN MOVIELAND than an inch in length. Her skin (not made up) and features are perfect. So is her figure. She is eighteen or twenty in age. Her gentle manner is that of another day. Most men in Hollywood are more or less in love with her, or would be if they dared. All would fight for her if need be. She has had many offers to “go into pictures,” but has refused. She is constantly asked for interviews, but will give none. She is rude to no man, yet will flirt with no man. Her business— or would you call it “profession”?—is to offer cigars and cigarettes in a basket to the clients of Montmartre. Yet hardly any one knows who she is. She is a Beautiful Mystery, and not for publicity’s dear sake. You can see, therefore, that you have the World’s Eighth Wonder at Montmartre, Holly- wood. If, after this has been printed and read the Santa Fe road has to put on extra trains, none of the passengers will be disappointed—unless she has gone—back to her unknown kingdom or principality, or whatever it is. Even so, there will be left the rest of Hollywood; and there will be the Legion Stadium, where the Friday night prize fights are. Maybe you don’t love prize fights? But if you do, these are “corkers,” and they draw all Hollywood. Hollywood never tires of them. It’s called the “Legion” Stadium be- cause the local post of the American Legion, 22Jackie Coogan In the Military Uniform He Wears at School (Photo R. H. Louise)SO THIS IS HOLLYWOOD! composed entirely of men who fought in the World War, built it six years ago (six years at Hollywood equals about sixty elsewhere) with the object of aiding widows and orphans of Legion men. All the profits, and they are very large, go to this charity. Hollywood wives say that five thousand Hollywood husbands are at the Stadium every Friday night, though there are supposed to be seats for only three thousand persons, including bachelors as well as husbands, with a rich sprin- kling of those in the throes of divorce. Such husbands as can’t get into, or don’t care for, the Stadium, can pass delightful evenings at the Writers’ Club, which is the Savage Club or “Lambs” of Hollywood. And when the “Writers” give entertainments, they are the fun- niest, wittiest, and most amusing anywhere. But enough about Hollywood the town! And even Beverly Hills can be better described by telling about the stars who have turned the place into a constellation, than by mentioning it as part of the map. You see, there wasn’t room at Hollywood for the starriest stars to spread themselves, as a pea- cock spreads his jewelled tail. And where is the fun of being a star if you can’t spread your beams —golden beams? Some of the stars, if they wished to live in large, luxurious houses, hemmed in by great gar- 23ALICE IN MOVIELAND dens, had defeated their own ends through buying and selling land. They bought lots comparatively cheap, and sold them incomparatively high; for most of the moving picture stars have made even more money in local land investments than they have in their own profession. When they and others had bought and sold Hollywood, there were all those beauteous little bungalows in green patches of lawn cluttering up the whole place; so most of the richest stars began moving out to Beverly Hills, and building summer houses at Santa Monica and other beaches. Where the richest stars go, there will the next richest go also. And now Beverly Hills, if it isn’t exactly Hollywood, is the cream skimmed off Hollywood. Let’s coin an expression: the “Hollywood blend,” for taking them together (and they can’t be taken in any other way) the screen stars form, as I said—a colony—a galaxy —what you will—unique on earth.CHAPTER III THE SKY OF STARS Once upon a time, if a man had a Greek profile and a girl had long eyelashes, Hollywood was the goal. Beauty was enough. Or in lieu of beauty, vaudeville fame might get one there. But those were the almost prehistoric days, twelve or four- teen years ago, when we went to the movies be- cause they moved. We are different now. And Hollywood is very, very different! The knockabout artists are knocked out. The men with profiles have had their noses broken (figuratively) by men whose noses matter less than their talents. The girls with eyelashes who couldn’t act are playing mothers to girls who can —with lashes long or short. Some of the early birds who hopped into Hollywood and snapped up the worm of success were rather queer birds. Wild things which they did gave Hollywood a “hectic rep.” Most of those birds have gone where bad birds go. But you know the slogan about mud that sticks. Much undeserved mud has stuck to Hollywood. To far-away people who know little about the 25ALICE IN MOVIELAND place except “scare lines” which they see in news- papers, “Hollywood” and another shorter word beginning with H are practically twins. These people don’t stop to argue, when they read sensational news of a divorce or a murder, that nothing worse happens in Hollywood than in most towns of equal size. The difference be- tween Hollywood and Noggsville, for instance, is, that we all know the Hollywood names. When Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Noggsville are divorced, or when one Jones murders another, we scarcely glance at the paragraph which bares the family skeleton. Who cares about a Jones skeleton, any- way, in Noggsville? Whereas the word “Holly- wood” topping a column catches the eye. “The Truth about Hollywood” sounds like scandal. But actually it would scatter scandal to the four winds. Or, if things are a bit livelier in Hollywood than in Noggsville, that’s because where everyone who matters is young, rich, con- spicuous, and emotional life is bound to be lived at high pressure. That is the reason why Hollywood is a sort of Wonderland as well as Movieland, and why it is unlike any other place on earth which has been invented yet. The cream of beauty and dramatic talent is being skimmed off many countries and imported to Hollywood. In Hollywood are assembled 26THE SKY OF STARS hundreds of handsome, clever people in the very prime of their youth. Because they are clever and handsome they have become enormously rich. Girls of twenty and boys of twenty-five are mil- lionaires. It is dazzling, and maybe some of them were a little dazed by their own brilliance at first. But now their eyes have become accus- tomed to the light; and the best stars are not only ambitious for success, they want to live up to it when they have got it. A few years ago, when you’d leaped or stag- gered to the peak of the movie world, you en- gaged a lot of experts. One designed your mar- vellous new house. That is, it was meant to be marvellous. Sometimes it wasn’t. Or it was, but in the wrong way. Another expert decorated the mansion from cellar to attic, if any. And often that went wrong. Not the cellar, for special pains were taken with that, but the rest. Occasionally the antiques weren’t antiques, the Persian rugs weren’t Persian, and the “first edition” books were not even second. Gardens that cost thousands looked like patchwork quilts, and marble swimming baths would have been first class advertisements for cement corporations. Or, even if things were well done, results were tragic when the latest model of American flapper was built into a medieval castle complete with moat, or a wild and woolly cowboy doing “West- 27ALICE IN MOVIELAND erns” was fitted into a sixteenth century Venetian palace. Surrounded by these effects, which made un- becoming haloes, the Bright Stars began furiously to think. They thought so hard that they have changed themselves and incidentally changed Hollywood. If you meet them on their native— no, adopted!—heath, you don’t even need to be told this. You feel it, you see it for yourself. The Superior People of this funny world of ours, the ones who pride themselves on knowing everything (they mean everything disagreeable about everybody else), catalogue the screen stars as tailors’ models and “dumb bells.” What they don’t know is, that their ideas have exploded. They are “old stuff.” The truth about the High Lights of Hollywood is that they are very high lights indeed. Brilliant, they are! And brilliant they have to be. If they weren’t, they would soon be blotted out behind the clouds. Keen wits they must have to cope with a di- rector’s quick-fire instructions, and a memory like flypaper to hold the said instructions through waits in rehearsals which are prize endurance tests. The first magnitude stars of this Hollywood sky—the “fixed” stars—must be born blazing with Elinor Glyn’s famous “It,” for “It” is something 28Reginald Denny The Most Charming of the Young Englishmen in Movieland (Universal)THE SKY OF STARS that can’t be taught. “It” must be there at the beginning, in the raw material which a director will try to shape. On top of an “It” foundation must be piled perfect health, perfect nerves, per- fect patience, plu-perfect courage, and into each small chink left void in this heaped collection of godmother gifts, a scintillating trick from the Bag of Tricks must be tucked. Now perhaps you’ll agree that the possession of all these essen- tials makes, in good Americanese, Some girl, and Some man! Lots of quite successful people in Movieland get on fairly well with only a few of the aforesaid qualities. They play “leads”; they are “fea- tured” now and then until it is discovered that for one reason or other they have little lasting “box office attraction.” And they have to grub along on the paltry pittance of four or five hundred dollars a week. To Alice and others on the outside looking in at Movieland, this cruel gesture of Fate doesn’t sound bad enough to embitter the soul. But that is just what it does—in Hollywood. It embitters the soul and breaks the heart never to reach even the thousand-a-week mark when half your friends rake in five thousand. Why are they different from yozif But there it is. Some mysterious qualities make the stars shine big and bright among the crowd- 29ALICE IN MOVIELAND ing nebulae. And so we come back to the reason why the great ones began to take themselves more or less seriously: why they decided to be as bright as they seemed to be: why they elected to be their own experts. It was really a large order they were giving themselves, these princes and princesses, cabinet ministers, courtiers and subjects in King Doug’s and Queen Mary’s small but radiant realm. Once, they bought books, expensive books, because it was the “thing” to buy books, and good publicity to be photographed in libraries walled with first editions. But by and by it be- came necessary to read books about architecture in order to fight your expert architect and to find out what you really wanted. You read, and you chose. And in Xanadu, alias Hollywood, you did your own pet palace dome decree. You threw off more and more of the Aladdin side of your nature, and played Geni to yourself. You browsed in garden books. What you didn’t know about gardens, Italian, English, Moorish, and Elizabeth-German gardens, wasn’t worth knowing. You pored over two-volume tomes on the subject of old furniture of your favoured nations. The more you read the more your mind expanded. It added vistas of knowl- edge about all the things you fancied most and on which you wished to specialize, until it became 30THE SKY OF STARS difficult to cheat you in the matter of tapestries, Tudor tables, pewter, and paintings by old masters. How the young movie millionaires found time to mix all this reading and studying with their studio work and their recreation, is hard to see; because the studio work begins in the morning and often doesn’t end till night, and because even screen stars must stop sparkling in order to sleep sometimes. But they did mix it. And at present Hollywood has developed into a bright beehive of specialized intelligences. Everybody who is any- body specializes in something outside of the studios. And inside the studios wits have to work so fast that they forget to slow down in play hours. I should say that at few dinner parties in the world are so many amusing repartees tossed off in such rapid succession as at Holly- wood dinner parties. Some of these repartees may be a little crude, but they never fail to be funny, and each arrow of wit hits the bull’s-eye. Not only are the zenith stars alert of brain, but they possess almost every known accomplish- ment, and what they do they do well, because they have to! They dance beautifully; they play various musical instruments; they are good at tennis, baseball, football, golf, and polo. Bridge, too, for they are almost all bridge fiends. They are crack swimmers, divers, runners and riders. 3iALICE IN MOVIELAND They must have the skill and pluck to conduct racing chariots in Roman arenas or motor cars in maddening motor traffic. Being a girl doesn’t excuse you from guiding wild zebras or facing lions or fondling leopards, at a moment’s notice. And climbing out of twentieth storey windows is all in the day’s work—any day’s work. Alice thought she had a right to call herself moderately brave because of a few experiences between the years of 1914 and 1918. But the merest flapper- ette among the Hollywood stars can teach her, without turning a hair, that she didn’t know what courage is.CHAPTER IV “SA” Have you got S.A. ? Do you even know what S.A. is? Well, it’s the One Thing which being without you can never hope to be a worth-while screen star in Hollywood. Without S.A. at Hollywood you are a Wash- out, a Calamity, a Dud. You are not “Something the Cat Brought In.” You are what the “Cat Wouldn’t Stoop to Look At.” By the Cat, one might mean the Director, be- cause no director would glance twice at you un- less your S.A. made him do it. Even with “in- fluence” and “favoritism” you needn’t expect, lacking a spark of S.A., to get a leading or juve- nile part (male or female) in a “crackerjack” picture. Because to set the influence working, you would have had to start it with your S.A. just as you strike a light with a match. “Yes, he’s good-looking,” or “Yes, she’s pretty, but no S.A.” How often you hear that said of an unfortunate man or girl at Hollywood. 33ALICE IN MOVIELAND Without S.A., Venus or Apollo would be “blah” on the screen. But of course they both had S.A. to the nth degree, and knew it well! S.A. was as necessary on Mount Olympus when the world was young and gods and goddesses were best sellers, as it is at Hollywood to-day. A nice, expressive word, “blah!” It saves paragraphs of description about insipid non-per- sonalities. Never had I heard it till I came to Hollywood, and even at Hollywood nobody ever dreams of having to explain the word’s precise meaning. I simply guessed it. The sound when spoken is enough. “Blah!” Somebody is wiped off the map. S.A., however, is an abbreviation which may need to be explained outside Hollywood, New York and Chicago. Two words will do it! —the two words for which the letters “S.A.” have been intimately associated for the purpose: “Sex Appeal,” pure and simple: so to speak! S.A. and Elinor Glyn’s It are closely related to each other, yet they are not one and the same thing. No, not the same, I insist. Still—can one exist without the other? “It” may be translated, according to Madam Glyn, into “personal magnetism.” But, if you possess personal magnetism, can you, man or woman, be without sex appeal? Or, can sex ap- peal exist in a human being without magnetism? 34“S.A.” . . . I should label them the Siamese twins of attractiveness. In any case, have your S.A. thoroughly tested at home, in drawing-rooms, at dinner parties and dances, walking in Bond Street or the Rue de la Paix, on Fifth Avenue or “Main Street,” or wherever eyes can flash a message of admiration to other eyes and hands tingle to the touch of other hands, before you pay your fare to Holly- wood with the intention of storming studios I Without S.A. you can saunter along the princi- pal boulevards of Hollywood, wearing a gold crown and a diamond girdle, or a boudoir cap and pink pyjamas, without attracting an eye. If you are without S.A., people who pass will think you are got up for a picture, and then they will stop thinking about you, to think of themselves or somebody else. Whereas, on the contrary, you will be picked out by fascinated glances even if you are in dust-stained travelling clothes, pro- vided you have enough S.A. Nothing can hide nor dim S.A.! It is quite amusing for Alice in Movieland to see girls “turning on” this S.A. for the benefit of important directors, or for anyone who may “do them good.” For S.A. though “if present is never absent,” (to add one more Irish Bull to the stockyard) can lie quiescent or be brought to the 35ALICE IN MOVIELAND front. Electric light is always ready to flash when the switch is pressed. But put a Holly- wood star or would-be star in a roomful of bores who add lack of influence to their general boring- ness : then whisk them into the presence of Power- ful Persons and observe the difference in their demeanour. In the first scene, S.A. and It are both taking a rest. In the second, those soul windows, the eyes, are no longer empty. Something wonderful and irresistible is looking out. Magnetism might al- most be seen surrounding the whole figure in a pulsing aura. S.A. is no new invention. It is older than Cleopatra: as old as Eve perhaps, though I don’t feel that Eve understood how to use it, or Adam would not have behaved like a cad to her in the apple affair. It was merely left to Hollywood to give the thing a name, S.A. being more necessary on the screen than anywhere else. You see, on the stage, if a woman has beauty without S.A., she can obtain a certain cache, by her exquisite appearance and clothes. Or a man lacking S.A. can have a delightful voice, or a per- fect tailor. But on the screen the most beautiful clothes don’t look beautiful enough to attract an audience. The star must have both S.A. and It to spring off the screen into your acquaintance, your intimacy: to be remembered, and loved, or 36“S.A.” even intensely hated: to make you pay your money to look into those compelling eyes again. There are some screen actors and actresses whose names you can never recall. They were quite good, but they made no lasting impression upon you. You didn’t ask yourself the reason. But at Hollywood they would tell you: “Why, the poor fish has no S.A.” All the stars I mean to talk about, have both It and S.A.CHAPTER V “MARY AND DOUG” IN THEIR KINGDOM You can be in a Kingdom and not of it. But film folk whose homes are within the realm of King Douglas Fairbanks and Queen Mary Pick- ford must never stray Beyond the Pale if they wish to remain in Movieland’s social swim. Once upon a time you could behave pretty well as you liked, and “get away with it” if you were rich enough, and good-looking enough, to take liberties with the conventions. But you can’t do that nowadays. If you do, Queen Mary and King Doug won’t know you. Not that they will be rude. You will simply not exist for them, and in that case a number of attractive doors will be shut for you. It is the fashion now in Hollywood to be good, and the King and Queen of Movieland have not only set the fashion, but they keep it going. If Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks look the other way when you pass by, it is like having your presentation at Court cancelled at the last minute: for these two stand for all that’s best in Movieland—which really means in any land. 38“MARY AND DOUG” “Doug” graduated from one of America’s most famous Universities; and even in his early youth and stage days he was celebrated for his quick wit. Mary, though she Still looks almost a child even off the screen, and has a manner to match her lovely smile, hides under her golden hair one of the keenest intellects I’ve ever encountered. It has as many sides as a well cut diamond has facets. You can talk poetry and romance with her, in several languages. Yet I should be sorry for a business man who hoped to get the better of her, or a merchant of antiques who expected to cheat her. And if she would use one of her own plots for a picture, instead of going to some- body else for a story, I believe she would produce a more striking film than she has had yet. Kings and queens have to be met at home, if they are to be known as human beings, and not— so to speak—monuments historiques. One of Alice’s first moves in Movieland is of course made in a motor headed towards the royal residence, at Beverly Hills. Tea, it is to be, alone with Queen Mary. But Alice has already met King Douglas. In fact, she sat next him at a dinner party. Mary was there too, but at the far end of a long table, so only a glimpse of her bright head could be got now and then, among other heads, and, above massed 39ALICE IN MOVIELAND decorations of flowers. Such glimpses as were obtainable, however, Douglas took. His eyes were always straying to Mary. “Doesn’t she look sweet?” he asked. “I helped her choose that pink dress. Suits her, doesn’t it?” Alice selected several subjects of conversation, but his favorite one seemed to be that of his wife; and now at tea with Mary, Alice mentions this. Mary laughs, an affectionate, pleased little laugh. “Yes, he’s still quite attentive to me!” she admits. Then Alice tells her hostess another anecdote of the dinner party. “Mr. Fairbanks,” begins Alice, “tried to chaff me: what we call in England ‘pull my leg.’ We were talking about books. ‘Oh, yes, I like books,’ he said. ‘I send my valet out to buy mine: two yards of green books, one of red, three of blue, one of yellow, etc., according to which colour scheme seems best in the library.’ Too bad! I happened to know that he’s quite a bookworm, and a great student of history, so his little joke fell rather flat on me.” “He does love to browse in history,” Mary agrees. “He likes to look up everything for him- self when he is ready to begin a costume picture. He goes back into the period, whatever it may be, and lives there till the film is finished. Then he comes up from under, into modern times again. 40“MARY AND DOUG” And nobody is more modern than Doug when he is modern I” Mary talks as she pours tea, which has been brought into the drawing-room on a noble silver tray, by a very English looking butler. In fact, the whole house inclines to be English, outside and in, though in their travels Mary and Doug haven’t been able to resist the lure of a few rare pieces of old French and Italian furniture, and tapestry like some dim dream of the past. Mary knows, however, how to place her treasures so that nothing is out of keeping with anything else. More than one ancient chest or cabinet or table had lived through historic adventures when our Earth was a few hundred years younger than it is now. Yet never could the cherished thing have been happier or luckier than it is at Beverly Hills to-day. Alice hopes she doesn’t stare crudely at “the World’s Sweetheart,” yet it’s hard to turn the eyes away especially after tea, in the garden, when the late afternoon sunlight gilds the gold of Mary’s famous hair, and shows the clear, young perfection of her skin innocent of make-up. She hasn’t bobbed her hair. Doug begged her not to cut it (no wonder, Alice thinks!) so she has tried to give the “effect of a bob” without the clipped reality. This must be difficult, for Mary has such long, thick masses of naturally golden 4iALICE IN MOVIELAND hair. But she is not a young woman to fail in anything she wants to do, even if it seems a trifle. As Alice walks beside the small, slight figure in its pale green sports frock shot with silver, she remembers what a cat of a woman, who had never succeeded in meeting Mary Pickford, said to her about the star. “Oh, you’ll be awfully disappointed with her off the screen. They say her hair is a wig and her make-up an inch thick. Of course she isn’t young, for she’s been in the pictures forever. And she hasn’t an idea outside films!” The truth about Mary is exactly the opposite. Heaven gave her every hair of that “wig,” also its pale golden glint, so pale that the little curls at the nape of her neck are like the gold of a baby’s head. As for make-up, why should she use it except for the screen, when she has skin of a roseleaf texture far prettier than powder and rouge. She has been “in the pictures” for a long time, it’s true; but that’s because she began at twelve, and at the age of thirteen played grown up parts in long dresses and hats which made her look twice as old as she does now. And then, about her “ideas!” Alice finds, as she talks with Mary, that the tiny creature at her side not only has “ideas,” and original ones, about nearly every subject in the world, but knowledge as well. The childlike 42e- pff Mary Pickford (United Artists)“MARY AND DOUG” Mary is in fact a person of culture and unusually strong intellect. Indeed, oddly enough, Alice’s first impression of Mary is her strength, the kind of strength you see in a delicate yet straight- stemmed, upstanding flower that would resist a rain storm when heavier flowers might fall. Alice almost unconsciously studies this impres- sion of strength in the dainty Mary, and wonders if it doesn’t come, in part at least, from early responsibility of position. Her poise is rather like that of some young royalty who has had to bow and smile to the populace from balconies and motor cars since he or she was ten years old: who has had to open bazaars and bridges, and study, while standing always in the limelight, how to give a host of loyal subjects what they want. “A sweet, pretty, gracious little thing!” That would be one description of her. But it would be pitifully incomplete without another: “A young woman who would be remarkable in whatever sphere and career Fate chose for her.” Sweet she is, and generous, I know, because I’ve heard of many kind acts which the right hand of Mary doesn’t let her left hand know about. One side of her is a warmhearted, generous child that loves the toys of life, and has its quaint, childlike little whimsies and superstitions. For instance, she has a canary bird which must be her 43ALICE IN MOVIELAND travelling companion wherever she goes, or Mary won’t travel. She actually took it abroad with her when she and Doug went to England and Europe last time. She talks to the bird and the bird talks to her, but the language most used be- tween them is bird language. Mary learned it “by instinct,” and speaks it perfectly now, with- out even a “foreign accent,” as the canary will tell you if you can pick up enough words of the right “lingo” for a conversation. And bird language is far from being the only one that Mary has learned; not quite by instinct, the others, but more quickly and in a way more instinctively, than most of us learn. Mary and Alice drift into talk about languages; and you remember with what curiosity Alice-in- Wonderland asked questions of everyone there. So, with Alice in Movieland, and of course Queen Mary is perhaps the one above all others of whom it’s worth while asking questions. “How, and when in the world do you find time to learn French and Italian, with all the thousand and one things you have to do every day?” Alice wants to know. And then comes one of Mary’s smiles, which we joyously pay money to see on the screen. Well, Alice is getting them for noth- ing, and they are even more delicious than on the screen, for Mary is far prettier “making a per- sonal appearance” in her own house or garden, or 44“MARY AND DOUG” somebody else’s house or garden, than in the mere flat black and white of a film. Yes, she smiles, and shows her charming little milk white teeth! “Why, a funny thing about me,” she says, “is that the more things I’m doing at one time, the better I seem able to do each of them. Anyhow, most of my most strenuous things to do happen at the same time, so it’s lucky that I love to manage them all at once.” “Maybe,” suggests Alice, “in your incarnation before the last, you drove a racing chariot with a lot of blooded horses or prancing zebras, and never got your reins tangled up.” “Maybe,” says Mary. “I do believe the easiest part of it would have been not to get the reins tangled up!” “I’m sure you won every race you ran!” re- marks Alice. “I hope I did win,” smiles Mary. “It’s good to succeed in what we do. It gives such a nice warm feeling round the heart!” She has just been telling Alice, apropos of this digression into ancient history, how, just when she is planning a new story for a picture, studying the scenario, or settings, or even doing the picture itself (which alone means hard work from morn till dewy eve), she isn’t quite satisfied with life unless she is arranging another herbaceous border in the garden, or consulting Doug about a larger 45ALICE IN MOVIELAND swimming pool, and building a new room, or wing on the house, or decorating it when it’s built; and choosing a couple of motor cars, while in between times she takes a rest cure by learning French, or maybe Spanish. So there is your real Mary Pickford! And that isn’t all of her, by any means. While you feel inclined to protect the dainty little creature, look- ing up at you with sea-blue eyes from under long lashes, something within tells you that this same little creature is unbreakable as tempered steel. She would be capable of managing your most in- tricate business affairs, if she undertook them, better than you could manage them yourself. In fact, among the many things for which this queen is famous, is her amazing capacity as a business woman. Work is play to her; yet play isn’t work. She is too romantic in one part of her nature, ever to let it be that. And her real kindness of heart gives her perfect tact. What, after all, is tact, if not a wish to be kind and save the feelings of others? Of course the answer to that question might be: “Tact can be shrewd policy.” But that’s only a cheap answer, for such tact is a mere mask. The right sort of tact is heart-deep; and that is Mary Pickford’s sort. If she had to manage people as one of her early incarnations may have managed those racing 46“MARY AND DOUG” horses and zebras, she would do it so sweetly, so tactfully, that they’d never dream they were being managed. She’d make them think her way was theirs. And they would wish to do what she wanted them to do. It would be so nice to please her, and get that smile I Maybe Alice has now told you enough about the Queen of Hearts up-to-date, for you to see that the queen in question doesn’t spend much time in her “parlor eating bread and honey.” Instead she sips the honey of life, as she goes, and finds a lot of it in “being herself” to those she loves. After King Doug, I fancy, Mary Pick- ford’s mother comes next in her heart. The two have always been devoted, and nowadays Mrs. Pickford is near to Mary at Beverly Hills, where she has built no less than four houses, and lives in the prettiest one, a very Italian mansion with a garden to match. I suppose one may call Charlie (no, Mr. Charles!) Chaplin the Prime Minister of this Kingdom. Anyhow, Alice will take that liberty! He is an erratic Prime Minister, and “Enigma” is his “middle name.” Yet he fills the position as no other man could; and of course he could easily be a king on his own account, if he could “be bothered” to settle down and start a kingdom. That, however, would be just what he’d hate most: “settling down” to any sort of routine at 47ALICE IN MOVIELAND all outside the bounds of his studio where work and routine must be one. He is perhaps the only star of the films whose intellect has never been questioned. Everyone seems to know, without being told, that Charles Chaplin’s genius isn’t confined to the screen. It covers with its brilliance anything he chooses to undertake, and like most geniuses of the world he is unhappy. Geniuses “hear voices,” and those who hear the voices hear the sad music of the spheres. They hear it from the days of their childhood, or rather, from the nights when they lie, very small and lonely in the dark, and dream. When geniuses are happy it is only for a little while, and in flashes which leave intensified black- ness by contrast. So it is with Charlie Chaplin. If there ever was a creature of moods, it is he. And if one stopped to think, one would know that about him, by the tragedy in his eyes when he wishes to express tragedy. From the wildest comedy which sends you into fits of laughter, he can do something with those eyes of his— something which is all depth of expression con- veyed mysteriously, subtly, without gesture or motion—that starts your tears. If he did not have these moods himself he wouldn’t know how to make you feel them. Remember the scene in “The Gold Rush” when the young tramp miner waked from his dream of 48MARY AND DOUG” love, at the poor little dinner table he had decked for the heroine of his romance, and found the lighted candles burnt out with his disappointed hopes. There was just a look in the lonely boy’s eyes. It lasted no more than a few seconds as the moving film carried the scene away. Yet I’ve still to meet the person who saw the picture and could forget the look. It was a look which only a man who has known the most tragic loneliness— loneliness of the soul—could be able to express. I recall in the old, old “custard pie” days, when we didn’t memorize the names of screen actors, even if we had heard or seen them, exclaiming in a “cinema palace,” as we called the things then, “There’s a wonderful fellow!” It was Charlie, the one, the only, the immortal Charlie. But we didn’t know then that he or any screen figure was destined to artistic immortality; so I pride myself now upon my vision. He was clowning, of course; and as to pies, he was either the thrower or the thrown at. But I saw him first as a down-trodden waiter with the soul of a romantic lover-prince. I think Mabel Normand was the lovely maiden with whom the little waiter was hopelessly in love, though that’s a detail, except for the fact that Mabel Normand was the finest comedienne the screen has ever had. The real point is that I felt, and said, “That man could play Hamlet if he wished.” And Hamlet would be no harder to 49ALICE IN MOVIELAND “put across” perhaps, because real comedy is more difficult in literature and dramatic art than tragedy. In a manner of speaking, tragedy “does itself.” I wonder why we have taken to talking of Charlie Chaplin and even thinking of him as Charles? It isn’t that he has ever “high hatted” or “up-staged” us, as the slang goes here. Prob- ably it is the dignity of his great genius which has impressed itself upon us all, though he is as funny as ever in his films, or even funnier because more subtle. In Hollywood he is particularly and especially “Charles” to his friends, because of all those many moods I mentioned. The name abbreviated to “Charlie” isn’t a big enough cup to hold half the varying moods which even his best friends will never quite come to understand. How could they, when he doesn’t understand them himself or guess when the next one is due? If he sternly mastered his own moods, he might possibly be more satisfactory to himself and others, but he wouldn’t be half as wonderful. He wouldn’t be Charles Chaplin. Do you remember the queer song with very little rhyme and no reason whatever, that the “Tommies” all used to sing in the war— The moon is shining bright on Ch—arlie Chaplin? 50“MARY AND DOUG” They sang it in the trenches, and they were glad Charlie wasn’t there. They wanted him to be happy and safe. Charlie wasn’t glad not to be there. He tried to go, and wasn’t allowed, so he gave up most of his time to helping the boys who had gone—the boys who thought of him when they were under fire and were glad to picture him under the calm white moon. Always he has been helping someone, especially those who are down and out. He remembers dark days of his own, when success seemed an impossible dream. And his moodiness can’t be lightened much, I should say, by thoughts of those who have proved cruelly ungrateful. There have been a number of these; yet Charlie Chaplin has more warm and loyal friends than most men, and deserves every one. His friends, however, have to hold on to their sense of humour at times, as tightly as a man holds his hat in a hurricane. You might as well invite a wild bird to peck crumbs with you at a certain hour to-morrow, as invite Charlie to lunch or dine! If he likes you, he will say “Yes,” and as the slang goes, he “won't mean maybe.” He will intend to accept. But—well, he is Charlie Chaplin, the man of moods. One thing he can’t stand, when away from the studio, is to have fixed plans mapped out for him, and be obliged to fol- low a program. Even if he has originated the S1 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS libraryALICE IN MOVIELAND plan himself, it is bad enough; to be shackled by someone else’s plan makes him feel like a trapped thing. He must escape! If Mr. Chaplin had been born a royal prince, instead of the prince of comedians, he would have driven aide-de-camp and equerry and everyone else around him, out of their minds. Imagine him opening a bridge or launching a ship or anything dull like that, at a certain appointed hour I But no, it is beyond imagining. An under- study, as much like the prince as all those won- drous doubles in Ruritania stories and Hollywood movies, would have to be engaged, ready to slip into any uniform in any emergency. Even as it is, Prince Charlie has social under- studies. Maybe he doesn’t know that: but they are important in Hollywood society. They need not resemble Mr. Chaplin. The essential qualities for such understudies are charm, good nature, and a certain amount of popularity and impor- tance. Not too much of the two last, otherwise they might refuse to play the part for which they are cast. Picture the situation if you are a young man, not too humble, yet not vain enough to fit Bert LeVino’s famous “Seven H’s of Hollywood: Holy Howling Hell, How He Hates Himself!” (Bert LeVino, by the way, is a star scenario writer, at the very top of the hill; and more about him later.) 53MARY AND DOUG” You, the nice young man, are opening your letters in the morning, when your telephone rings. You have a thrill when the voice of a leading star calls you sweetly: “Hello, nice boy, will you do me a great favor?” Instantly you pledge yourself to the last drop^ of blood. ' “Well, dear thing, it’s this way! . . .” Then you learn that she has asked eleven people to dinner to-morrow night, at her wonder- ful Aztec mansion (she doesn’t flaunt its wonder- fulness or Aztecness at you through the phone, or allude to it as a mansion. You are informed of these details already from the newspapers which must have provided the lady with at least a million clippings. But she knows that you know that she knows her invitations are exciting). Charlie is her guest of honour, and the others are his special friends, otherwise she would have invited you before. However, of course, she is dying to have you, and here is the scheme she has just evolved. She can’t have thirteen, but will you keep yourself free, in case anyone drops out—a thing you know is so likely to happen in Hollywood at the last moment. You do know perfectly well who is the one per- son practically certain to “drop out,” and you know that the lovely lady is juggling with you. But you assure her that you quite understand, and 53ALICE IN MOVIELAND she can call upon you even when the soup is on the table. This is an extra gesture of chivalry on your part, because when the soup is on, the cocktails will be off. Still—noblesse oblige! And maybe you are merely a juvenile lead who hasn’t yet reached stardom. If Prince Charlie hasn’t disappeared behind the black, purple, or crimson cloud of some new mood before dinner time on the appointed night, you will be called by that sweet, siren voice and the news will be broken to you. “Everyone has turned up, dear boy, so I needn’t bother you this evening. But I shall be asking you to lunch and dance with me soon at Montmartre. Maybe on Saturday.” She won’t do anything of the sort. She’ll for- get the promise and you, as these dear stars of Hollywood do forget all the people and things not of supreme importance to themselves at the moment, aware that they’ll be forgiven for doing so. When she says “Everyone has turned up,” she means the one, and you can crawl off, a decrepit wreck in your smart dinner clothes, to eat, perhaps to drink, at the nearest restaurant. You are one of the broken hearts of Hollywood. But you’ll do the same thing again the next time, and the next. Hope springs eternal in this king- dom of youth and light—and short memories. If, by good luck for you and bad luck for your 54“MARY AND DOUG” hostess, Charlie has had a change of heart, alias mood, he will have ’phoned the lady. So sorry, he is! But he is obliged to work late at the studio. He has got to be in the cutting room. Nothing less would stand between him and a dinner party at her house. Then it is her turn to get off the “Quite understand” patter! She is as sweet as cream and sugar, though she wants to bite the receiver as she jams it back in place, because everyone forgives Charlie Chaplin, and even, to a certain extent, does “understand.” He isn’t like anybody else in the world. Maybe he has to be at the studio. Maybe he merely wants to be alone, to think, or maybe he has had an inspiration for his next picture, and must work it out at once or lose it forever. There’s just one consolation: at the time he accepted he wanted to come or he wouldn’t have said he would! Even if one of the guests tactlessly announces that, on the way to the Aztec mansion he saw Charlie at Henry’s, the disappointed hostess bears no grudge. She hopes that fate may be kinder next week or next month. And she knows that when Mr. Charles Chaplin does appear at a dinner party, he makes up for all the times of turning down! Impossible to find a guest more delightful than the one and only Charlie! He is gay, he is witty, he is always ready to entertain the party with 55ALICE IN MOVIELAND mimicry which convulses them. He doesn’t spare himself in any way. He can tell stories as no one else can tell them, and never has he been known to tell the same one twice. He has read every worthwhile book, old or new, under the sun. He has a deep knowledge of and love for music. He is one of the few actors who would rather talk about other people than about himself. Music is one of the subjects on which he can be really stirred, and I think that a stone wall builds itself up between him and any other soul who cannot be thus moved. Once upon a time, about five or six years ago, when the famous and fascinating Pola Negri dawned upon Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin was one of the men whose admiration she quickly captured. And apropos of music, Pola Negri loves it as dearly as Charles does. But she has to be sure it is music, in order to love it, so one night a funny thing happened. For Charlie, Hawaiian music has a peculiar thrill. A delicate spirit of poetry and romance calls to him in those frail notes which seem born of soft winds sighing among the reeds that shadow southern rivers. So he planned a beautiful surprise for the ador- able newcomer. On a warm night of moonshine, he sent his favourite Hawaiian band to steal into Pola’s garden and play their sweetest, saddest airs. 56“MARY AND DOUG” Just as Miss Negri’s first beauty sleep had folded her in its wings, sounds under her bedroom windows awakened her with a start. Yes, for her they were just sounds, not music at all, so the story goes. And if it be true, she is not the only one. The surprise serenade spoiled her night, and the gossip was that things were never quite, quite the same again between her and Mr. Chaplin. Apparently they made up their minds that after all they were not kindred souls. Just as well, perhaps, for if two such tempera- mental persons had married, each might have made the other miserable. And in any case, Charles Chaplin’s best friends say he might have known about himself what they always knew about him: that he could not be “happy though married.” According to them, Cleopatra herself, whom “time could not wither nor custom stale,” couldn’t keep up with him in flashes of wit or variety of mood. And then, no one ever heard Cleopatra likened to an angel. Only an angel of understanding and patience, a mental rainbow, and a spiritual kaleidoscope, could be the ideal wife for Charlie. There’s an old saying among stage and screen folk, when they want to scratch with the right 57ALICE IN MOVIELAND hand and pat with the left: “He can’t act. But he’s good to his mother.” Well, Charles Chaplin can act. We all know that. And also he is extremely good to his mother. . . . There is a true story about that. The mother of the One and Only Charlie, and the clever Syd (who sometimes, in “straight parts,” looks so like his brother that it gives you a start) was terribly affected by the Zeppelin at- tacks on London, during the war. She was no coward, but her nerves never recovered from the continued shocks, one following upon another, and the constant raids of German airplanes. She became melancholy, and the best nerve specialists could do little or nothing to help her. Then it occurred to her son Charles that he might succeed where the specialists had failed. He got the idea that the bright climate of Cali- fornia might bring the shattered nerves back to normal. Doctors advised against the long jour- ney, and said it would be better for the invalid to remain in England, well looked after—by themselves—and trained nurses. But Charlie Chaplin wouldn’t believe them. And he wouldn’t listen to Hollywood counsellors who told him that his own nerves would break under the strain of trying to cheer the beloved mental sufferer. “My mother did everything for me and sacri- ficed everything for me when I was a boy,” he 58“MARY AND DOUG” argued, “and I’m not going to let her be looked after by strangers. It’s my job!” So he prepared a beautiful house near his own at Beverly Hills, and Mrs. Chaplin came, for a “love and sunshine cure.” Her son devoted him- self entirely to his mother. He even let her interfere with his work, that absorbing religion of the moving picture star. For a time it seemed that she was improving. But after a while a strange nostalgia for dear, grey old England overwhelmed the invalid. She wanted to “go home,” so home she had to go. Yet the experi- ment was not wasted. Love is never given in vain. Perhaps, considering all things, however, it isn’t to be wondered at that Charles Chaplin, rich, successful, a genius, has his hours and even days of blackest gloom. This comedian who could play Hamlet would rather sit hunched up on a stool at Henry’s, elbows on knees and chin in hands, his mind a million miles away, than entertain great per- sonages at his own delightful house. He has been heard to say that the only place there where he feels thoroughly at home is the staircase! And certainly it is rather a wonderful staircase, very dignified and dramatic looking, like a staircase in a play where things are bound to happen. When Charlie entertains at home, he sometimes poses on this grand staircase, and does and says 59ALICE IN MOVIELAND funny, inspirational things which make his friends scream with laughter. He is, in fact, the most charming of hosts—if he doesn’t forget he has invited you, and vanish into space. His favourite resort at one time (perhaps it still is) was, as I’ve said, Henry’s, down in Los Angeles. And Henry’s as a resort for other celebrities was practically invented and created by Charlie. It might be described as a “deli- catessen shop,” and so it is, but it is a great deal more since Charles Chaplin made the place fashionable. “Eats” are to be had at any time; but Henry’s comes alive after the theatres close. Then the most dazzling stars assemble and scintil- late. Though Henry’s is in L.A., not Holly- wood, you don’t know Hollywood until you have spent some “small hours” at Henry’s. Such success has poured in upon Henry through Charlie, that a fine new establishment is to super- sede the dear old delicatessen. “All passes, all changes, all breaks!” But there is ever something new, something 'amusing in the bright kingdom of Douglas and Mary where Charles Chaplin is Prime Minister, and the humblest subject may turn into a prince or princess on the strength of one amazingly successful picture.CHAPTER VI CECIL B. DE MILLE AND HIS STUDIO STARS 1 This is what Alice in Movieland thinks about the Hollywood studios—including the equally im- portant ones of brand-new neighbouring Culver City and Burbank. She thinks that they are the most fascinating, fantastic places on earth to visit; and that they ought to be deadly dull for those who work in them, from the brightest star in the sky, down to the dimmest “extra.” But, the fact is, she “thinks wrong” when she thinks that second thought. The bees adore the hive. They couldn’t be smoked out! The stars and other top liners tell of how they get tired and bored, but they don’t really do either. What heaven is to devout souls, that is the studio to a moving picture actress: a director, a scenario writer, a “titler,” a continuity expert, a cutting room power, a camera man, an electrician, and so on, away down to the merest mechanician, or the man who moves the chairs. Only no one is “mere” who is one of the workers of Movieland. 61ALICE IN MOVIELAND Each person employed is as necessary in his place, as is each piece in an intricate pattern of mosaic. There are so many important studios in Movie- land, that it’s hardly possible to put one above another, up at the higher levels. But if Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford are the king and queen of Movieland society, one naturally turns to Cecil de Mille as the chief figure in the lime- light among producer-directors. Mr. de Mille is not only a chief figure but a great figure. The light beats on him so blind- ingly, that many people are apt to get a distorted view. Some of them want to get distorted views, and look for them. Each clear-cut shadow cast by the light, they point out as a blot. But it seems to Alice that one has only to look at that domelike head of Cecil de Mille’s to know that he has greatness; to meet his eyes, to feel that he has vision. Talking to him, she learns a little—just a flash here and there—about what some of his visions are. She can guess, too, why he is often misunderstood. When a man determines to build a big palace of Art and Industry on top of a mountain, and says to himself, “Whatever happens, I’ll never come down,” he is bound to have trouble. If that palace is to be a great landmark, and its architecture and colour schemes are to be seen 62CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS from very far off, if it is designed to catch the glance even of half-blind eyes, here and there it must have a flamboyant feature, or a lurid splash of purple and crimson. Mr. de Mille is the founder, and designer, and builder of such a palace in Moving Picture Land. He chose a high, conspicuous hill to set it on. And not all the material for it can be of the same grade. There wouldn’t be material enough, of the grade he wants, and is fitted to use. You have only to know and talk with Cecil de Mille to see just why, with all his genius for the right thing and the fine thing, he allows a certain flamboyance of effect here and there, and why he loves the crimsons and purples. That is, you have only to know and talk with him if you are an outsider, and a sympathetic one. I don’t know what sides of himself Cecil de Mille shows to other producers, to his employees in the studio, and to screen folk in general. All I know about that part is; there’s a kind of adora- tion of him in his own studio. All great producers and directors have “yes-men,” as Movieland calls the court flatterers, who bow and scrape before the throne: but there’s far more than “yesman- ism” in the feeling about Cecil de Mille. I can imagine him arrogant and overbearing at one moment; the next, sympathetic and under- standing, friendly and kind. I can imagine him a 63ALICE IN MOVIELAND man with a certain simplicity of nature and a real need for friendship, which something inexplicable (even to himself) in his nature, would force him to hide behind a mask. I can see why many people call him a “poseur,” and I can see exactly where they are mistaken in flinging this term of criticism like a red rag across his character. Those who have depths in them are obliged to pose occasionally. If they didn’t, all sorts of curiosity mongers would be getting down into those depths and exploring them, tourist fashion. Protective colouring has to be used! And as I said, Mr. de Mille is fond of gorgeous colours. In talking with him, Alice was allowed to find out the reason for this. . . . In a very magnificent room he sat. It was a room which would be more in place at Warwick Castle than in a studio building at Hollywood— no, I mean, Culver City. But the personality of Cecil de Mille makes it suitable. It is his right background. Alice says to herself: “I believe if Cecil de Mille got lost in a desert and settled down to live in a tent or a shack, the sunset col- ours would follow him in like faithful dogs, and add their glow to that of his aura.” Besides, he has got the most beautiful studio there is, anyhow! Once, it was the Ince Studio, and the fagade (the entrance hall, too, and the staircase) faithfully copies Mount Vernon, the 64w Cecil B. de Mille, the Producer, and Jeanie MacPherson, Scenario Writer The Wonderful PartnersCECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS house of George Washington, which is an Amer- ican shrine as well as a museum in these days. This vast room is so far behind the Colonial front of the building that you forget that white, severe simplicity, and the nice old negro copy of George Washington’s butler, who ushered you in. The room is rich and rare with splendid tapestries and embroideries, and the sun glints (the California sun is always ready to turn on a good glint!) upon ancient armour, and the magnificent collection of arms which many a millionaire envies Mr. de Mille. There are some singularly interesting statues of Buddha, too, and the minute Alice begins to know Mr. de Mille a little, she feels that he wouldn’t surround himself with these as mere ornaments or curiosities. She guesses (and she guesses right) that Buddha means something to the man who has brought together these images, or rather emblems of a great teacher. I’ve seen Buddha holding up a lamp in the drawing-room of a pretty blonde film star, or pouring incense through holes in the top of his head. But anything of that sort would seem almost as sacrilegious to Cecil de Mille as to treat an ivory Crucifix with irreverence. A conceited man has no reverence. Cecil de Mille has it as one of his most intimate, if least recognized qualities. And here is a sketch of his early youth as he 65ALICE IN MOVIELAND gave it to Alice in a few words, because it ex- plained him as perhaps he could be explained in no other way: including that love of gorgeous- ness ! His father, Henry de Mille, grew up with the idea of being a clergyman in the Episcopal Church which of course is the American offspring of the Church of England. He had an extraordinarily vivid imagination, and told his two sons, Cecil and William, wonderful stories which for the two boys illuminated life in the quiet New Jersey town of Pompton. Not only had the children their father’s home stories to thrill them, but they had also his readings and the interpreta- tions he gave as a lay reader in the country church, before the Sunday evening congregation. Crowds always came on the nights when Henry de Mille took the service, and the two boys were among the most interested members. Their father read extracts from the greatest writers of the world, but, best of all, the children liked his readings and explanations of the New Testament. He made of history, sacred and “profane,” a moving picture for his sons, and his imagination, his eloquence, his sense of drama stimulated their intellect, while they were very young. Nephews, of the novelist James de Mille, the boys read and reread his vivid stories which had made a sensa- 66CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS tion in their day, and Cecil de Mille’s first am- bition as a tiny boy was to write a life of Christ —the Christ his father had made him see as a living figure of super-manhood; not the cold, sad, almost effeminate Christ most other children were taught to worship. The de Mille blood was French, and there was a warm Latin strain that inclined father and sons to drama. But Mr. de Mille attributes his love of colour and music even more to his mother. People sometimes say “the de Milles are Jews.” That is a mistake. The only admixture of Jewish blood comes from the mother’s side. One of her parents was English of the English: the other was half Jewish: and Cecil de Mille gives thanks for the few drops of that blood which reddens the veins of most great musicians, many great artists. Then, after the lay reading days, followed Henry de Mille’s association with David Belasco, and life became more and more dramatic for the boys. But even when Cecil de Mille was a cadet in a military college, even when he was a very youthful volunteer in the Spanish-American War, and a successful actor, he never forgot the im- pression left upon his mind by his father’s stories of Christ. He wanted to give to the world such an image of Christ as his father had made him see. He felt it was that Christ whom the world 67ALICE IN MOVIELAND needed. But it was not until he suddenly found himself interested in moving pictures that he saw a way of making his dream come true. Even then he had to wait a long time: for it was fourteen years ago that he and Jesse Lasky joined forces. But from the day when he began work on his first film, Cecil de Mille kept before him a great ideal, something he was striving for, a building which must be wrought of fine mate- rials so that from the foundation up to a nobly planned tower, each stone with its carving might count. He did not feel that the world was ready to accept the Christ play he wanted to make, until after the war, when so many broken hearts longed for consolation beyond this earth. The Christ his father had made him see was a strong man, with a magnificent intellect, a sword- like wit, a keen, quick sense of humour, and a sympathy that reached up to heaven and down to hell. His Christ was not that meek, emasculated saint which so many old masters painted. Boys were ashamed to worship so dim a figure when, apart from religion, they were taught to thrill over historic heroes of courage. Cecil de Mille’s Christ was braver than any other hero of history, in the ideal given by his father: but it was the Oriental strain in his mother which showed him how to paint his dreams. Always he was working 68CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS up, thinking big thoughts, aiming to do every- thing on the grand scale. Never was a man more eloquent than he, or more able to infect others with his enthusiasms. It takes magnetism to do that; and as the saying goes here, “magnetism is Cecil de Mille’s middle name.” Even now, though the picture was finished long ago, they talk of the amazing at- mosphere that pervaded the de Mille Studio dur- ing the months when “The King of Kings” was being made. “It was more like a cathedral than a studio. There was never anything like it in Hollywood before, and never will be again,” remarks to Alice in Movieland a man who stopped being an atheist when he played a part in that film. There are more things to learn about Holly- wood and Culver City and Burbank than there are plums in a Christmas pudding. Outsiders who get a glimpse of the inside fondly believe that when they have seen one studio it is much the same as seeing all. But that is one of the first mistakes, lying about loose in Movieland, which strangers pick up. You know how alive houses are, and how the lived-in ones have a spirit which gives an indi- viduality and makes them as human in their way as the people who inhabit them. You know how 69ALICE IN MOVIELAND the empty houses fall into a sad, dreamless sleep, or even die. How happy and gay the spirits of the loved houses are, when the dwellers there are kind and affectionate in their family life? . . . How brooding and sullen or even spiteful are the spirits of unloved, neglected houses, whose owners quarrel and hate each other? Well, the spirits of houses aren’t half as alive and individual as the spirits of Movieland studios. The Spirit of the de Mille Studio is dignified, kind, and distinctly masculine. I should say that the spirit is a very great gentleman. I don’t think he would let anyone who came within his influ- ence be rude or ill-bred. People have to live up to, or down to, a studio Spirit, and here they do live up to him, almost involuntarily. The negro in George Washington livery who opens the door for you and Alice is courteous as the famous general’s servants must have been. That’s your first introduction to the de Mille Studio Spirit, and he is waiting for you every- where: in the room of Barret Keisling, one of the best “publicity” men in the big game, “on the sets,” or on the “lot” where you and Alice meet the directors and their stars. “Shooting stars” fall from the skies at the season of the Leonids. In the sky of Movieland, all the stars are being “shot” at all seasons! 70CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS “He’s shooting,” they say of a director or a camera man. And the stars are being “shot” to strains of music appropriate to the scenery of the shooting: sad music, love music, music of laughter or hate. And here is the charming Leatrice Joy! No gentlemen could prefer a blonde, after seeing her. Not that she’s such a pronounced brunette! She is just brunette enough, and that over-worked adjective “charming” describes her better than any other one word could. Most film actresses are charming, of course. It’s their business to be charming. But Leatrice Joy unconsciously lives up to her name, and be- comes joyous. She likes to make others happy. If those around her aren’t happy, she can’t be happy herself. And when she is happy, she is happier than anyone you ever saw! When she is miserable, her despair is black. She would like nothing better than to crawl into a deep, dark hole and draw the hole in after her. Soon the mood would pass. Soon she would want to come out again, and see the sunshine that belongs to her, if ever it belonged to a human being. But she wouldn’t believe this change possible when she hid in the hole. She would believe that she’d want to stay there through eternity and just forget! 7iALICE IN MOVIELAND The first thing she would think of, however, would be her adorable little girl, handsome Jack Gilbert’s child. She and Jack were married for a little while till they decided to divorce and become friends. Next she would think of her part in the following picture: and of course it would be the very best part she had ever had! The third thing she would think of would perhaps be the pretty house she has built for herself “out Beverly Hills way.” So you see she would have several incentives to climb promptly out of that cosy hole which the temperamental side of her nature had lured her to use as a hermitage. Of course, there’d be plenty more incentives, too, for few Hollywood stars have as many friends as warm-hearted Leatrice Joy. She has the most brilliant, laughing eyes (and dimples to match) that any woman could pray for! No wonder the off-spring of Leatrice’s dimples and eyes, and Jack Gilbert’s eyes and dimples is an unusual child. She is only two and a half years old “at time of writing,” but has already made up her mind on most questions of importance. Because she had deigned to show some interest in the subject of Mother’s screen success and other film topics, Leatrice imagined that her daughter had doubtless decided upon a future career for herself. “Would you like to be a movie star, when you grow up, darling?” she 72CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS inquired. After a minute’s reflection, Baby shook her pretty head. “No? Well, then, do you want to go on the stage?” Again a head-shake was the answer. “Dear me! What would you rather be? A writer?” “I would rather be a little lady,” replied Miss Gilbert. “Don’t you think you could be both?” pleaded her mother. “Maybe,” sighed the child. “But I ’spect it’s hard work!” Luckily, Leatrice has never minded hard work, and when she was a small child, in New Orleans, her efforts to please her family by living up to traditions and being a “little lady,” while at the same time pleasing herself by being an actress, used in turn to amuse her mother. In the old New Orleans house was an attic, the favourite playroom of Leatrice. There were trunks packed with forgotten costumes of long ago Mardi Gras carnivals. In these, she used to dress herself, and play many parts. But it wasn’t until she was growing out of childhood, when an attractive advertisement “met her eye,” that she saw a way of making the dreams come true. A motion picture company intending to “produce” in New Orleans wanted a young actress; “must be good 73ALICE IN MOVIELAND looking; experience not essential.” Leatrice applied. So did a few hundred others, but those topaz brown eyes of hers won. Why shouldn’t they win again, she asked herself? They did, and went on winning, though sometimes the film pro- ducers stumbled and fell by the wayside. Strange to tell, however, in Southern California, where Leatrice and her mother arrived at last, “hard- boiled” casting directors failed to see the rare quality behind the beauty of those eyes. The eyes shed a few tears, and then bravely sparkled their brightest in a small theatrical stock com- pany. There the “little lady of the eyes” gained so much experience, that next time she tried for the “pictures,” she jumped straight into a leading part. Since then the topaz brown eyes have “never looked back.” You and Alice watch Leatrice and Victor Varconi, being directed by the wonderful Lois Weber (she belongs in another chapter; so does the brilliant camera “boss,” Frank Miller, once an English jockey) in a scene from “The Angel of Broadway.” Victor is one of Alice’s favourite screen men. And he is a real man! She used to admire him in his Italian films, before he came to Hollywood; and even when she saw him as Pontius Pilate in “The King of Kings,” she supposed him to be an Italian of Italians—or else a Roman, which isn’t 74CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS the same thing, Romans says. But now she learns that he is still less the “same thing.” He is partly Hungarian. Since he moved to Movieland, and learned to speak English so fluently that he’s up in all the newest American slang, whenever a patrician of Latin type is needed Victor Varconi gets an S.O.S. But just lately he is a little “fed up” with an overdose of princehood. The hero of this Salvation Army picture of New York is a truck driver. Victor wanted to play it. Lois Weber said “No, you’re a splendid actor, Mr. Varconi, but you’re not the type.” “I’ll bet I am!” said Victor. “If I get a test made as a rough neck, will you look at it?” Lois said “Yes” to that. And the test was so remarkable that she now thinks Victor Varconi is the ideal truck driver. You and Alice aren’t quite so lucky with Rod La Rocque. Polite as he is, he can’t help showing that he’s “a young man in a hurry”; and you can’t help forgiving him because he’s just about to be married—for the very, very first time. It’s certain, humanly speaking, that it will be the only time as well, because the girl is Vilma Banky. Rod was always a gallant figure, and partic- ularly attractive to women because he was hard to get. He was so devoted to his mother that he never had time to devote himself for very long 75ALICE IN MOVIELAND to any other woman, until one night (this sounds like a screen title!) he went to a dinner party given by the Cecil de Milles in their house on a hill, a house so beautiful that you feel anything romantic may happen in it. From this moment, Rod became even more of a gallant figure than before. He fell in love at first sight of a face, first sound of a voice: Vilma’s face, Vilma’s voice faltering out the prettiest broken English ever heard. It was well for Rod’s luck in love that his English mother had insisted on her son’s learning to speak his father’s language. Unfortified by French, Mr. La Rocque might not have got on so swimmingly from the first moment with the shy Hungarian beauty, for she had then—a few months ago—a meagre supply of English words. Even those she was afraid of putting in the wrong place! She could almost have fallen upon the neck of her dinner partner when he addressed her in fluent French. Later, that language—in which so much love has been made down the centuries— proved a Godsend when Rod invited Miss Banky to do the very thing his friendly French had first suggested (figuratively) to her grateful mind: fall upon his neck! Not that lack of language would have proved a barrier in the end. Rod La Rocque and Vilma Banky have eyes that speak. Besides, as I’ve said, 76CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS screen stars are quick witted in all ways. Love making is one of the ways. The French language helped, however, and soon Rod found himself Vilma’s specially engaged professor of English. You can make use of the Berlitz method better in motor cars, or restaurants, theatres and movies than by staying at home. And as Vilma wasn’t acting in the same studio, but next door at Samuel Goldwyn’s, soon the handsome young couple began going out together. You would have thought Rod La Rocque and Vilma Banky sure to be recognized at sight any- where short of the South Pole. But not so! One night Alice went to the preview of a de Mille picture, at a Hollywood theatre. Admis- sion was granted only to those invited, but a number of seats were roped off for those of the de Mille Studio stars who cared to see themselves or their friends on the screen. In came Rod, looking as inconspicuous as he knew how to look, and the divine Vilma, hiding her light under the “bushel” of a concealing hat. “I haven’t a card,” I heard Rod say pleasantly to a firm-visaged youth who guarded the entrance, not with a flaming sword, but with Power of Personality (twenty-five cents a volume). “I should like to go in, though, with this lady. Perhaps you can find us two seats.” “Sorry, can’t be did!” snapped the hard-faced 77ALICE IN MOVIELAND one. “You can see for yourself, the house is full.” Rod’s good-looking face “fell”—as the funny saying goes. He appeared distressed. Reading his mind “from left to right,” I saw how he hated to have Vilma see him fail as an entertainment manager. Suddenly his eyes brightened. “What about those empty roped-off seats?” he enquired. The guardian looked utterly disgusted by the “poor nut’s” ignorance of Hollywood customs. “Why, they’re reserved for the de Mille Studio stars,” he snorted. “I couldn’t let any outsiders in there.” I knew how Rod must be torn between his Latin temper (which does assert itself at the studio sometimes, when things go wrong) and his British reticence. He had only to announce, “I am Mr. La Rocque, and this is Miss Vilma Banky!” to be led up the aisle as if to the music of a wedding march, with all eyes focused upon the close-up. Instead, he hedged. “Well, I’m from the studio,” he argued meekly. “I said them seats was for stars!” came the snub. That settled it! Rod and Vilma crept away. Slow fade-out! I think, however, they did con- trive later to annex the two worst seats in the theatre, behind a pillar or something. But all the easier to hold hands! 78CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS Rod has done most sporting stunts, from riding unrideable horses to fighting in the war, joining up before he’d reached military age. He has so often just missed being killed, that everyone hopes, now the real wedding march has been played for him (including Vilma) that he will settle down more or less in his charming, new Colonial house in Hollywood, collect antiques, play golf and all sorts of gorgeous parts—the most interesting of which might be entitled, “The Happy Husband.” Rod La Rocque, Victor Varconi, and Joseph Schildkraut are the three de Mille men stars who interest Alice most; well, except handsome Bill Boyd, who was so splendid in “The Volga Boat- man,” and is going to make a gorgeous “West Pointer.” (Funny how three studios have lately cast stars as West Point Cadets! All the better for the national school for turning boys into smart officers. Congressmen will be besieged to give appointments while these films are flitting across the silver screen.) Both Schildkrauts, father and son, are famous of course. Like most Austrians, they have Roumanian, Hungarian, Italian, Roman, Turkish and a few other kinds of blood in their veins. That marvellous mixture, stirred into the Aus- trian soul by fierce fighting and following friend- ships, since the beginning of history, has helped 79ALICE IN MOVIELAND to give the combined charm of many countries. This mystery looks out of Joseph Schildkraut’s eyes. He was one of Freud’s most promising pupils. He could have made fame as a violinist. Young as he is, he fought in the war, though he hates war, and thinks it a stupid, old-fashioned way of settling world difficulties. He acted under Max Reinhardt’s direction. There isn’t much of the world that he hasn’t seen. And now, here he is in Hollywood, a screen star, whose recrea- tions (if you don’t count reading!) are music and tennis. He is quite a champion at tennis, because whatever he does, he must do well! Also he can psycho-analyze you if he likes—and if you aren’t afraid to let him try. Somehow, if you’ve seen “The King of Kings,” you think of H. B. Warner and the Schildkrauts together, because Warner plays the role of Christ, and plays it nobly with an unforgetable expression in his eyes. Because Mr. Warner is an Englishman, and loves England, Alice drags the subject of British films into the conversations. “They can be so splendid—and so successful, too, when the im- portance of direction and continuity has been realized,” he says. “There’s no such thing as American jealousy of British films. Don’t they welcome good German films here? They’d 80CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS rather have good British ones. And I believe the day of British films will come soon.” Jacqueline Logan is one of the girls who gave that “get-into-the-movies-quick” feeling to other girls all over the world. She was just a beauty among other Ziegfield Follies beauties, when Allen Dwan, the famous director, happened to see some photographic studies of her. Two weeks later she was “in the pictures.” And then, Julia Faye! She had never even been on the stage, though off and on she had studied, and meant “some day to be a great actress,” and once she almost got her chance to begin, for she understudied quite a famous woman. If only the lady had fallen ill, as stage stars do in books! But nothing of that sort happened, so Julia came to Los Angeles, as a mere tourist, to visit an Aunt. (Wise girls should cultivate Aunts and other relatives in Southern California!) The Aunt contrived a round of the studios to amuse little Julia. Suddenly a familiar face appeared. “Hello!” exclaimed a man’s voice. “Don’t you remember me?” It was the voice of Christy Cananne, directing a picture; and after a critical look at the girl’s long-lashed, bewitching dark eyes, he offered her a small part. She had her ups and downs, and sandwiched scenario writing with acting now and then. But even that was luck for her, because it brought her 81ALICE IN MOVIELAND to the notice of Cecil de Mille. She is a girl whom even great producers do notice, however, without being told to look her way. It’s a case of such vital personality that clairvoyants are said to see her as a sparkling fountain. Now, Alice asks you, what is the use of warn- ing girls to stay at home and forget to dream about Hollywood? There may be a thousand chances to one against the success of any new- comer, no matter how attractive she may be. But how can a girl help saying to herself, before her mirror, “Why shouldn’t I be the one in a thou- sand? Someone must be!” Take the case of Jetta Goudal, who is for Alice—and lots of other “fans”—one of the fas- cinators. She was born in Versailles, and when she was fifteen ran away from home to join a travelling repertoire company. Think of playing “Sapho” and “L’Aiglon” before you are sixteen! But even that didn’t help her at Hollywood. It was a “long cry” to Hollywood! So was Hol- land, where the girl did such strenuous war work among Belgian refugees that her health broke down. Somehow, she did get to America after the war. But never in her short life had she even seen a moving picture! When she did see one— “Broken Blossoms”—she thought, “Oh, I could never act before a camera! I should die.” Since she wouldn’t go to the movies, the movies came 82CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS to her. They asked for her! She played a small part, and made such a success, that instantly she was cast for a big one. To Alice she is one of the High Lights; and Alice must have “guessed right,” because Cecil de Mille, who isn’t consid- ered exactly “gushing” in his criticisms of stars, has called her a “cocktail of emotions.” People who don’t know say, “It’s easy to be a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty. A girl has only got to have the legs for it, to walk into the job.” All Alice can answer is, “Let the girl with the legs, and without the rest, try it!” Lots of girls have tried it—and then tried something else, with no better success. Legs, body, face, all may be perfect. A girl may even have grace in addition to the rest, and still she may receive that sentence of banishment that Hollywood aspirants know too well. “Leave your address. If we need your type we’ll send for you.” But Phyllis Haver had everything, and became the most beautiful of the Bathing Beau- ties, who are considered the pick of the world for looks. She had more: for she took a holiday from beaches one day, and became a leading lady in “big” productions. You’d never say off hand, “These Movie Visions are too beautiful to have brains,” if you could see Phyllis Haver piling up a fortune in what they snappily call “real estate,” while she looks like a Christmas card cupid, and 83ALICE IN MOVIELAND is still not much more than a child. Oh, these Hollywood “Visions” are not one-sided by any means. You’d be surprised!—and you often are! “Try comedies first,” is the advice that some girls get. Vera Reynolds says it is good advice. But she lived in Los Angeles, and didn’t mind spending half her time in a “trolley car” en route from there, eleven miles to Hollywood, and back from Mack Sennett or the Christie Comedy Studio. “The fat kid,” as she was called then, haunted the slapstick lots, and at last they opened their doors to her. She ceased to be fat, and had become a finished little actress at eighteen, all ready for stardom. And Alice feels that her con- science ought to reprove her for telling other girls these things. Yet how can she resist, after visiting the studio of the “Star Maker,” Cecil de Mille? Besides, she has talked there, to the “boss” and super-casting director of all Movieland, the Canadian, “Bill” Carruthers. Most other casting directors confine their activities to judging “types” for small parts, and engaging extras, male and female. But Mr. Carruthers is different—now, at all events. Pos- sibly he began in that way, though it must have been long ago as time counts in Movieland, where to go back five years is to grope in the dark ages. You can’t help wondering why this casting 84Private Office of Cecil B. de Mille (Photo IP. D. Pearsall) William G. Carruthers Casting Director of All MovielandCECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS director doesn’t cast himself now and then for the part of a handsome, rather sophisticated young Englishman. Perhaps pictures have no honour in their own country. In any case, if tempted he resists, and uses up about fourteen hours of his day in casting other people, deciding knotty problems of production, and so on. He is at the same time a living discouragement to the ambitious ones, and a dangerous lure to them. This is the way of it: “I’ve never yet made a great find, in the casting office,” Mr. Carruthers admits to Alice. He does not mean that he doesn’t select types, many types, good and striking types. He picks them out himself, and his assistants pick them out. They are engaged, and that is that. But he is talking of the startling, exciting event in a casting director’s life which he hopes for always and seldom gets. “I find the outstanding types by accident, generally,” he says. “Or some friend tells me about them. For instance, I went to a Hollywood party one night: what they call a ‘wild Holly- wood party’; but you know they’re not so wild as all that! I saw a girl there who had come out here to visit. If she wanted to break into the movies she didn’t say anything about it. But she was too good for the movies to miss. So I put her in. And she’s still in. Another night I saw a 85ALICE IN MOVIELAND girl in the audience at a theatre. She’d never been nearer the screen than to play an organ in country town picture theatres. But I thought the screen needed her face. And there it is, and will be. “I must say for myself that I think I can pick a winner. When I want other people to agree with me there’s a sad little story I give them as a proof. A Swedish director came to our studio, wanting to sell himself and a film he had made. He ran the picture for me, and I wasn’t impressed by it. I had to tell him so, but I asked, ‘Who is the girl?’ ‘Nobody who would interest you!* he said. ‘Just nobody at all.’ However, I kept the film, and showed it to one of our directors: ‘What do you think of her?’ I wanted to know. ‘I don’t think!’ said he. Still I wouldn’t give up. I tried to show the picture to Cecil de Mille himself, for his judgment is quick and next door to unerring. But I failed again. Mr. de Mille was just going away. That ended the matter, where I was con- cerned. A few months later, however, Mr. de Mille said jokingly to me, ‘Why didn’t you get the Swedish Sensation for us? We ought to have had her!’ “ ‘I did try,’ I explained, and told him my story. The girl was Greta Garbo. “Another time, too, I picked a winner, but didn’t win her! I’d been out of Hollywood on a vacation, so the latest news hadn’t reached me. 86CECIL DE MILLE AND HIS STARS On my first night at home, I went to the Ambassa- dor to dine. At a table not far off, I saw a girl— a wonderful girl. ‘What a gorgeous type!’ I exclaimed. ‘She can’t be in the pictures, for I’d have seen her. I must find out who she is and get her to have a test taken.’ “ ‘I think she has already had one taken,’ mildly replied my friend. ‘That’s Pola Negri.’ ”CHAPTER VII THERE ARE GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS It’s only a step from one studio to another at Culver City. When I say a “step,” I mean a step of the foot: for a “step” is a great expression in Movieland. There are several different kinds of steps. Mostly, you make your “steps” in a motor car, because as Alice and everyone else notices at once, there are none so humble here as not to own a car. While you wait your turn for a strawberry sundae or some soft drink named after a movie star, at a soda fountain, you hear the sleek- headed, white-clad attendant offering to take a friend home that night in his automobile. All stenographers own their cars, though some may be year before last’s Lisettes. The idea seems to be, Why should anybody walk, except for the purpose of getting thin, and even so, isn’t it nicer to dance? That’s another step most popular in Movie- land; a dancing step, be it Black Bottom or the newest one. And there’s the step known as “stepping out,” which is when you go to a night 88GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS club or a roadhouse or a beach with your “best beau”: or dash with him to a marriage license bureau. But, when a studio at Culver City has sent one of its trained fleet of automobiles to bring you out from Hollywood, you may use your feet if you really wish to use them, in order to trot from one studio there to another. This is lucky, be- cause there isn’t always a taxi available, and it wouldn’t be in the best of taste to ask one studio chauffeur to drive you to a rival lot. They are very friendly rivals, and the best of friends, these studios; but officially, rivals nevertheless. And probably you have already tried the chauffeur’s patience, en route between Hollywood and Culver City. There are temptations on that road, alluring as the voices in the Arabian Nights story of the traveller who mustn’t stop to look back if he didn’t want to be turned into stone. Yqu pass the most fascinating, brand-new bungalows of every style of architecture since the flood, each more attractive than the last, and many of them labelled “For sale: Inspection invited.” How can you or Alice or anyone else resist that lure? I remember one adorable Cliff Dweller cottage, and a sweet German castle bungalow complete with battlements and dungeon-windows in the top half storey! “Oh, would you mind waiting just one minute?” 89ALICE IN MOVIELAND you purr to the studio chauffeur, opening the door as you speak. He wasn’t engaged for this, but the long- suffering man has learned, through bitter experi- ences with the most temperamental people on earth, to tell only his inner self where he wishes you were. You hop in and out, wanting to buy every house you inspect, and making up your mind to do so, if any are left for sale by the time you have sold more of those scenarios! How- ever, you do get to Culver City in the end, only half an hour late for an appointment, because, after all, the newest movie town except Burbank and one or two others is only eight miles from the capital of that kingdom, Hollywood. The Sam- uel Goldwyn Studio is a Siamese twin of the de Mille Studio, so one step literally lands you from one to the other. Come along, and make a morn- ing call with Alice! It’s rather complicated about this Goldwyn business, you know. If you call through the telephone for the Goldwyn Studio, it’s a toss-up whether you get Sam Goldwyn or Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer. In the latter enormous studio, all that is left of “Goldwyn” is the name, for Mr. Samuel Goldwyn has drawn out of that combi- nation, and has become a Goldwyn all alone. Both are now “happy and doing well,” as one says of young mothers; an appropriate phrase in the 90GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS Sam Goldwyn connection because of a wonderful baby presented him by the prettiest girl-wife imaginable, to carry on the name! You and Alice have arrived at just the right moment to catch two of the best Sam Goldwyn stars by their departing rays. Ronald Colman is going away for a short rest, and Vilma Banky is leaving to-day for a brief repose between her last picture and her first marriage. When I say her last picture, I mean her last picture before her first marriage! And I mean, too, that her first marriage is pretty sure to be her last marriage, because the bridegroom is Rod La Rocque, star of the neighbouring de Mille Studio. Any other bridegroom would be a bad anti-climax after him, any other bride a bad anti- climax after Vilma Banky. And by a coincidence almost miraculous in the screen world, neither Vilma nor Rod has ever been married before. Do you remember how “Merton of the Movies” asked a studio employee if his favourite female star was married? “Let me see! . . . I’m not quite sure. She often is!” came the answer. And it would be the right answer for more stars than one in the firmament. But the Hungarian beauty and the handsome French Canadian are exceptions to the starry rule. Vilma is a dream of loveliness. (How do these wonderful girls contrive to be even prettier off 9iALICE IN MOVIELAND the screen than on?) And her broken English is adorable. She is a soft, sweet creature, who can never be “hard boiled” if she lives to be a hun- dred—and she is only twenty-two now. She even blushes (think of that in the Hollywood of out- siders’ imagination!) when someone says an en- gagement between her and Ronald Colman— lately her co-star—was at one time rumoured. “Oh, no!” she protests with her delicious ac- cent and anxious English, “Mr. Colman, he is splendid. But we did never think of loving, only in our parts we played. Also he is married—no, not quite married. Separated from his wife. It is not the same as divorce—no? The gossip often makes him engaged to someone else, not me. And for me it was always Rod, since Mrs. Cecil de Mille put us—yes, side by side at dinner, and we talked. It was the first time I could talk much because my English had not come so well as now. And it was so wonderful to speak many things. I have hurried up to learn the English because I must know what my directors say for me to do.” So many of the stars of Movieland have the romantic Cinderella charm of early struggles when success seemed impossible. Even the male stars are often “Cinderella men.” Vilma Banky’s whole history would make a Cinderella tale, if told in fiction form, without 92GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS embellishments. She was always beautiful, this little daughter of Hungary, even when she was a tiny child. Most girls of Budapest are attrac- tive, but she was at the top of the basket of “peaches.” Naturally this peach was picked for the films; and at sixteen she was a star in her own country. But of what use to be a star, if your films have not a wide release? Only in Hungary, Austria, Germany, and now and again in other European countries did that fair face flash forth its beauty in a “close-up” from the screen. However, Vilma’s fairy godmother wasn’t idle, though she had seemed to sleep. Samuel Goldwyn went to Budapest, when in 1925 he was touring Europe. Too many pro- moters, directors and managers had sung the praises of their own protegees for him to be interested when the name of Vilma Banky was flung at his head in Budapest. He went his way, until he happened to see a girl’s photograph in a shop window. “Who is that?” he wanted to know. “Vilma Banky,” came the answer. And then it was a different story for the American producer. Instead of avoiding Vilma Banky he tried his best to meet her. But the company whose star she was at the moment were not in business for Vilma’s health. It was their own they had to think of. Vilma was too good to lose. Barriers were built up between her and 93ALICE IN MOVIELAND Mr. Goldwyn. Try as he might, she was as easy to get hold of as quicksilver: and this, despite the fact that the quicksilver had no wish to es- cape. On the contrary. But something invariably went wrong! Even when the American asked for an invitation to the studio where Vilma was finish- ing a picture, and was made the guest of honour at lunch—Vilma was not there! Excuses were offered. But the truth was that Vilma had been thoughtfully released from work that day, and knew nothing of the invitation. That seemed to “tear it!” Mr. Goldwyn gave up in despair, and would have departed at once, but there were a few passport troubles, causing delay. (Neat handiwork of Vilma’s fairy god- mother! These godmothers can’t be thwarted, you know, when they mean business!) Vilma’s own manager learned of the plot to keep his star in Hungarian skies, and at the last minute rushed to the railway station, dragging the breathless, almost reluctant Vilma with him. The train was ready to start. But at sight of that face, fair enough to stop a thousand trains if not to launch the same number of ships, Sam Goldwyn in- stantly cancelled his ticket for the Orient Express. Little did Rod La Rocque, far off in Holly- wood, know that his fate hung upon the delay of a passport in Budapest; but their fairy god- 94GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS mothers had evidently “chin-chinned”: which is why a certain wedding has just taken place. It was the most gorgeous and exciting wedding which even Hollywood has ever seen. Indeed, from the crowds, it might have been a royal wedding! “Everyone who is anyone” (horrid, snobbish expression!) in Movieland had been looking forward to Sunday, July 26, 1927: for Vilma and Rod’s engagement had leaked out and then burst out, some weeks before. The producers and important directors and stars had been offer- ing parties to Vilma and Rod at their gorgeous houses, for naturally all such people have gor- geous houses! And the beautiful girl stars had been extravagant (even for them) in giving those deliciously named “shower parties” which are tendered to brides-elect by their women friends in generous, rich America. I wonder if “showers” fall upon the heads of fashionable fiancees in England? Probably Alice is stupid not to know. In any case they are the Thing with a capital T in the U.S.A. A bride who hasn’t been pelted by “showers” from her friends, as Tarpeia was pelted by shields and bracelets from the Roman soldiers (but more pleasantly) is a bride of no importance. She can hardly be legally married unless she has had stocking showers, lingerie, silver showers, linen 95ALICE IN MOVIELAND showers, slipper showers, and heaven knows what besides. Well, Vilma had them all, until she was nearly snowed under; and “they” say nothing was ever seen like her “linen shower,” because on the price- less linen there was even more priceless lace and embroidery. (Splendid word, priceless!) And, though this is quite another story, I couldn’t help thinking of a different wedding which took place not long ago in Movieland. I won’t tell the names of the bride and bridegroom, because it’s rather a sad little story. A beautiful girl, once a zenith star, has had bad luck and bad health. Somehow, she has dropped out of things, though she is still pretty and sweet, one of the kindest, wittiest, most generous stars who ever twinkled. Well, suddenly she and a popular man-star decided to be married. And when such a decision is made suddenly in Movie- land, it is sudden. A flash of lightning doesn’t move much faster than does this couple, rushing in a motor car to the nearest marriage bureau, or parson. Nobody except the pair most concerned were pleased about this match. Others feared it wouldn’t make for happiness, and that it wouldn’t last. Apparently this was a mistake, and the bride and bridegroom knew what they wanted. But at first they were more or less let alone by 96GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS disapproving friends. Then, one day soon after the wedding, the little bride went to see a lady generally known as The Most Wonderful Woman in Movieland. She is the wife of a Great Mag- nate; and in her way she is as great, or even greater. All the girls and many men of Movie- land come to her with their troubles, and when she puts her shoulder to the plough, troubles cease to be troublesome. “I wonder,” sighed the bride, wistfully, “if the girls will give me a shower?” “Of course they will!” exclaimed the wonder- ful lady, warmly, “they are going to give it here at my house.” She knew well that it had never even occurred to the girls to give this bride, already married and against all advice, a “shower” of presents. But she knew also that she, godlike, had only to say “Let there be a shower!” and there would be a shower. Consequently there was a shower. But even this most marvellous lady couldn’t force the girls to empty their fat purses for the little bride, as without urging they have now joyously done for Vilma. They did the business “on the cheap,” atoning with affectionately worded cards; but the bride was so happy, so touched to have the “shower” she had always dreamed of, that she cried with pleasure over the poorest presents. Of 97ALICE IN MOVIELAND course, the Wonderful Woman made up as well as she could by giving something magnificent herself. Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky will no longer “star” together. This isn’t because Vilma has married another star. Nothing so conven- tional or sentimental as that! But each has be- come so important that, financially speaking, it is a waste of good material to put Ronald and Vilma into one picture. Why not make double money for the studio, with two such first magnitude attractions ? Vilma will in future have a “featured” leading man. Ronald will have a featured leading lady. There’s something about Ronald Colman which tells you, if you’re old enough to have been touched by the war, that he was a soldier. If you guessed it, you are right! And not only right about the soldiering, you’re right in feeling sure he must have been among the first to volunteer, in the days of August, 1914, when the one sound that haunted you, was the sound of marching feet —feet marching to recruiting offices, feet march- ing to drill, and feet marching to those mysterious trains with the blinds down which rushed the “first hundred thousand” men to Dover and Folkestone or any old port which could send them over to France. 98GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS Yes, Ronald Colman was one of those men. His eyes tell it, as do the eyes of all sensitive, impressionable, imaginative men whose sense of duty called them early to the war. His lips don’t tell it, of course; though they may tell you how, after he was wounded and waiting for something to turn up (since “they” wouldn’t have him for a soldier again) he took an engagement to act with Lena Ashwell. As an amateur, he had met her before the war, and he happened to be just right for a part rather hard to fill. He had an uncle who thought Ronald would be better off in China than in England on the stage: but the ap- pointment in China was slow in coming, and offers from the theatres were quick. Henry King, one of the cleverest directors in the picture game, saw Colman on the stage, and like Lena Ashwell, found in him something “just right” for a certain part. That part was with Lillian Gish in “The White Sister”; and who doesn’t remem- ber that very real, very manly, very unactorish lover? There is one of Ronald Colman’s charms on the screen. He is a fine actor, but he is never “actorish.” He makes you feel that here is a real person, a real man, to whom something very intense is happening. Because he is so much a “real man” women go to see his films, and girls dream of some such lover for themselves, as 99ALICE IN MOVIELAND Ronald* Colman. He isn’t one of the “beauty men” of the screen, but he has far more “fan mail” than most of the Adonises. Do you, by the way, know what “fan mail” is? Alice thought, vaguely, that she knew. But nobody who hasn’t come to Movieland and seen “fan mail” in its tons, and tons of tons, can know how it bulks (in every sense of that word) in importance to a man or woman star. The minute a screen actor or actress begins to get “fan mail” he or she is on the way to be- coming a star. After becoming a star, the ther- mometer of success goes up or down with “fan mail.” All the most popular stars would be flooded out with their thousands of letters, if they didn’t have special secretaries to attend to them; to sort them out and skim off the cream for the stars to read (maybe to tell about, who knows?); also to answer with autographs, and signed photo- graphs. These photographs are a big expense item, but they’re a big “ad”; and even we out- siders know that “it pays to advertise.” If a beautiful girl or an idolized man of the screen finds “fan mail” dwindling, why, it is like the first gray hair or the first wrinkle for an ordinary human being. It’s the beginning of the end! Oh, that sad, that heart-breaking end, which is a living death to the film favorite! “Fan mail” 100GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS shrinks; pictures no longer sell to the important theatres. The light has failed. Darkness has gathered and can never be dispelled. “Ten years is the average limit,” say the experts. They mean, the limit of dazzling success; and the thought of going slowly down from the bright heights, down into the twilight, is so agonizing to most stars, that they lose their looks and their screen magnetism more quickly than they need. Success, like love, is a great beautifier. Failure destroys that which it touches. It is the “worm i’ the bud.” And often none can say why the shadow falls. A man, a woman, may be to all appearance as attractive, as brilliant as ever, and yet—and yet—something mysterious has hap- pened. The public has tired. Thumbs down for the handsome idol, the adored darling. “New Faces Wanted.” There are lots of exceptions to this cruel rule; but exceptions prove it. And after a few trage- dies, the screen stars have begun to look Fate straight in the eyes. No sooner have they reached the peak, when they begin cannily to prepare for the descent. Once, they spent their fortunes with both hands. They didn’t see why money shouldn’t roll in forever, or until old age. But now they know that old age isn’t the only enemy; and they invest a few thousands a week in land—“real estate.” So they pile up new fortunes that public ioiALICE IN MOVIELAND neglect can’t take away; and then, when the in- evitable slump comes they needn’t turn to char- acter parts, or “Mothers.” All of which is a digression brought up by the subject of “fan mail”; for the stars which are dazzling Alice’s eyes by their sparkle have many years to shine. Sam Goldwyn’s studio motto at present is, “Few stars, but the best.” Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer’s motto seems to be “The More the Merrier.” A huge studio is the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at Culver City! Its stars are many, but very bright indeed. There isn’t a “dud” among them. “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” takes too long to say, in busy Movieland, so one shortens it to M.G.M. But you and Alice, wandering about the lot, tell each other that the name is the only thing that’s shortened. The salary list just doesn’t bear thinking of! Still you can’t help thinking of it, as you see some of the stars on their way to their dressing-rooms, or watch them on the sets. As for the directors—but they belong to another chapter all their own. Alice has named them for herself “The Star Makers.” At the very top of the “Powers behind the Screen” stand they. You and Alice are going to lunch in the studio cafeteria. You’ve both been invited to “see what 102Br • j A * A Greta Garbo The Last but One Greatest “Find’ {Photo R. H. Louise) Louise Du Pre GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS it is like.” And you know that your experience is sure to be picturesque, and “great fun,” though most of the starriest stars either lunch in their own luxurious bungalows (even small stars have suites of rooms to dress and lounge in, while doing a picture) or their cars whirl them off in costume and make-up, to fashionable Montmartre. But there are plenty of stars who like the jolly noise and bustle of the cafeteria. And even if all stars were conspicuously absent, the near-stars, the has- beens and will-be’s, the small part people, and the “extras,” would make of any big studio cafe- teria a scene as colourful as a stage in some vast theatre during a big production. The M.G.M. is one of the most typical. But you and Alice are in no hurry to get there, for on the way you keep meeting dozens of your favourites, and being introduced. Lon Chaney! At last you see the man as God has made him up, not as he has made up himself. After “The Phantom of the Opera,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “The Unholy Three,” and a few other nightmare faces, his own, the face stuck on by Nature, is a surprise. It is rather a splendid face, not handsome, but more compelling than most handsome faces. It has a sombre melancholy, yet it has humour, too, and lights up into real charm when it smiles. Above all, it has strength. 103ALICE IN MOVIELAND Perhaps there is no character actor of the American screen quite so amazing as Lon Chaney. He stands practically alone; and Alice wonders if the fact that his father and mother were deaf and dumb accounts for his almost startling unusualness. He has nothing to be sad about in these days, because he is successful on the screen and happy at home. But some past troubles and disappoint- ments may have helped to carve lines on that strange, haunted-looking face. A long time ago he was a professional clog dancer, and hated it, though he was talented. A man—or a boy, as he wras then—can’t content himself as a “hoofer” while intellect and imagination are crying out for their own kind of work! Dancing in Los Angeles, he felt a sudden call to Movieland. But Movie- land had no call for him. To be sure, he got past the casting window of a studio as a “type,” but he couldn’t resist the temptation to specialize in hideous make-up. His face stood out on the screen. It could not escape notice. Women screamed at sight of it. He was told never to come back on the lot. He was too awful to look at. He frightened people. But another studio accepted him. He began to be talked of as the man so careful about his make-up that he counted every hair. He was given “real parts.” And then came “The Miracle Man,” which is still 104GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS remembered as the most successful picture ever presented. Here comes Jack Gilbert now. What a con- trast to Lon! Handsome Jack, who with John Barrymore, ranks as the great screen lover, now that Rudolph Valentino is gone. A smile with him is like a flash of sunshine. It dazzles you a little, because his eyes are so very large and black, his teeth so very white. But the “dazzle” effect is partly sheer magnetism. His way of looking straight into your eyes when he talks makes you think idiotically, “Well, really, I must be one of the most interesting women alive!” You know how some people have a dispiriting habit of going away from behind the windows of their eyes, in the midst of a conversation? Jack Gilbert would never do that. He is too vital. Genuinely he cares about you at the time. He isn’t putting it on. He has no affectations. Whatever his faults may be, he is a man! And those eyes of his are so brilliant that you can’t imagine their light dying out, even in age or death. See if you don’t get that impression next time you seem to meet his gaze in a “close-up” on the screen. And yet—once you have seen him in the flesh (I don’t mean in “The Flesh and the Devil,” though it’s one of his best parts!) you will realize that the screen dims, rather than accentuates, his vital personality. 105ALICE IN MOVIELAND He lingers and talks a little, then hurries away to join Greta Garbo, with whom he is acting in “Anna Karenina.” She’ll be a wonderful Anna, strange, slim, sleepy-eyed siren that she is! She’s a siren of the cold, Scandinavian North, yet no siren of the sunshiny south ever had more “appeal.” There’s something exotic about the girl. She is very young, yet alWhe secret spell of Eve is in her heavy-lidded glance, her* celebrated stage kiss I Greta Garbo’s director, when he came to America and the M.G.M. Studio, insisted that Greta should be imported. To please him, be- cause he was valued, the girl was engaged at a fairly good salary, for at home she was already a star. But so unusual was her type that at first the studio didn’t know what to do with her. (She had fluffy hair then, and the air of a country girl: now she has become a sophisticated and elegant woman of the world.) More to find her a place than because it was thought she would suit it, Miss Garbo was put into a queer play for which no one hoped much. She made it a whirlwind success. Rather than lose her to another studio, up her salary had to go with an almost incredible bound. She’s a man’s woman, on and off the screen. But, even if women don’t care for her, she fascinates them, and girls copy her. Alto- gether, she was the screen sensation of last year, 106GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS as Dolores del Rio is of this year. And whoever may provide the next acting sensation of the film world, these two stars will continue to blaze. Dolores del Rio goes past, even as you and Alice whisper her name. She is dressed in the queer, clumsy costume of thirty years ago, for she is the heroine of “The Trail of ’98,” a very big production whose characters are as wonderful to see on the “lot,” as they will be on the screen. And she would stand out among other women even if she had been flung into a dowdy frock in a ballroom filled with Paris mannequins. All the studios want her. Several had her when she was “free lancing.” But M.G.M. has got her now, and everyone everywhere who is interested in screen history is talking about her. Dolores del Rio! It sounds too good to be true, such a name! You’d think it had been invented, to match that alluring Spanish beauty of hers which is more than mere beauty of feature. But no. It is real. The dark Dolores is no Cinderella, though she came out of the Unknown and achieved fame with her first picture. She was “discovered” in Mexico by Edwin Carewe, the film producer, who had gone there to sponsor the wedding of his friends, Bert Lytell and Claire Windsor. The lovely descendant of Spanish beauties was mar- ried, and an admired young woman in Mexico 107ALICE IN MOVIELAND City’s society, much sought after at balls, since she was called the best amateur dancer in Mexico. Her eyes were famous, too. Verses had been written in their praise: yet she might have re- mained unknown outside her native land if her ‘‘screen qualities” hadn’t struck Edwin Carewe at first sight in a lightning flash. The next thing was to persuade the charmer to leave home, and an even more difficult thing was to get her very Spanish husband’s consent. When he did give it, there was one condition. He must be with her. So, wherever Senora del Rio goes in Movieland (except on the “lot”; for he does leave her alone while the “shooting” is done) there is Senor del Rio by her side. And they are a handsome couple. There is a gleam in the Spaniard’s eye which would make you think twice if you were a man and hoped for even the mildest flirtation with Dolores I She is perhaps the only girl who ever walked into starhood with a ready made husband by her side. No wonder, after her romantic success, that other beauties of Mexico come to Hollywood to try their luck! Alice saw one at another studio— the de Mille: a somewhat pale and very youthful copy of the Sensation of the South. She had gained a beauty prize which carried with it a contract; and there she was, with an elder sister who had a little English and French. Speechless 108/V -■ I wl Ralph Forbes and Dolores del Rio In a Scene from a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture (Photo J. Mannatt)GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS stood the frightened prize winner! Her one language was Spanish, and she was being in- formed through an interpreter (a big, black- browed Mexican employed somehow, some- where, in the studio) that for months her duty would be to watch others act—while she learned English. In the next room waited a dainty little Australian prize beauty, escorted by a proud mother: their first day in Hollywood! But they, though terribly important to themselves, and to a few million girls panting also to become prize beauties at beauty-congested Hollywood, have nothing to do with the M.G.M. “lot” and its stars. Still the dazzling procession passes, while you and Alice “stand at gaze” as the swash-buckling novelists say. Here and there a star drops out of the parade for a chat with you. That jolly, good-looking boy, Bill Haines, says “How do you do?” No wonder he is jolly, for he has bounded into stardom on the strength of a really terrific success in a couple of pictures. If anyone could “steal a picture” from Lon Chaney, this boy would have stolen “Tell It to the Marines.” As it is, each owns half of that film, which is a great score for Bill Haines, considering his youth and short experience. Now he is having stories bought or written for him, on the principle that it’s a waste of good 109ALICE IN MOVIELAND material to keep two stars together in pictures. As soon as one star shows enough “box office appeal,” he or she will be trusted to ride the wave of success alone. Bill Haines can now “carry” a picture of his own, as his weighty “fan mail” has proved. Oh, the girls who write anxiously to know if Bill is married or even engaged! . . . Well, he is not! His mother at present sits on the throne of his heart, without a serious rival. Next to her come dogs and horses, and one or two almost human automobiles. Bill couldn’t be so godd a sportsman on the screen if he were not a good sportsman off. There’s something quite refreshing about his personality. He looks so much more like a somewhat impudent, full of fun, entirely normal college boy than a screen actor! And that is interesting, because it is quite as hard for a very popular film star to remain normal, as for a biblical camel to go through the eye of a biblical needle. (I suppose, by the way, we could never have been sure there were needles in those days, if it hadn’t been for that alleged camel?) I should think no two handsome young men could be a greater contrast one to another than Bill Haines and Ramon Navarro. Perhaps on the screen you’ve thought of Na- varro as a creature of fire, because he is Mexican, with a straight Greek nose, inherited from Greek i ioGOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS ancestors, and hair as black as night. But off the screen the first thing you notice is his peculiar sweetness of expression. If a picture could be written “around” the young and beautiful Saint Sebastian of the Arrows, Ramon Navarro would surely be chosen for the part. He is probably not much more of a saint than other young men, but it is well known that he is more than usually kind of heart, and a good Catholic. Even when he was an earnest young extra, waiting for a chance to become the first male Mexican star in Movieland, he sent money to relatives who more or less depended on him. Since he was “discovered” by Rex Ingram, he has been earning a very big salary. But does he spend it on himself? He does not. He makes himself almost poor with his generosity. Still, he can afford a few luxuries without being too selfish, and one is a guitar which he plays well. He thinks he will never marry, and has a presentiment that he’ll end his days in a monas- tery. Alice hopes he’s mistaken in his crystal reading. You’re not apt to meet Lillian Gish, Marion Davies, Renee Adoree, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, or Aileen Pringle wandering about the lot, you say to yourself. But, no sooner are the words spoken, than you catch sight of Aileen. Never would you guess what she has been doing mALICE IN MOVIELAND —that radiant being who is a beauty, and a book- worm, and a wit, and still contrives to be the wife of a British diplomat although she’s a “top drawer” star. Well, she is about to keep an engagement with a celebrity of the no less a personage than James Adamson, whom everybody in Holly- wood knows. Not having much hair of his own to attend to, he devotes his time to that of others. Barber to Movieland Royalties, he is!—and Aileen Pringle has promised him a lock of her hair. It won’t be worn over his heart, but dis- played in a more conspicuous place. She takes you in with her to see Jim’s beloved collec- tion: heaven knows how many soft curls of pre- ferred shades, each accompanied by an auto- graph, and kept under glass. As to Norma—Norma first, and then Joan— you have to seek them in their lairs, alias their very decorative and convenient dressing rooms. On the way, you have the luck to see Jackie Coogan, garbed like a sprouting soldier, in the uniform of the military school he’s attending: for Jackie is (more or less) “In the army now!” He looks the same dear boy, if a little older, a little more of a man for his European ex- periences; but even now he doesn’t know, for his parents won’t let him be told, that he is the richest “self-made” child in the world. Several 112GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS millions that he has earned are kept in trust for him; and he firmly believes that he is being paid when he “works” the large sum of fifteen dollars a week. Of that he “banks” half, and is allowed to spend half as he chooses. But he is saving up for an automobile he gave his mother as a birth- day present. He thinks it will cost him several hundred dollars. He has no idea that it is of the most expensive make in America. Happy Jackie! Hello to handsome Ralph Forbes, the British star, who is playing “opposite” Dolores del Rio in “The Trail of ’98” at this particular moment. He looks as much at home in Hollywood now as if he had been born there. But here’s a story Alice heard about him. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it isn’t. You never know in Movieland. Anyhow, it’s nice. They speak of him as the “English actor”: but if he isn’t a Scotsman, Alice will eat a last year’s hat! When he first blew into Hollywood, bringing a delightful profile, a lot of talent and— “It,” he was rather “stand offish” in his manner, because he didn’t—well, as the slang goes here— he didn’t “know his onions” in Movieland. The truth is, that he was shy, as only a British boy can be shy. But “there ain’t no such animal” as shy- ness in Movieland. It is seen—if ever—only to be exterminated. And Ralph Forbes’s specimen was taken for pride and haughtiness of soul. He 113ALICE IN MOVIELAND was “up-staging,” “high hatting,” and “Ritzing” his equals and superiors, it was thought. And on location in the days of “Beau Geste,” the “English actor” was shown by everyone, even his director, where he “got off.” This went on until one day the “Ritzy” youth was discovered, not like Achilles sulking in his tent, but almost sobbing because he would “never be any good” and the whole world despised him. After that, the prescribed treatment for the patient was changed, and he soon recovered. Now a bow and a wave of the hand from Roy d’Arcy, the best looking, deepest dyed, and most accomplished “villain” of the screen, and on you go for a call upon Norma Shearer. She is a delicious girl, with a most bewitching hint of a cast in her eye. It was, in fact, that cast which cast her for the movies. You see, it gives her a glance that no man can resist. It makes her girlish charm completely individual. You might possibly forget the rest of Norma’s clear little features, but you couldn’t forget her eyes once she had smiled at you, and looked you straight in the face. Norma’s mother is a wonderful advertisement for her. If you were a man, seeing that pretty lady, you might say, “If Norma looks as young and charming at—well, forty—as her mother does now, she’ll be a wonderful bargain in the 114GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS marriage market!” Lots of men were bidding for her till her engagement to Irving Thalberg was announced. Norma Shearer is said to be one of the most proposed-to girls in Movieland. Per- haps, as she’s still a British subject I believe (the family are Canadian) she thought until lately: “Take a husband, and you have a sovereign. Stay as you are, and you have twenty shillings.” Norma and her mother and sister used to be called “the Three Graces” a few years ago when they came to New York to try their fortunes on the stage. Somehow, when they arrived, the movies lured them away from the theatre. But strangely, no one could see Norma’s screen value. Her sister got an engagement at a studio, but—nothing doing for Norma! It was with difficulty that the lucky sister at last persuaded some unbelieving boss to take a test of Norma. Then her “hidden charm” came out, and it was seen that she had a quite unique quality of fasci- nation. Renee Adoree is another of those girls with whom men will fall in love, and make themselves troublesome. They make themselves very troublesome indeed. It has always been like that with her, ever since she was a big-eyed child travelling through France with her parents in a touring circus. Dorothy, Lorelei’s friend the witty brunette, had much the same experience, ii5ALICE IN MOVIELAND you remember—only she had no parents. Renee isn’t one of the great beauties of the screen. But there’s something about her—well, you wouldn’t need to have it described if you could hear her talk. She learned English because she was determined to come to America and become a film star. And her way of speaking is as ador- able as her name. What a pity that they pro- nounce it so terribly here! Think of that name, Renee Adoree, mangled into “Rainy Adderay!” But she is too good natured to mind. Renee by any other name. . . . As for Lillian Gish, why describe her? We have all known and loved her s’nce she was a little girl, being trained in flowerlike grace by the first of the great directors, David Griffith, who is call- ing her back again. She has changed less than any of our early loves of the screen. She still looks a child, and your first wish is to cherish and protect her. You would like a wild horse or a mad dog to come charging along her path, so that you might save her at the risk of your life. You don’t even have to be a man to feel like that. When I hear anyone singing “Annabel Lee,” for some reason the image of Lillian Gish rises before my eyes. She was a child, and I was a child, In this kingdom by the sea. 116■ I .Vi • • it i81i' Hl USI Lloyd Hughes The Inseparables; Two Movie Idols (First National) Lillian Gish Met at the Train by Her Protegee, Joyce Coad (M etro-Gold'wyn-M ay er)GOLDWYNS AND GOLDWYNS Joan Crawford of the immense and soulful eyes, is a “Cinderella” star. Naturally, girls who read her story, and others of its kind, leave home in droves for Hollywood. A film play written round her early adventures could fill eight reels, without a dull moment. A lonely, misunderstood child, after her father’s death: teaching tiny tots, to pay for her own education, running away from home at last to join a little barnstorming company, stranded, finding work in a cabaret, like the girl whose part she played in “The Taxi Dancer,” modelling dresses and hats in a big wholesale shop all day: dancing most of the night, saving a little money; and then, one day when she had just about de- cided that nothing good could happen to her, be- ing “discovered” for the screen. These girls are all so exquisite, so interesting, that if you were a man you wouldn’t know which to fall (hopelessly, no doubt) in love with. But in this Mecca of Beauty which is Hollywood, Alice thinks “after mature deliberation,” that she must bow to Marion Davies as the prettiest and wittiest. She doesn’t exactly belong to the Metro-Gold- wyn-Mayer outfit in the same way the other girls do, for she has a right to choose her own pictures. Most of the others may merely “express prefer- ences,” and be temperamental if a picture they 117ALICE IN MOVIELAND prefer is given to someone else. But Marion’s films are “shot” at the M.G.M. Studio and “re- leased” by them. Her palace of a bungalow is there. She is the only screen star who has such gorgeous quarters to dress in, rest in, have meals and guests in, on a studio lot. (Pola Negri’s bungalow at Paramount is the nearest in luxurious elegance.) But really to know Marion Davies you must go to her house.CHAPTER VIII CLOSE-UP OF MARION DAVIES Alice might perhaps get you a glimpse of Marion Davies’ Windsor-Castle-of-a-bungalow at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio. Marion is a hospitable girl, even when she’s busy and is secretly wishing you in—New York or some- where. She might give you tea there, and pos- sibly send you home to the Hollywood Hotel in her celebrated sun chariot, I mean, her sun- coloured yellow motor car of magnificent dimen- sions and fittings, which possesses a specialty no other car in the world can boast. It has a grille of gold which can shut Marion up in a secret, golden silence of her own, if she wishes to make up for a part hurriedly, en route, or vice versa, take her make-up off. When thus shut in, she can be glimpsed mysteriously, as if through a network of sunshine, or a veil of golden spun glass. Only a girl of dazzling beauty could be seen in such a vehicle without being dimmed by its splen- dour. But that word expresses Marion Davies. She is dazzling! I defy anything to dim her. Technically, Miss Davies’ place in this book is 119ALICE IN MOVIELAND in the M.G.M. Studio. But on thinking it over, Alice decides to leave her out of that chapter and carry her over (she doesn’t weigh much) into another, where she can be at home in ’her own house. It seems funny to say of a young and brilliant star of Movieland that her “plade is in the home.” But Marion’s home is so beautiful, So characteristic too, and she is such a delicious little hostess that Alice will run you out to Beverly Hills, in a car—quite a nice car, though not so splendid as the sun chariot. It is Sunday, when some stars and all studios sleep. Miss Davies is one of the stars who don’t, and you are invited to lunch at her house. “She must love England,” you think, as your Spanish Whoisa sweeps you up the hill to her door. The door is a Tudor door, and the house is a Tudor house; not near Tudor, but pure Tudor. Nothing Pullman about this! And the garden, acres and acres of it, on a hill and running down hill in tor- rents of verdure and flowers, is English too. “An old world garden,” it would be called in “Country Life,” complete with swimming pool, lily pond, fountains, and roses, roses, roses 1 herbaceous borders too, and delphiniums (to match Marion’s eyes), shady trees (Marion adores trees: con- siders it murder to fell them), and every lovely thing that ideal gardens have. Besides, this 120CLOSE-UP OF MARION DAVIES garden has a view—many views. But don’t stop to look at the garden first! Go in through the Tudor door, and there you are in a Tudor hall. Everything is magnificent. The mantel of the living room (if that’s the right word for it!) is a museum piece. There are few such, outside museums. And the refectory tables, and carved chests, and Jacobean and Charles the First and Second chairs are not copies, but as old as the centuries they represent. A beautiful portrait of Marion hangs on a dark panelled wall; but as she comes down the staircase, you realize that the portrait isn’t half beautiful enough. Nor is it young enough I The slim and graceful little figure in pale blue looks like that of a child against this background of ancient splendour which she has made her own, and just at first you feel that it isn’t her own —that she’s too daintily modern for all this large magnificence. But you’ll change your mind about that, in a minute. Just wait, please, and get the preliminaries over! You have a chance to look at her before she speaks, for experienced star of many pictures as she is, not only is she young, but she is actually shy. You’ll hardly believe that, but it’s true. Sljte is not screen-shy, but she is stranger-shy, so shy that she stammers, and can’t think what on earth to say to a new face I 121ALICE IN MOVIELAND That’s why you have time to look her over. She is drawing in a breath before she stammers “H-h-ow d-d-o you do?” She has the most be- witching dimples, which keep time with the stammer, to the delight of everyone except her- self. There’s no make-up on the creamy little face which looks as if it had been struck with a rose on each cheek, and had then been dusted across the pretty nose with a few lily pollen freckles. It does seem as if a girl with that figure, those delphinium blue eyes under dark lashes, that baby complexion, those dimples and the delicate impertinence of that little nose, had enough. But no! On top of all this, she must have golden hair—yes, naturally golden. (It is done now and then even in Movieland!) And her full rosy lips and small white teeth must be perfect. It is too much! But you don’t grudge it to her. She is such a kind, gay, pleasant, sweet-natured girl that you are glad she has everything. She “snaps out” of that rather agonized stammer (as the slang goes here) and greets you. Far from formidable are you and Alice; still she is shy, and the only subject which she can seize upon is the weather. “Isn’t it a 1-lovely d-day?” she implores, wist- fully. And then Alice has to be firm, in order to be kind. “It is a lovely day, Miss Davies,” she agrees. 122CLOSE-UP OF MARION DAVIES “But we have heard that you are one of the wit- tiest girls in Hollywood, which is saying a good deal. So don’t let’s waste time over the weather, please!” This direct attack with Mills bombs takes the star’s breath for an instant. But then she has to laugh, and she who laughs is lost, where stiffness is concerned. We go through one impressive room into another, and at last settle down for luncheon in a little “sun parlour,” such as almost all these adorable houses of Movieland possess. Only, Marion’s is even prettier than most of the others. And there, though it’s the one room in the big house which isn’t English, you learn that a Tudor background of dark magnificence is, after all, the right background for this white and golden girl. “I love England,” she says, “all the oldness and oakness and carvedness in England, and I must have some of it for my own.” You’d think it would be next to impossible for anyone, even the greatest wit of all, Sydney Smith, to be amusing and make you laugh with talk of Tudor tables, beams, benches, wainscot and what-not, but Marion can do it! I don’t be- lieve she could say ten words without being witty. In fact, she is a born comedienne. As she loves England, especially the England of old, sweet yes- terdays, and knows all of English history since the 123ALICE IN MOVIELAND YEAR ONE (Scottish history, too) why doesn’t someone write her a scenario of Peg Woffing- ton? What a Peg she would be! Why isn’t the Country Girl turned into a picture for her? And no Nell Gwynne was ever quite so perfectly de- signed for the part since Nell herself, as this laughing, lovable Marion. That is one of the special words for her: lov- able. Everyone loves her, because she is always doing something for somebody else. She is the Movieland matchmaker. She introduces girls and men who were born for one another, and marries them off if she can. When married pairs threaten to “come unstuck” she does her best to put the broken pieces together again. If you know some- one who is poor and sad, tell Marion Davies! If you’ve quarrelled with your best friend, Marion will do her best to pour oil on the troubled waters. If you want to cry, Marion will set you laughing instead. She is adored by all the employees in the studio where she makes her pictures, and even by the extras, for she is never late, she is never cross, and when a film is finished, everyone concerned receives a souvenir. Marion is the daughter of a New York Judge, and is the “baby” sister of two elder sisters, beauties also. She was “in the Follies” when she was about fifteen, because she was so pretty that 124CLOSE-UP OF MARION DAVIES it seemed the niche she had to fill. Then “pic- tures” claimed her; and now, here she is at about twenty-three (I don’t see how she can be more, since she looks seventeen) the most dazzling blonde and most dazzling wit in Movieland. “I wish,” reflects Alice aloud, “that your stammer could be thrown on the screen!” Miss Davies almost giggles—and she stammers a giggle as it has never been “stiggled” before, while she explains how, on the new Vitaphone, her stammer would halt and jerk the figures of the film. Her description of what would happen to the heroine makes you see it! Does she love to act? Of course you have to ask her that. And of course she does. But there are some other things she loves too. Oh, danc- ing? Well, yes, that goes without saying. She doesn’t stammer with her feet. But she was thinking of something else that she likes most awfully. What? . . . Well, moving houses. Slight pause of flabbergastation. . . . What does she mean? “W-why, some day I’m going to move this house for instance,” she mentions. “It isn’t nearly Tudor enough. It’s got to be the m-most T-Tudor thing in the world. I shall have it t-taken away somewhere else, and another one, m-much more beautiful b-built in its place, to be w-worthy of the garden. Only, I’ll keep my 125ALICE IN MOVIELAND m-museum mantelpiece. Don’t you think that will be nice?” You and Alice are both past thinking! Or, if you have a thought it is of this huge mansion of brick and stone bursting through the boulevards from Beverly Hills to hop through Hollywood till it settles down at some unknown destination. (Gee! Gosh! My hat! My word!) “Oh, but it’s the f-favourite pastime here,” ex- plains Marion. “Haven’t you seen bungalows playing tag in the streets? The house-movers say they c-could take a cathedral from Los Angeles to S-San Francisco.” “What else do you like to do?” Alice hastens to change the subject to one that seems more normal to the British grown brain. “I love to sew,” says Marion, as if the step from moving a thirty-room house to hemming a towel was nothing to stumble on. “I make lots of my own dresses, and m-make them for my friends too: some of them, well, two of them anyhow! Bebe Daniels and Norma Talmadge. A 1-little while ago, Bebe and I vowed we wouldn’t buy a n-new dress for the next six months. She was to make all mine, and I was to m-make all hers. We kept the vow, too. Only—we d-didn’t have as many new dresses maybe, as if we’d bought them.” Alice glances at the pale perfection in blue 126CLOSE-UP OF MARION DAVIES which enfolds the stalk of this gold-headed white flower. “Yes, I’m wearing one I made,” the said flower nods to the silent question. “And I love animals. Dogs—not little ones. B-big dogs I can take long walks with. Police dogs I love. Pekinese, no. They’re not d-dogs. They’re little dragons. Bull dogs, yes, the English ones. They have faces like t-terrible—p-pansies. What else English, besides history and houses, and gardens, and dogs and old furniture and old b-books? Why, people. I think English people are splen- did. Well, yes. I d-do admire the Prince of Wales, and I d-did try to look like him when I played the boy in the lovely uniform in my pic- ture ‘Graustark.’ That wasn’t lese majeste, was it? ... I love to do boy’s parts, anyhow.” “I should think you would,” murmurs Alice with a glance at Marion’s silk stockings. This makes Marion blush, and when Marion blushes, she would melt a heart of stone, especially in a “close-up I”CHAPTER IX THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT Figuratively speaking, the Paramount Studio stands on top of a high hill, a sort of Movieland Olympus. It has had years to build up this hill, and Paramount is the right name for it. No studio stands higher. Long ago, as time counts here, it used to be called the Lasky Studio, and the Famous Players. So, even now, if Alice leaps hastily into a taxi, crying ‘‘Paramount, please!” the chauffeur, if beyond the veal-age, is quite likely to say, “You mean ‘Lasky’ ” or—“Oh! the Famous.” Well, this studio is worthy of numerous names, provided they’re pleasant ones, for Paramount is a very pleasant place to play about in with Jesse Lasky’s stars and star makers. To begin with, it is decorative from the front gateway to the smallest dressing room—and it’s a very grand gateway, indeed! You might be driving up to the portals of a ducal mansion, though if any normal duke owned so fine a one nowadays, he would try to sell it to an American millionaire. 128THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT But the Paramount isn’t alone in its glory as a destroyer of ugliness. All the important studios have burst forth from the original (and hideous) chrysalis, and built themselves noble facades. Better still, the fine facades hide nothing to be ashamed of. Even the studios whose “lots” and location ranches are far away have felt the urge for better and brighter everything. Inside the duke’s (I mean Adolph Zukor’s and Jesse Lasky’s) front door, you and Alice walk into a worthy entrance hall. Thence opens a door into a long corridor admitting to many small but world-shakingly important offices. Or, you can choose yet another door and find yourself hovering on a kind of village green. This village-illusion is heightened to the point of certainty by a row of beautiful little Tudor and Georgian houses, such as might greet you in Somersetshire, or some other shire, in England. The first thought you have is that they can’t be there. This isn’t England I This is California, U.S.A., and above all, this isn’t a village, or a village green, or anything of that sort, you silly idiot! It is a studio. Of course, it may be a dream where an English village and a Hollywood studio have telescoped in your brain and upset your grey matter. You are worrying about this mental casualty when one of those beauteous visions to be en- 129ALICE IN MOVIELAND countered every few steps in Movieland floats to your rescue. She isn’t a star, it seems, and doesn’t want to be a star. She is—a Publicity Girl. You must come to Hollywood to meet Pub- licity Girls on their (almost) native heath; and it’s quite worth the journey just to see what Pub- licity can make of a Girl—a Girl, of Publicity. She is a personage, I can tell you ! There are several of her in each large studio, for the top girl has more than one assistant. The P.G. may be the head of the publicity depart- ment, or she may be the right-hand of a male head. Her duties are to arrange, collect and send out news, also photographs, of all the studio stars. She must receive visitors, such as writers, news- paper people, and so on. She must see that they are entertained and that they get “stories” bene- ficial to studio interests. Besides such duties she has many others; but these are the ones that rise to the top, like cream. The rest of the Publicity Girls are, so to speak, professional mouthpieces of the stars themselves—women stars, because most of the male stars have Publicity Men. But you can see that it is just about as important for a Publicity Girl to have charm and tact and per- sonality, as it is for a star to have the same quali- ties. Maybe some of these girls, when they first came to Hollywood, had hopes of stardom for themselves, but now they wouldn’t take it for a 130 B Mary Brian and Richard Dix In “Manpower” {Paramount)THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT present! Privately they pity stars. It would bore them to become stars. The Publicity Girls of Movieland have banded together in a Club. They call themselves the “Wasps.” Not that they are addicted to exces- sive stinging, though “Sting me, and get stung” may be one of their mottoes, but the newspaper writers of Screenland are, for Club purposes, the “copy-cats.” So, “let cats delight to mew and scratch; a nest of wasps will prove their match.” The leading lady of Paramount Publicity is more like a honey-bee than a wasp. She is pretty and pleasant. When you speak to her, you call her Miss Lang, but you can’t help thinking that she resembles the lovely Florence Vidor. If Florence could get a “stand-in girl” as much like her as Miss Lang, she would be lucky. But do you know, have you the remotest notion, what a “stand-in girl” is? Alice hadn’t, till she visited stars on many sets, and had imagined as many times that she was seeing double. Well, while we are on the subject, let’s jump from Publicity Girls to Stand-in Girls! You’ve heard of the Whipping Boys of ancient days, whose duty it was to receive the punishment adjudged but never administered to princes? That custom has been abolished in European kingdoms. Perhaps the Whipping Boys struck! But in the realm of Movieland the old idea has 131ALICE IN MOVIELAND been revived for the benefit of its starry princes and princesses. It is just as tiring for a star making a picture to stand on his or her feet in a particular place for hours on end as for a royalty to hold a court or lay a corner stone. For weary years no remedy was invented; then, suddenly, some genius ex- claimed, “My Goodness gracious, why didn’t we think of it before? . . . Dress up someone of the same size, shape, hair and complexion, in the same sort of clothes, and let him (her) bear the brunt of the battle!” No sooner said than done, which is why you often jump when you part from Miss Negri, or Miss Bow, or Adolphe Menjou, or Richard Dix, and then see them in the far distance standing with their backs turned to you! But, of course, nothing would ever have in- duced Miss Lang to play double, even to the sweetest star. She prefers to be herself and sing the praises of the stars. The village effect is in reality the dressing-room facade, she explains. This long and charming row of scenic houses was designed partly for beauty, partly for utility. You see, the house- fronts can be photographed together or sepa- rately and save, oh, thousands of dollars in new constructions! The front of Pola Negri’s dressing-room quarters for instance, or Madame 132THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT Elinor Glyn’s writing room, may figure any day the heroine’s home in a picture of Bath, Eng- land, or Greenwich, Connecticut. This is studio economy. Not two, but many birds can be killed with one stone! You and Alice have come to the Paramount Studio in your prettiest frocks and hats. You have powdered and painted, hoping to rival the most preferred studio blondes in appearance, as you are to meet Richard Dix and Adolphe Menjou “on the sets” where their current pictures are being shot. “This is Mr. Dix’s set,” whispers Miss Lang (all outsiders looking in, whisper on sets while scenes are in progress. They jolly well have to whisper, if they don’t wish to be glared at by the director and his assistant and, maybe, even the star in person! Besides, by the time they get there, they’ve stumbled over so many unspeak- able ropes and wires and tubes, and knocked their hats askew on the sharp corners of indescribable objects, that they are subdued enough to whisper, in any case). There is Richard Dix, one of Alice’s top favourite stars because of his manliness, his sense of humour, his all-round cleverness, and a number of other “becauses.” He stands in a blinding light, in the cabin of a shabby river-boat, because this is a Shanghai picture. Most pictures of the i33ALICE IN MOVIELAND moment seem to be Shanghai pictures, owing to the fact that America’s adored Marines have functioned there recently, and America’s heart is with them. Luckily for the films’ success, the hearts of most other nations happen to be in the same place! Mr. Dix Is looking particularly attractive as you gaze at him from behind huge cameras and middle-sized camera men’s backs. He is acting. Cameras are cranking. Then suddenly everything ends. Out go the lights, which are never kept on an instant longer than need be, because they cost a million a minute—or something approximate I I don’t know if Richard Dix is called by his friends “Dick Dix,” but he ought to be, for he looks it I “Dick Dix”—you get the idea, don’t you? Young, gay, gallant! A handsome young man with laughing eyes, a pair of dimples too deep for most men’s faces, but just right for his equipment; a firm chin, held rather high, and a good-natured, merry manner that would charm a snake. Certainly it charms women. With our sex he is a “knockout,” and men like him, too. You hope that he may admire you half as much as you admire him, and don’t see why you haven’t a chance of comparing favourably with the lead- ing lady of the film, even though she is that most fetching of nineteen-year-old beauties, Mary Brian—Mary of the inch-long lashes, which make 134THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT her big grey eyes remind you of deep pools shadowed by reeds in a forest. That powder and paint of yours wasn’t put on for nothing! But as you are in the act of sparkling at Mr. Dix, you catch sight of yourself in a small mirror some cynical fiend has tacked up on a bit of scenery. Heavens! can that be you, or is it the face of a dead and partially decayed baboon whose boiled gooseberry eyes stare at you from the glass? . . . The image has green skin, blackish cheeks, a purple-black mouth showing pale blue teeth, its head is ringed by a hideous halo of mud-coloured hair. Alas, it is you, and none other! But even this brutal truth can’t spoil the conversation with “Dick Dix.” He’s too polite to let you feel that no scarecrow of the field or German submarine of 1917 could compete with you in frightfulness. You cheer yourself by recalling things you’ve heard about the effect of studio lights on faces not prepared for them. And though you cease to register coquetry, with that mirror giving you appalling close-ups, you can still be impersonally glad that Mr. Dick isn’t, never has been, and doesn’t intend soon to be, married. It is impos- sible for you or Alice to marry all the unmarried male screen stars you admire. Still, it’s somehow cheering to know they’re in the market! And Richard Dix is called a great “sheik.” Which i35ALICE IN MOVIELAND simply means that girls consider him a “thriller.” Richard looks even younger and nicer in the flesh than on the film. Alice used to think he might be thirty or so. Now she’s certain that if he can possibly be thirty, he isn’t yet “or so.” She permits herself a little gush about a picture of his that is just going the rounds of all the thea- tres : “Knockout Reilly.” “It looked almost too realistic,” she says. “Lots of times I thought you must be having your eyes gouged out and your bones broken.” “I thought so, too!” he laughs, with a glint of some of the nicest teeth in Movieland. (Patron saint of screen “stunters” be praised that “Knock- out Reilly” has left him with a full set!) “Not only did it look too realistic, it felt just like that. I wasn’t black and blue all over my body while we shot that picture; I was black and green. One of my eyes nearly went west. I had one cracked rib and a smashed one to follow! Why, the war was nothing to it, except that it lasted a bit longer. Yet it didn’t cure me of going into things for all they’re worth. Rather the other way round. I like to do all my own stunts. I wouldn’t feel I’d made a picture if my motto was ‘Let George doit!”’ Alice tells him what happened one day in a big Italian seaport city. At an important picture theatre two films were much advertised for an 136THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT afternoon and evening’s entertainment. One was a film with Richard Dix as star; one was Harold Lloyd’s. Alice sat in a box and watched the body of the house fill with Italian sailors. No sooner was the place packed, than a man appeared on the ledge of the stage in front of the screen to an- nounce that the programme was changed. Richard Dix and Harold Lloyd pictures would be replaced by two Italian-made films. But the speaker hadn’t time to name them when the “house rose,” and proceeded to wreck it. Sailors shouted and tore up chairs by the roots, the expression of their faces fearfully Fascist. That announcer melted out of sight like a bursting bubble, but while the theatre rocked in an earthquake of human rage, another man bravely took his place. He waved his hands. He shrieked, and suddenly the storm was calmed. Richard Dix and Harold Lloyd would go on according to plan! And they did go on, much to the joy of the Italians, who love to see stunts done by their ap- proved heroes. “Harold Lloyd is another who ‘rolls his own,’ ” says Richard. And Alice remembers hearing a story of Harold and Hollywood. He was doing a picture bristling with perils; an average of one stunt a minute. Somehow it got rumored outside his studio that the stuntful Harold was outstunt- ing his record this time. That sounded an alarm, i37ALICE IN MOVIELAND for Harold had for long been an “eater of danger,” as the Arabs would put it. He being one of the most dearly beloved men of Movieland, his friends decided to send him a “round robin,” begging him to employ an understudy for the worst stunts. His life was too valuable to fling away. The list of names was so long that it took about an hour to read. Harold was grateful, but adamant; and the signers of the appeal have learned that it’s a waste of time to pray for the dear spectacled comedian whom everyone loves. Even his beautiful wife can’t move him. A call for Richard Dix snatches him away from you, and on you go to Adolphe Menjou’s set. Richard Dix and Jack Gilbert, and most of the men stars I can think of, throw out their vitality. Adolphe Menjou veils his in a way that’s half wistful, half humorous. If he does it on purpose (and none save himself will ever be sure about this), it is clever. It gives him finesse and mystery without destroying his manliness. That veiled vi- tality of Adolphe’s is delicate yet strong as a fine coat of mail worn like “steel lace” under cover. And his individuality has the same mystic fineness. All the melancholy and the cynical humour of life are in Adolphe Menjou’s half smile, his lifting of the eyebrows, his almost imperceptible shrug. “Humoresque,” that sad and laughing music, should be his leit motif; and he is Latin to his 138Adolphe Menjou The Most Loved Villain (Paramount; photo E. R. Richee)THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT finger tips. You wouldn’t need to be told that he is French! He can be untiring when he is in- terested, or he can totter on the verge of collapse when he is bored. The notably robust stars show how glad they are to be alive. Adolphe Menjou seems to say to himself in his native tongue, “Everything breaks, everything wearies us, everything passes away. Yet the game is worth the candle if you understand and don’t expect too much.” I should say that Mr. Menjou isn’t too opti- mistic, but that he does understand! In fact, there are few things he doesn’t understand. Not only has he read most of the books worth reading (because a man can always find time for what he most wants to do), but he has read Life. He is a young man still, yet if there’s anything in the gorgeous* theory of reincarnation, he must have a very old soul. All the same, in this present incarnation, he is modern of moderns and at his best in sophisticated modem parts. Naturally, he likes best to play them; but though he has a certain versatility, something of his own very unusual individuality will pierce the surface of any make-up. He can never be the utterly black, unadulterated villain —nor could he ever be “convincing” as the goody-goody, noble young hero. Yes, America is his home. Long ago his father 139ALICE IN MOVIELAND came to the United States from Pau, France, and opened a very smart restaurant. When Adolphe was in college, as a boy of eighteen or nineteen, he used to amuse himself now and then in the summer holidays by acting as a waiter. This started the gossip that he had been a waiter, a professional waiter, and also it taught him to give those funny, intimate little touches which make us laugh when he “puts over” such a part on the screen. He has built a new house. He’s engaged to marry a beautiful girl—Katherine Carver. He is happy. Yet once in a while he has dark mo- ments when he feels that no one appreciates him, that he’s alone in the world. In such a moment he gave himself a present of a watch with an in- scription inside: “To Adolphe Menjou from his sincerest admirer, Adolphe Menjou.” Or words to that effect I His dream of the far future when he shall tire of starring, and later, of directing as well as star- ring, is not to settle down comfortably on a few paltry millions. He wants to buy a yacht and become a pearl fisher de luxe in the fastnesses of the Pacific. This is his pet idea of romance and adventure. Long before Bebe Daniels was born as an American girl, she must have had a Greek in- carnation. And before that, she was an Egyptian 140THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT princess. Not a queen I No, not Cleopatra. Bebe is far too original to have let herself be Cleopatra. All the obvious beauties with long dark eyes and straight noses remember when they were Cleopatra. There’s nothing obvious about Bebe. She isn’t even sure enough of the Greek incarnation to boast about it, and probably wouldn’t boast if she were sure. The extraor- dinarily intelligent, level-headed Miss Daniels doesn’t boast about anything, though she has far more to be proud of than most girls. She is the one whom Michael Arlen admired in Movieland, so I’ve been told—but not by Bebe. I suppose it was the romance he saw mirrored in those incomparable eyes of hers which attracted him, as much as the eyes them- selves or the fringe of lashes which are just a little longer, a little darker than anybody else’s lashes, or the nose which might have graced the face of Byron’s “Maid of Athens.” For, despite that level-headedness which makes Bebe one of the best business women of “real-estate” buying California, and despite her fearless stunts of sportsmanship, which rival Harold Lloyd or Douglas Fairbanks, romance lies in the heart of Bebe Daniels. She even lets herself fall in love occasionally, and be more or less engaged to be married, though the other side of her nature 141ALICE IN MOVIELAND warns “Wait, my dear, four or five years before you think about love and marriage.” Still, a girl will think of many things! Bebe is one of the busiest stars, for her pictures are so popular that the studio never lets her rest for long. She thinks of buying land, and building houses. She has two to live in, so that life needn’t be monotonous. One is at the seaside, Santa Monica, whose beach is lined with stars’ bungalows, and brilliant with stars in person in the bathing season. In the more important of these two houses, Bebe keeps her books, and a big house is needed for their keeping. Her grandfather was Ameri- can Consul at Buenos Aires, and a collector of first editions. Also he wrote most of the Ban- croft Histories. From him, Bebe inherited over five thousand almost priceless books, and she is carrying on the family tradition, for hardly a day passes that she doesn’t buy a book. Besides that, knowing the girl’s real love for first editions, other relatives have left her their libraries. Now, her shelves are filled, but not crowded, with more than twenty-five thousand volumes. First edi- tions are a craze for the elite of Movieland, but Bebe Daniels is easily the leading bookworm! Last year she had visions of building a beautiful Greek house (it would certainly match her pro- file!) and a very famous multi-millionaire, half 142THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT Greek, half French, who lives in Paris and on the Riviera was applied to by a friend of Bebe’s, for a few photographs of his marvellous Greek house on a pine-clad promontory near Beaulieu-sur-Mer. He answered promptly that he had no photo- graphs, but would get a whole set taken especially for Miss Daniels, if she would autograph one of her own for him. Which proves that Bebe’s pic- tures are popular in France. Esther Ralston and Clara Bow are two new Paramount stars. Never were two girls more unlike, as anyone will agree who sees them to- gether in “Children of Divorce.” Yet both are equally surprising. Esther Ralston is in appearance the ideal Lorelei in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” unless she may be an inch or so too tall. At least, she is Lorelei to the superficial glance; gleaming golden hair outlining a perfect head, in perfect waves; great blue-grey eyes with long, curled lashes; a dainty, appealing little nose, a lovely mouth, and an innocent expression. She is such a dazzler, and wears expensive French frocks so well, that often she has been pictured mainly to show them off against a becoming background. But the moment she begins to talk, you see that Lorelei, the world’s most exploited blonde, is the last creature Esther Ralston resembles. Her innocent expression isn’t worn to camouflage a “gold i43ALICE IN MOVIELAND digger.” It is frank and sweet and kind because she is all those things herself. She looks so up- to-date and beyond, that she might pose as To-morrow’s Girl. In truth, she is so old-fash- ioned that she “feels like everybody’s mother.” It’s funny to hear her say that—a girl who looks eighteen and is only just twenty. But she’s quite sincere. She has mothered her whole world since reluctantly she gave up mothering dolls. Now, she has taken to mothering her adored hus- band of a few months, though he is years older than she. And when an accident happens on her set, she rushes away from you and Alice to mother a young man who has had his eyes slightly burnt by flying sparks. She can’t believe that even Lorelei was “hard boiled” through and through. “She must have had a better side,” Esther insists, and goes on arguing against a laugh. Miss Ralston is one of those girls whom no casting director would ever send away. On ac- count of her very unusual young beauty he would make a place for such a girl if he couldn’t find one! Consequently, Esther was never a true Cinderella. She was given “bits,” and worked up to starhood as surely as Venus rises above the horizon. With Clara Bow it is different. She is the perfect example of a Movieland Cinderella. A very attractive, piquant and vital little face 144•• ■ •' i' Clara Bow The Latest “Vamp,” and Possessor of “It” (Paramount; photo E. R. Richer)THE HIGH MOUNT OF PARAMOUNT she has. (Without it, a celebrated woman director would not have chosen her to portray the Glyn idea of “It!”) But even her mop of red hair, her sparkling eyes, flowerlike skin and pro- voking mouth can’t make her a conventional beauty. There are people who praise Clara’s looks in these days of her amazing popularity; but once the general opinion was different. Nothing succeeds like success! Clara lived in Brooklyn, that part of New York which the other part makes jokes about. When she was fifteen (not long ago) her father didn’t see why little red-haired, big-eyed Clara shouldn’t “run” for a beauty prize. Accordingly she did run, and to everyone’s surprise except her father’s and her own, bore off the palm. In this case, the palm was a contract (which the prize carried with it)—a small part in a movie. It was one of those contracts which had for some reason or other to be kept; but poor Clara registered so badly in the picture that the film had to be destroyed. The child was heart-broken. After winning that contract, she had dreamed wild dreams of a career. Now she saw how wild they had been, and gave up hope. That is, she gave up hope of being a star, but the screen still fas- cinated little Miss Bow. She hung round the Long Island studios, and at last was chosen for a “bit” because of her “type.” It meant nothing 145ALICE IN MOVIELAND at all, everybody said; but the bit was striking. The girl’s magnetism and vitality came out over the screen, even in the flash or two which showed her round, baby face. She was put under con- tract, and for a time happiness bubbled in her heart again. But never did her chance come. She was practically forgotten. Then somebody hap- pened to see her wandering mournfully about, and thought she would do for a certain picture. She did “do”!—and so well, that she made a hit. After that she fitted perfectly into “Mantrap.” All the movie “fans” in all the countries talked of “that amazing child, Clara Bow.” “Who is she?” was the question. Well, she is Clara Bow! That’s enough now, for box offices.CHAPTER X CLOSE-UP OF POLA NEGRI To the mind of Alice, Pola is an exotic flower, transplanted to America, yet never completely rooted. She has been in California for nearly six years. She was acclaimed with great rejoicing. She be- came at once, and continues to be, one of the most popular stars on both sides of the water. She is always “front page headline news.” Her “fan mail” makes work for several secretaries, because her head secretary (that very remarkable and interesting Scotswoman from Aberdeen, Florence Hein) has more than enough to do in keeping step with Miss Negri’s business, without opening and answering letters. Pola has bought a beautiful house at Beverly Hills, which was once Priscilla Dean’s, and deco- rated it by the dictates of her own taste, not that of a professional artist. She has many friends in Movieland, and everywhere throughout America. And yet, as I said, I cannot feel that she is “rooted.” She would never quite belong to any country. 147ALICE IN MOVIELAND Her spirit would always free itself from bonds. You can see this in the depths of her strange, green-grey eyes, the color of pale jade, in their frame of straight, ink-black lashes. In them there is Wanderlust, and a wistful seeking for the beauty and joy and mystery which lie far beyond this earth and can never be grasped here. Because of this longing, Pola Negri cannot be for long at a time what other young women call “perfectly happy.” She will know keener joys than more comfortably contented souls can feel, yet joy will fly from her grasp like a wild, escaping bird. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why she is a great actress. She is not satisfied with life, nor with herself, so continually she strives for what lies beyond the horizon. Isn’t that one of the attributes—and one of the agonies—of genius ? Just for the moment, however, Pola is happier than she has ever been in her life, after a whirl- wind romance which caused her, if not to forget (does one ever forget?) at least to drop a dark safety curtain between her and last year’s sorrow. It’s stupid and old-fashioned to say that a woman born for love can “love only once.” She loves in different ways. This love of Pola’s for a very delightful young man, Prince Serge M’Divani, is a happy love. Even though a soul like hers can’t live always in the sunshine, this love will be 148CLOSE-UP OF POLA NEGRI a bright gleam above such shadows as may fall on a woman of Pola Negri’s temperament. She is a woman born for love! All her life she has had homage from men, and she wouldn’t be human if she didn’t care for it. But not long before she met the Prince Charming she has married, Pola was heard to say a characteristic thing. One day she appeared more than usually irresistible. She was all in white—a soft finish satin that had the effect of “slinky” velvet, with a Parisian touch of white fur here and there. She had on a too-becoming white hat which made the black curves of bobbed hair on pale cheeks look like carved ebony. And the most exciting feature of the costume was a pair of white Russian boots topped with a snowy line of fur. She lin- gered talking to a director who had been her admiring friend ever since she first stepped into the Paramount Studio. “Pola,” he exclaimed, “I’ve contrived to be Platonic about you for years, but if I have to see you often in that rig I can’t keep it up much longer.” Pola laughed, and said, “Oh, please keep it up. The other thing with me comes and goes like that!” She illustrated the warning with a little scornful snap of the fingers. But she has learned since then that she didn’t know herself. Everyone thinks that the new 149ALICE IN MOVIELAND Princess Serge M’Divani has ceased to snap her fingers at love. She has many interests in life outside her career, and the congenial companionship of her husband will intensify them all, instead of pushing them into the background. People who know her well—if anyone can know Pola well—fear that marriage may make her different, more commonplace. It used to amuse them to see her, half unconsciously, exert her extraordinary power over men. She was so amusingly frank when she lost interest in a man for one reason or another; perhaps merely be- cause his intellect was less brilliant than her own! Now she seems inclined to concentrate her whole attention upon one man. But, luckily for him and for herself, he cares for the things she cares for most. For instance, Prince Serge likes books—and the same books that Pola likes. No man who didn’t could hold her for very long. She is a reader of books, before anything else, but they must be the right books. When she has found a book she loves, even if she has spent a hard, tire- some day at the studio, she will take the book to bed with her and lie awake all night reading it. What she loves to do doesn’t tire her! And she can read most languages. This accomplishment doesn’t seem at all remarkable to her. “We 150CLOSE-UP OF POLA NEGRI Poles have to learn other people’s languages, since no one will learn ours.” And not only can she read, she can speak, heaven knows how many! If she were surrounded by a group of Spaniards, Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, Hungarians, and a few others, she could keep up a sparkling con- versation with each in his own tongue. Pola loves music. She understands the art of painters, old and new. She has her domestic side also, and has had a little kitchen entirely for her own use built in her house. She is the only cook allowed there, unless it is some invited guest; and if a friend coming to lunch has a favourite dish, Pola likes nothing better than to cook it herself, in a way few chefs could surpass. You would say that so beautiful, so fascinating a woman doesn’t need to be intellectual. But Pola Negri’s mind looks out through her eyes in a mysterious and alluring way. That pallor of hers is a flower-like, healthy pallor. She needs no make-up, and wears none (with the exception of a little powder) when she is not in the studio. When she cries, she doesn’t cry as other women do, red-nosed and grimacing. Tears simply pour over marble cheeks like a rain of pearls, and she looks lovelier than when she smiles. Talking of pearls, she has many, but her dia- monds are more famous. One of her favourites is quite a baby Kohinoor, of thirty carats or 151ALICE IN MOVIELAND more, which she has had set in a ring and slips on her finger now and then, in the evening. When she wears it, as a rule she wears no other jewelry at all. Emeralds suit her, and turn her eyes oddly green. She has one emerald which was an Austrian crown jewel, but even this treasured gem (advised for her use by the celebrated Greek Theosophist whom she consults about many things in life) she wears only at night. She dislikes jewellery as a daytime ornament, not only for her- self but for others; and it is amusing how it dis- turbs Pola’s sensitive love for beauty to see any- thing worn which is contrary to her taste. It happens to be a rather severe taste, and shudders at the clash of several colours in a dress or hat. One day in the street Pola chanced to see a pretty blonde girl mincing towards her “dolled up” in black slashed with bright pink. “Oh, poor thing, poor thing!” sighed Miss Negri, with a shiver. Her friends were rather surprised when she bought Priscilla Dean’s white Colonial house at Beverly Hills. They thought that a Spanish, or Mexican, or Italian, or Russian house would suit her better. But Pola said “No.” For one reason (she reminded her advisers) she loved whiteness, and simplicity of line. For another, it seemed to her that the Colonial style was more typically American than any other, and in 152Pola Negri and Her Husband, Prince Serge M’Divani (Paramount)CLOSE-UP OF POLA NEGRI America she likes houses to be typically American. This doesn’t prevent her, however, from finding places in the “typically American” house for cer- tain almost priceless antiques from far-off coun- tries. To rooms which might seem cold in colour she gives warmth by filling them with long- stemmed red roses. Somehow, red roses can always be found for Pola at all seasons of the year. They are the flowers she loves best, the flowers that make her feel she is at home. People who know Miss Negri will send her red roses day in and day out, and they must have exceptionally long stems, or it seems to her that they have been wounded, robbed of their full rights. Not only do roses in bowls and tall crystal vases stand on tables and on the floor in most rooms of her house, they keep her company at the studio also. And she loves to have a few white lilies. Pola’s studio quarters are very characteristic. The new bungalow built for her was finished only last year, and while she was working at top speed in her picture, “Hotel Imperial,” she found time somehow to plan every detail of its decoration. Next to the palatial studio-abode of Marion Davies, at the M.G.M., Miss Negri’s bungalow is the most notable in Movieland. She has a sitting room, dressing rooms, bath, tiny dining room and snow-white kitchen. Though she has 153ALICE IN MOVIELAND not indulged in magnificence for the bungalow, as she has for her home at Beverly Hills, there is much of the same subdued glow of golden glory. Her bedroom at Beverly Hills is hung with rare old gold brocade, and the bed in which she lies late, planning out the day’s programme, is so draped with gold that it gives the pale Pola an ivory-statue effect. Her bungalow at the studio has also the golden glow which Pola loves and needs. The walls are of dull gold, the curtains are gold, hanging heavily, and underneath, across the windows, thin gold tissue is drawn. The furniture is black lacquer, with one or two pieces of red. The rare Chinese embroideries on the walls she put up with her own hands, and arranged all the furniture. In the dressing room is the most mar- vellous curtained wardrobe Alice ever saw. Pola designed it herself, and insisted that the floor must be black. She was restless until everything was done as she wished it done, even to the placing on the wall of her own very interesting Benda mask, wreathed with flowers. This mask is thought by many to resemble Pola’s mother rather than Pola’s self. But she is not of a rest- less disposition. Her nature is too deep for rest- lessness, except in occasional disturbing flashes. She can be as quiet as a sheltered pool in a wood; but when she desires a thing done, it must be done i54CLOSE-UP OF POLA NEGRI now—now! She decides and acts quickly herself, and cannot see why others, less busy than she, shouldn’t do the same. Nobody is so sad as Pola Negri when she is sad; nobody is more gay than Pola when she is glad. She plays like a child, and makes her friends play. But about her deepest thoughts and feelings she is singularly reserved. She hates “gush,” and never gushes even to those she cares for most. She has a way of showing love and appreciation, though, a way which her friends have come to understand and adore. She can be hard, and at times seems self- centred, as all screen stars can, because of the effort they must make for concentration. But she is kind of heart, and loved in the studio, generous to those who work with her, never jealous, and keen always to give fellow-players a good chance. This is contrary to early gossip about Pola Negri, gossip which began when the new light from the east first burst upon Movieland. She was desperate then, and not her best self. She was misunderstood, and she misunderstood those around her. She felt that she was not able to express herself in her films, and feared that her reputation as an actress would suffer. Her few wild outbursts, much exaggerated, happened then. Though she has a practical side, and is so neat in all her ways that it is almost laughable, she i55ALICE IN MOVIELAND trails romance with every movement and turn of her dark head. So distinguished is she, and noticeable even in large crowds, that in her simple, perfect clothes she is apt to make women more classically beautiful look cheap. Pola Negri and Rudolph Valentino had many traits in common, and some of these were traits which never would have been associated with either, save by friends who knew both well. Pola is such a lover of neatness that it hurts her to see bits of paper scattered, or cigarette ashes dropped on a beautiful rug. She must have them taken away at once even if guests are with her! It was the same with Valentino. Both loved to cook, and Rudolph was as expert an artist in that line as Miss Negri. They used to amuse them- selves and each other by inventing all sorts of new dishes, and cooking a whole luncheon in Pola’s own white little “personal” kitchen. Rudolph Valentino loved police dogs, and Pola loves them. They could talk of their favourites for hours. Pola is a perfect hostess, seeming to give all her attention and interest to each guest who comes near her. Rudolph was a perfect host, and had a royal memory for names and faces. So kind was he, that if an “extra” in one of his pictures had poorly fitting clothes, he would engage his own tailor to make several new suits for the man, as a surprise. He was royally generous, too, and his 156CLOSE-UP OF POLA NEGRI last present to Miss Negri before he left Holly- wood never to return—was a thousand dollars’ worth of orchids, sent to the theatre on the open- ing night of a Pola picture. His last words (spoken in English) were also for her. Pola, too, is royally generous, and loves to surprise those who are poor with presents— exactly the presents they happen to need most. And she loves to surround herself with beauty. As she sits in her studio dressing room, in front of the huge mirror which tops the dressing table, often she seems absent-minded; yet never does a smear of grease-paint stain, or a grain of powder dim, the pattern of that magnificent piece of Chinese embroidery which she refuses to cover with a napkin. Her eyes have a far-away look. Who can tell where her thoughts are? Yet never does she give a false touch or line to her make-up. She is not one ever to give a false touch or line anywhere! Despite her dreams, despite her ro- mance, she is always accurate in her ways as the detail of a flower is perfect. This is Pola as her friends know her.CHAPTER XI “UNITED ARTISTS” “United they stand.” But divided they would not fall. They couldn’t! They are the fixed stars, fastened permanently in the heavens. Alice—and perhaps you also—knew little about the United Artists until after crossing the frontier line of Movieland itself. “United Artists!” It was just a trademark, so to speak. But to one who has thoroughly learned the lesson of “Who’s Who on the Screen,” the words ring upon the ear, as Robert Louis Stevenson would have said, “like the horns of Elfland.” All United Artists had the courage of their convictions before they united. They believed in themselves, and banded together to make their own productions. Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, Gloria Swanson and Harold Lloyd head the list. Norma and Constance Talmadge are also at the head, for it is wide as well as high, that many-brained United Artist Head. Besides these, beautiful Corinne Griffith, Buster Keaton, Douglas MacLean and a few others (only a few) produce under the distinguished “trademark” 158“UNITED ARTISTS” (Alice’s word for it; she knows it isn’t scientific) of United Artists. It is a thrill to go and see Norma and Connie at work. Not that they work together. That would indeed be a waste of good material! It would be like a collision and fusion of the morn- ing and evening stars, if such a catastrophe could happen in our well-regulated sky. They work separately, of course, yet those adorable sisters are never apart for a longer time than they can avoid. They rush to tell each other things, and laugh together over some funny happening. Mrs. Talmadge (the famous “Peg” whose dry wit helped the genius of Anita Loos with the “wise cracks of Dorothy” in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”).prefers to keep the home fires burning and be near her three daughters—Natalie is Mrs. Buster Keaton—rather than flit from California to New York, New York to Paris and London, as many successful mothers do. The Talmadge family is even more united than the United Artists. It would be as hard to sepa- rate them as to separate the fingers from a hand. If it could be done, it would be only by destruc- tion, for they love each other with no common love. There is no joy which would not be a greater joy if enjoyed together; and when the Talmadge family have fun, they have more than any other family in the world. 159ALICE IN MOVIELAND Everybody knows all about the “Talmadge girls,” especially Norma and Constance, for Natalie has not been seen as often on the screen as the two others. The story of the Talmadge family, signed by the name of Norma herself, will probably be in book form before the small adventures of Alice in Movieland see the light, because they have already appeared in the maga- zine with a wider public than any other (Alice has bought it as far away from New York and Phila- delphia as Cairo and Tougourt, to say nothing of Venice, Vienna and Budapest!). She there- fore does not dare catechize these sisters as she has catechized some other stars who haven’t written biographies, lest they say to her, pityingly, “Don’t you know how to read, you poor thing?” She spends her time in their society in staring, not questioning. She gazes and gazes. She sees that Norma and Constance (the Talmadge “baby”) are even prettier and younger looking off the screen than on. She feels the great charm of their personality, and understands how their generous warm-heartedness makes them beloved by everyone in the studio as well as by their hosts of friends. They have both travelled so much that they are cosmopolitan in their ways. They have that “something” in their manner which shows that they have seen and know the world. It is quite an indescribable “something,” because 160■ Btfi..-Ui gr^* <.< Norma Talmadge (United Artists)“UNITED ARTISTS they are unconscious of it, and in fact, have no self-consciousness at all. Yet it is like a hall-mark on silver. You can’t miss it! Norma is doing a scene in which her leading man does not appear, but Alice has a chance to watch Don Alvarado making love to Constance in “Breakfast at Sunrise,” and the dark, Spanish attraction of the young man so “intrigues” her that she has to ask a question or two of Beulah Livingston, Head Publicity Expert for the Talmadge girls. “He’s a newcomer, isn’t he?” she whispers, on the outer edge of the set, as the camera cranks. Then she hears a story of a Cinderella-man. The screen has many Cinderella-men, including at the top of the list Charlie Farrell, of the Fox Studio. Charlie had a fight even to get extra work, despite a remarkable personality which you would say must strike any casting director. But Don Alvarado and Charlie Farrell and a host of others know how “hard-boiled” and opinionated a number of casting directors are! Charlie, for his part, had got down to that well-known five- cent level, when one day the director of a Fox picture said, “If there’s a boy of a good Ameri- can type sitting outside, send him in. I want him only for a flash, and he won’t be paid, but it will be a close-up, and if he’s got any features it may help him.” 161ALICE IN MOVIELAND Charlie distinctly had features, though nobody had seemed to notice the fact before. The “flash,” seen in the projection room by some other director, got him a small part. He stood out among his fellow “small-parters,” and was put into “Old Ironsides,” where he made an im- mense hit. But in that film he was working for another studio, which had “turned him down” before. Now it borrowed his services from Fox for one thousand dollars a week, and for a fol- lowing picture paid five hundred more. Again a hit I And in Fox’s great success of the moment, “Seventh Heaven,” he and that exquisite little genius Janet Gaynor, who was a Cinderella-girl while he was a Cinderella-man, have reached the zenith together—a Seventh Heaven, indeed. With Don Alvarado playing the lead with Connie Talmadge in these happy days, things were much the same as with Farrell—yet different. He is as Spanish as he looks, yet his black eyes never saw Spain. They opened in the ancient Spanish town of Albuquerque, in New Mexico, where his people prided themselves on their pure Castilian descent, unmixed with Indian blood even in old Mission days. They owned land, which they farmed according to the latest scien- tific rules, but Don Alvarado wasn’t built on the farmer plan. No sooner had he left high school, 162“UNITED ARTISTS’’ and learned what his family had mapped out for his future, than he bolted, penniless, for Los Angeles, one day distant from Albuquerque by Santa Fe fast trains. Just what he hoped for was vague. But “any- thing rather than farm” was his slogan. He got a job in a candy factory, and liked it less than farming, but he saved two dollars a week from his pay. People he met looked hard at him, and said, “Why don’t you go into the movies?” This put an idea into Alvarado’s head. But despite the handsomeness of that head and a figure to match, the reason why he didn’t “go into the movies” after he began to try, was because he “couldn’t get in.” When he was hungry he tried bull-fighting, and scored a hit with some youthful bulls of Spanish descent, in Mexico. Also he substituted, one desperate night, for a prize- fighter who had got cold feet at the last moment from hearing what a knockout was the man he had engaged himself to face. Don Alvarado won the decision, and twenty dollars, which looked like wealth to him. There was a brief flash of fame, too, and it reached as far as the casting offices. That fight to a finish with a well-known profes- sional boxer brought the amateur good luck. He got a part at once, too small for a leading man but too big for an extra. And now he plays leads with Constance Talmadge!CHAPTER XII CLOSE-UP OF GLORIA SWANSON Gloria Swanson is at present a “United Artist”; but there has never been a time when she wasn’t an artist. Women as well as men admire her, and one of those women gave Alice the other day a word sketch of her first sight of Gloria. It wouldn’t have interested Alice so much if she and the woman hadn’t just been lunching at a house where Gloria was lunching. There could have been no more perfect a little figure than the quiet and dignified Marquise de la Falaise, first of the movie stars (so far as Alice knows) to annex a title. She was dressed by one of the great ones of Paris in a frock so faultless that it was inconspicuous. Her reddish brown hair, not bobbed, was satin smooth as the coat of a chestnut, and fitted her small head as closely as a cap. Her manner was so tranquil, her voice so low and well modulated, that it seemed as if a nervous person must lose all sense of strain in her presence. Without the slightest self-consciousness or affectation—indeed, because she lacked them—Miss Swanson was 164CLOSE-UP OF GLORIA SWANSON completely a woman of the world, which was one reason why the woman-admirer’s little sketch of Gloria in the past remained among Alice’s mind pictures. The friend saw her first about six years ago, being directed by Madam Elinor Glyn (everyone in Movieland calls her “Madam,” never “Mrs.”) in “Beyond the Rocks,” or some other of Madam Glyn’s early stories. Gloria looked very young indeed, and whether because she didn’t care for the part, or didn’t like being told “Don’t do this,” “Please do that,” by a woman director new to picture work, she had the air of a sulky child. Her hair was very golden, fluffed out in a wide yellow halo, so that it made her head seem rather large. She was elaborately dressed, and altogether gave the effect of an ex- pensive doll. Just about this time a song was popular—“You great, big, beautiful Doll!” and the woman seeing Gloria then for the first time thought it might have been written for the girl, who was a very popular film star already. Even then she had “evolved” and risen high, young as she was, for her first picture experience had been in Chicago with the “old Essanay.” Then she had been given small parts, and liked the work so much that she adventured to California. Mack Sennett saw her there and snapped her up for a “Bathing Beauty,” just when she’d begun to train 165ALICE IN MOVIELAND her really glorious voice for—well, grand opera, or musical comedy, or something! After that the Triangle got her, as it got most of the prom- ising girls and men of the moment. Later came the engagement with Cecil de Mille, which identi- fied Gloria with butterflies of fashion; and it was as a butterfly that the Famous-Players Paramount took her over. No films sold better than those of Gloria Swanson, and yet she hadn’t “found herself.” She was just a pretty girl with a certain bizarre charm of slanted eyes and an impertinent profile, a girl who knew how to wear very elaborate French frocks dripping with jewelled fringes and glittering with crystals. She seemed, half sub- consciously (the admiring woman said) to know that she hadn’t found herself, and yet vaguely to resent a director trying to find anything hidden! There she was, charming, popular, perfect in her way, but not perfect in the way which could show her at her best. Who can tell whether that impression of her was the true one or not? Perhaps Gloria Swanson herself could hardly tell nowadays. She is so entirely conscientious in her work, so utterly un- conceited, so anxious to make each new part better than the last, and to get all there can be out of it, that possibly she never spends time in pondering every stage of her artistic evolution. 166CLOSE-UP OF GLORIA SWANSON Many strange stories have run round the world about Gloria Swanson’s origin. Gossip has had her the child of all kinds of creatures, including the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker. If she had been the daughter of a crossing-sweeper, she is the sort of girl who would not “confess,” but frankly announce it! She would not be ashamed of her birth—or the crossing-sweeper. But the truth happens to be that her father, whose name was Swansen, was an officer in the army, and her early recollections are of Florida, where he was stationed. Her first stage appear- ance was when she sang at a charity concert there, at the mature age of seven. How little she dreamed of the future then! Only a few years later she was prima donna in an “operette” given by her school-fellows at Porto Rico. But even then she had no ambition for the stage or screen. It was going to the movies in Chicago which made her feel suddenly—“Why, I could do that! Oh! I should love to do that!” Soon, life became all work for her. But work was play, and she did “love” it. Underneath the busy, happy surface of things was the vague rest- lessness which thinks sometimes, “There is more in me than I am using. I haven’t come to my best yet.” Madam Glyn, who admired Gloria Swanson and saw greater possibilities for her from the 167ALICE IN MOVIELAND moment of their first association, believes that she helped the girl to realize those possibilities. Madam Glyn wished to make of this fluffy-haired young genius une jeune file du grand monde, or rather, to show her how to make herself one. Gloria Swanson did in any case agree with Madam Glyn’s ideas far enough to change the fashion of her hair to satin sleekness and her dress to chic simplicity. Since those days Gloria’s small, exquisitely shaped head is one of her prin- cipal charms. She used to think herself positively plain. She hated her features. She fancied that her rather large, perfect teeth were too big for her face, and she was afraid to smile. But she learned, without ever believing herself a beauty, that her features had a certain effectiveness, and she learned, too, how to make the very best of them. Now all her “possibilities” have become realities. Her face, with its Slavic cheek bones and grey-green eyes slanted upward, the snow maiden, Scandinavian statuesqueness of her neck and the poise of her slim, graceful body, are great assets. Her profile has an almost unique fascination. She needn’t wish to change it for the profile of a Venus, for she is far more intriguing than a classic beauty. Always she had the pleasant manner which springs from kindness of heart, frankness, and sympathy, but since she travelled to see the world 168CLOSE-UP OF GLORIA SWANSON whose women she portrayed on the screen, no youthful grande dame of Europe has more charm and graciousness than she. It was at the time when she began to evolve from the golden halo stage that something within whispered and whispered, till she had to listen: “You must go to the East. You must meet the people who write, as well as those who act. And then you must see France.” “I am just a Western girl,” she said, that winter about four years ago, when it was arranged for her to have a season in New York. She had friends who introduced her to all that was best. People who were merely anxious to meet a quite celebrated screen star were almost astonished to find they had met an interesting, intelligent, original woman. She was the greatest success in all sorts of society. And also her wish to see France came true. She was to do “Madame Sans Gene” in Paris, at Versailles, and in all the places where the laundress-duchess had lived, loved, and made un- dying fame. This meant work, and hard work; yet there would be time left for play, and Miss Swanson’s manager and her French director; (Leance Parret, well known already in America), put their heads together over a plan for her amusement and instruction. She was young and keenly intelligent, therefore eager to do anything 169ALICE IN MOVIELAND worth doing, to see everything worth seeing. She would want to visit the Louvre and all the museums. She would want to see the smart res- taurants and the Bohemian resorts. She would want to ride and drive and walk in the Bois. She would want to get the spirit of Montmartre and the whole Rive Gauche. Who was to show her these things? It should be a Parisian, a person of culture and knowledge of his (or her) Paris, ancient and modern. After some discussion it was decided that the person must be a man; for Miss Swanson loved to dance, and could dance like a sylph. In order to be a suitable dancing partner, as well as guide, philosopher and friend, the man would have to be young. At last some one thought of the Marquis de la Falaise. He had all the right qualities, intelli- gence, charm, good birth and good looks. He knew Paris, and could introduce the star to agree- able people. Of course, it goes without saying, that when the plan was explained to him he didn’t hesitate longer than time to take breath 1 Well, it was a romantic way of beginning a romance. And the romance has remained a ro- mance since it turned into marriage. Movieland had to do something with the name of “Henri,” since Marquis de la Falaise takes more time to pronounce than Hollywood ever has to do any one thing outside studio work. Miss Swanson 170CLOSE-UP OF GLORIA SWANSON was going to be called Miss Swanson, not la Marquise, etc., etc. Why not dub the Marquis “Hank”? No sooner suggested than settled. Hank the young man became, and Hank he remains, much to his own amusement and the joy of others. He is an aristocrat, but, being one, and not a mush- room growth, he has no airs, and all his graces are those which nature gave him. Hank is one of the most popular young men in Movie- land, and when now and then he has to dash over to France on business he is missed not only by Gloria but all Gloria’s friends. Of course, now and then there’s a rumour that the two are going to “part friends”; but you are nobody, and nobody knows you exist, if you’re a screen star, and that isn’t said about you in Hollywood. Few screen stars have developed more, or rather brought out from the depths of themselves more, of their own half-sleeping genius than Gloria Swanson. She is really a great actress, and because she is never satisfied with what she does she will become greater and greater as time goes on. Her films are not always worthy of her. What star’s films are? But she never fails to lift them far above the commonplace and make them memorable. 171ALICE IN MOVIELAND She loves to play character parts, and never cares how hideous she may have to look for the sake of artistry. In fact, she rather delights in being hideous—almost! She wouldn’t be human if she didn’t delight, also, in the amazing contrast when she can throw off the character of some old crone and let shine her own bizarre beauty in the next reel! She hates to be called “temperamental.” She says it is “cheap.” But that’s because America means something quite different from what Eng- land means when it classifies an actress as “temperamental.” In England and in European countries, a woman of moods, of fire and snow, of sunbursts and glooms, is temperamental. In America if you tell a woman she’s temperamental, she is apt to deny it and say No, she has a very good temper; she doesn’t become angry unless there’s some- thing worth being angry about. So there it is! In one sense Gloria Swanson is temperamental, and in the other she is not. At all events, she has magnificent self-control and extraordinary patience. She will go through a scene over and over again in order to get some detail right, until everyone else is tired out. She is tired, too, but she doesn’t show it. Her am- bition, her wish not to stop short of perfection, is a tonic to nerves and brain. And though her 172CLOSE-UP OF GLORIA SWANSON fellow actors and actresses must work hard to keep up with her, she never forgets to be consid- erate. In fact, she is far more considerate of others than of herself. In some ways, like most women of genius, she is contradictory. For instance, though she is so frank, she is reserved. You could tell Gloria Swanson a secret and be sure that it would never be repeated. It is impossible to imagine her making a gesture devoid of grace, yet often she tortures herself with the thought that she is gauche. She is a natural-born linguist by right of her Slavic and Scandinavian blood, and languages come so easily to her that she scarcely knows when she is learning them. Yet often she is un- happy because she imagines herself “slow.” So utterly without vanity is she that she never slyly peeps into mirrors when no one is near, as most of us do. Instead, she is inclined to avoid mirrors. And yet, she must like them as decora- tions, because in the beautiful and very interesting apartment she owns in New York, one of the most important rooms might be called (super- ficially) the “mirror room.” “Superficially,” because there’s a secret connected with the vast mirror there, which makes it more than a mirror. The room has a black carpet and grey walls, but a grey far from ordinary; it is like the palest feathers of a grey dove’s wing, seen in sunshine. 173ALICE IN MOVIELAND There is black furniture; and you would say that the effect must be cold. But not so, because of the mirror. It is an immense mirror, and instead of the usual wash of mercury behind the glass there is a wash of gold, which lightens and bright- ens the whole room. It gives a surprising effect of joyousness to the place, and is most flattering to women’s complexions, to say nothing of their dresses. But behind the glass and gold is something else —something hidden. An inconspicuous yet deco- rative button is touched, and—Open Sesame! Behold a screen. This is Gloria Swanson’s pri- vate projection room, where she can give herself and her friends a pre-view of her new pictures. The idea is her own invention. She “tortures herself” with it, she says.CHAPTER XIII THE CITY ON THE HILL Off to Universal City! Yes, off at a great pace in a car which the studio has sent to the Hollywood Hotel to pick up you and Alice! Somehow, you have started a few minutes late, and you’re in a hurry because you are to see stars, and lunch at the cafeteria which is perhaps the most amusing in Movieland. Also you’ve been promised a visit to the Universal Zoo. “How long will it take us to get there?” you ask the driver, who has as much the air of a top sergeant as of a chauffeur. “Oh, about ten minutes,” he replies. “But I guess you’ll want to stop at the location where they’re filming the ice scene in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ won’t you? It’s not far out of our way, and I can tell you it’s worth seeing!” You and Alice hesitate. Of course you want to take his advice for politeness’ sake and because it sounds interesting. But. . . . 175ALICE IN MOVIELAND There’s no “but,” however, in the bright lexi- con of the Top Sergeant Chauffeur! He decides for you both. He has made up his mind what you ought to do, and thinking it over afterwards you realize that if you had said “No thank you, very sorry, but we haven’t time,” you would have found yourself on that location just the same. Even if you had kicked and screamed, there’s very little doubt that at the end of the spasm you’d have waked up where Eliza Harris and her baby had, their big adventure in Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book about sixty years ago. And what a wise Top Sergeant Chauffeur! The moment you and Alice flash out of cloudless summer sunshine into the cold grey fog of winter snow, you realize that you wouldn’t have missed this experience for all the rest of Movieland. And it could happen nowhere else except in Movieland. Talk of falling down Rabbit-holes, and what Alice sees at the bottom! Why, even the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat, and the Duchess and the Red and White Queens couldn’t have been more surprising than this sudden change from palms and flowers and blue sky to a winter landscape of sinister bleakness! You are in the midst of it. There is no sum- mer anywhere. You forget summer. Far and 176THE CITY ON THE HILL wide stretches the scene of snow. The ground is white. Acres of bare trees are white. Snow falls heavily from brooding clouds. A mist of snow veils the distance. You are standing on the white ground on a slight hill above a river bank. It is a wide river, whose black water shows between broken blocks of grey-white ice, cruel ice that moves slowly as a crawling snake, while you gaze through snow that blurs your vision. At first this scene under the low-hanging clouds is the loneliest you ever saw. Nothing moves ex- cept the creeping ice and the blowing snow. There isn’t a sound but the wail of the wind, till you start in astonished response to the baying of dogs. There’s only one breed of dog which utters that deep, bell-like note: the bloodhound! As you tell yourself this, a dark form breaks the snow-veil on the opposite bank of the river. It’s the form of a woman. She is running, stagger- ing, half falling, recovering again and rushing on. She carries in her arms a child too heavy for her slight strength. But though she falters, you know she will not give up. She slides desperately down the steep incline to the river bank, and as she pauses at sight of the broken, moving ice, along come the bloodhounds emitting those bell-like notes which belong to 177ALICE IN MOVIELAND them alone in doghood, as they flounder through the snow, their noses close to earth. The woman turns once, sees the hounds, sees the men who follow, and hesitates no more. She dashes de- fiantly upon the ice, and springs out from block to block as the current bears them onward. The child clings round the young woman’s neck. She sways, loses her balance, recovers only to stumble to her knees. The dogs are close after her now, and the men are yelling on the bank. You cry out, and then, even as instinct bids you cover your eyes, the sound of your own silly voice reminds you that this is only a scene—a super-scene for a movie. The cameras are crank- ing. The director is bawling through his mega- phone. Eliza isn’t Eliza escaping from slavery with her boy in her arms, risking death at every step. She is pretty Marguerite Fisher the screen actress. You come to your senses with a “jolt,” for the moving ice, the black river, the far stretching snow-scape under its low cloud, the bewildering whirl of white, windblown flakes, and the loud baying of bloodhounds have made you live the scene of fear with Eliza. You are ashamed of your emotion, as the chauffeur quietly talks about wind machines, and machines for moving ice; the enormous expense of com-flake snow to cover 178 At I Carl Laemmle The “Uncle Carl” Beloved of All Movieland (Universal}THE CITY ON THE HILL more than an acre of ground, and hundreds of specially planted trees (the corn-flakes alone cost six thousand dollars! All the hungry mice in Southern California ought to be told at once by broadcasting, about the free feast they can have when the film is finished) ; the masses of rubber tires burnt at sunrise each day to form the snow-fog under the vast cup of turquoise sky; the devoted attachment of the bloodhounds to Eliza whom they follow not for hate but love; and a dozen other disillusioning yet interesting details. But, all the same, Eliza, alias Marguerite, does risk her life when she crosses the field of broken ice; and this very morning she has been saved by a miracle. Miss Fisher is still quivering with the. excitement of that miracle, but the tears in her eyes are not for herself. They are for the hero who died for her an hour ago. His name was Jeff Ledburn Barrier. He was a bloodhound of noble pedigree, and in mere cash his worth was two thousand five hundred dollars. The worth of his strange instinct and his heart of love can’t be reckoned very well in money! Seven dogs from the same famous kennels were bought for the ice scene in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and all had learned to love Marguerite Fisher. She fed and played with the great beasts until they would have followed her in a more dan- gerous chase than this across the ice. But one— 179ALICE IN MOVIELAND Jeff Ledburn Barrier—was Eliza’s special slave. Until to-day, when he died for her. Eliza took up her position under a certain snow-laden tree on the river’s bank, and at first she was not surprised when her favourite came close, fawning upon her, and pressing himself between her body and the tree against which she leaned awaiting her call. But there was some- thing odd about the bloodhound’s insistence, when she called him to her other side. He would keep between her and the tree, as if pushing her away, Eliza laughed at his obstinacy and refused to move, pitting her strength against his. “What is the matter with you, Jeff?” she scolded good naturedly. “Go away! You’ll knock me down if you keep on, you great big blunderer!” But that was precisely what Jeff was not. He did keep on, and one great heave of his body, stronger than before, sent Eliza staggering away from the tree. She fell in the false snow, but at a distance, because Jeff had pushed her clear. The force of the wind machine had loosened the tree and it seemed to reach out after Eliza as it plunged to earth. But it was not the woman who was struck by the heavy bulk. It was the dog that stood between her and the tree. His spine and ribs cracked under the weight hurled down upon him, while Eliza cried to him in vain, 180THE CITY ON THE HILL and at last understood what he had meant. She is sad when you and Alice question her. The brutal slave-chasers (very nice, kindly men) are sad, and Jeff’s six fellow bloodhounds seem sad also. If his instinct impelled him to save his friend’s life at the sacrifice of his own, why shouldn’t the others’ instinct tell them what has happened? Two years it has taken to produce the film of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”; and from what you and Alice see and hear on location and at the studio, the picture ought to make screen history! Old people in England still tell how, at the time of the American Civil War, every man in the House of Commons carried in his pocket a copy of the story said to have brought about the war: they tell how, too, all England read the book, and opinion changed from favouring the South (“home of America’s gentlefolk” it was said then) to strong approval of the North. Carl Laemmle (pronounced Lemly) is to Alice one of the outstanding figures of Movieland—a pillar and a “prop.” “Uncle” to all his world, he is father to the Universal Company, and the story of his success is a high romance of business. Several novelists have annexed it as a plot, and Alice has every intention of doing so herself, one of these days.ALICE IN MOVIELAND “Uncle Carl,” Universal’s President, began in a small way and is now in a very big way indeed, the way of multi-millionaires. But he never for- gets an old friend who helped him mount the ladder. Any such friend has the run of Uncle Carl’s pockets and cheque book; but the more he gives the more he seems to gain, so with him loyalty is its own reward and unlike plain virtue, it doesn’t make him “lonely.” No one in Movie- land has more friends than Uncle Carl, and at sixty he has an almost boyish delight in his success. He trots about Europe with his beautiful young daughter Rosabelle, and enjoys discovering new stars or new directors. He has now imported from Germany one of the latter persuasion, said to be in some ways the greatest of his kind in the world. His name is Paul Lamy, and he makes even the walls and doors and windows, to say nothing of furniture and other decorations, help in expressing the emotions of the actors. You have never realized, till you see a set designed by Mr. Lamy, how the mere side of a room can make you visualize despair, or laugh with subtle glee! Speaking of houses, Uncle Carl has lately bought for himself the show house of Movieland. The emotion it expresses is sheer joy in its own beauty. Outdoors and in, there isn’t a dissenting note! The house was built on historic ground for 182THE CITY ON THE HILL Thomas Ince, who died a few years ago, and is of an almost perfect type of Spanish architecture. To Alice’s admiring eyes it seems quite perfect, and she uses the word “almost” only in order to save her face if some person with a narrow, narrow head, and high, high brows, writes to contradict her. But not even a person whose brows arch to the top of his cranium can find fault with the exquisite gardens or views. He would be a churl not to adore the projection room copied from the cabin of an old pirate galleon, and an angel not to covet the antique Spanish furnishings, the brocades, the embroideries, the countless treasures which “Tom” Ince’s beautiful blonde widow sold to Uncle Carl after spending years in collecting them. “Covet” is the word! Yet Alice doesn’t see how any one can grudge Uncle Carl one of his wonderful possessions. He deserves them all, just as his boyish-looking nephew, fair-haired, unassuming but clever “Eddie” Laemmle, de- serves his great success as a director. It did seem as if Uncle Carl ought to have a director in the family, and now he has got one! Universal City is one of the friendliest, pleas- antest places to visit in Movieland. It has some of the handsomest men, including English Regi- nald Denny, all round sportsman, playwright, and baritone singer; Francis Bushman, who still has 183ALICE IN MOVIELAND the most beautiful male profile on the screen, as all who’ve seen “Ben Hur” can vouch; and a number of young stars whose “fan mail” may soon rival Denny’s and Bushman’s. You and Alice, as you alternate eating and staring, at the cafeteria, are glad for once that you’re not men! If you were, all the beauteous girls, from stars like Mary Philbin and Marion Nixon, down through Human Dreams “supporting” male starhood, to deliri- ously lovely Extras, you would forget that you were there for luncheon. As it is, you contrive greedily to mingle a few morsels of food with your admiration! And minus that food, you would hardly live through the excitement of meet- ing Jiggs, Ethel, Minnie, the Devil Horse, and other four-footed stars of Universal Zoo. Jiggs is an ape, or a baboon, or a gorilla, or a chimpanzee, or anyhow one of those creatures whom Alice can never tell apart, while feeling painfully that they are all her poor relations. Mr. Jacobson, “boss” of Universal Publicity, in- troduces Jiggs as the “late toast of Africa.” But Alice, as her bow and smile are politely returned, thinks that Jiggs is either the quickest picker-up of civilization alive, or else it has been some time since she sailed from her native wilds. She is much tamer than any flapper in or out of cap- tivity, yet at the same time she is up to far more exciting tricks. 184* Rex The Four-legged Star Who Has Never Been Ridden (Universal) Dynamite The Famous Police Dog (Universal)THE CITY ON THE HILL Minnie is an elephant, who looks as if her memory went back to the Ark, though in reality she is young and kind, and there’s nothing she cannot or will not do to please you. But Ethel the lioness has a thrill for Alice beyond that of the ape, elephant, horse, or even dog stars. This thrill springs not only from Ethel’s per- sonality, which is engaging, but from her history, and the fact that she has never yet learned that she is a lioness—now of maturing age. Because Ethel was brought up by hand and bottle, among the keeper’s children, from early cubhood till she outgrew all quarters except a conventional lion-cage, she has happily believed herself to be a superior type of collie dog. She does not understand why she may no longer climb up in your lap. to be scratched behind the ears and under the chin {have lionesses chins?) or why new acquaintances should hesitate to kiss her on the forehead. These things used to be of daily occurrence in Ethel’s life: but since one day when a wasp en- tered her cage and she thought it was the keeper who stung her, followed by another day, when she escaped from Universal City to the Boule- vards of Hollywood and with the sweetest inten- tions terrorized the town, such sympathetic events have become rare, most of the best ones have ceased altogether. So Ethel sits and dreams of 185ALICE IN MOVIELAND the past. But the sound of her name brings her to life in an instant. You call “Ethel”! Presto! The ageing lioness springs to her feet, and the light in her eyes, the glory of her golden smile can’t be surpassed in Movieland! #CHAPTER XIV THEY’RE DIFFERENT NOW Years ago—well, nine years to be precise, and about equal to the passing of an entire genera- tion in bright young Movieland though—First National bought a book of Alice’s, all about Rouletteland, alias Monte Carlo. They bought it for a girl star, one of the most beautiful young women who ever flitted across a screen. Alice called the book one thing, they called the film another. In fact, they called it “Passion’s Play- ground.” That was the sort of title people liked then. We do the trick more subtly now. The picture showed the principal characters arriving at Monaco from Genoa, in a small boat, which alone was enough to turn dark melodrama into gay farce. But later an even jollier scene ap- peared. The hero drove a high-powered car all night over terrific passes miraculously avoiding precipices and gorges, in order to rescue the hero- ine from a medieval castle where she’d been im- prisoned. He started this drive from Monte Carlo, and his destination was Cap Martin, which in real life (that we all know is a bit simpler than 187ALICE IN MOVIELAND film life) he would have reached, along a perfect road, in from seven to ten minutes. Also, in real life, he would have found no older prison for dis- tressed heroines than a mid-Victorian villa built for the late ex-Empress Eugenie. Well, the First National people don’t do such things nowadays! They did that at the time only because everyone else was doing it. But in this blessed era they are among the most up-to-date and accurate at any cost, of all the studios. Be- sides, they have some of the best stars. Alice thinks that no goddess of Greek mythology, in- cluding dear Aphrodite, alias Venus, could have surpassed Billie Dove in beauty. She might well have played Helen of Troy, and “got away with it,” making every man in the audience feel that what those Trojans did on her account was more than natural. But not content with having one perfect beauty in the studio, First National had to match the homegrown one with a beauty from abroad, Maria Corda, who is also perfection. Another Hungarian I They gave “Helen” to her, in the film concerning that lady’s private life, and Maria, like Billie, is worth launching a thousand ships for; also she would make the con- struction of a large wooden horse capable of holding an army of soldiers in its tummy, seem easy and pleasant. And talking of beauties, what price the profile of Mary Astor? 188THEY’RE DIFFERENT NOW Besides, there’s that adorable Colleen Moore! To Alice’s mind, Colleen’s smile, and a certain turn of her eyes would justify the existence of any large Moving Picture Studio, even if she were the only star. She is no classic beauty; and like Gloria Swanson, she delights in playing a character part where she can look frumpish and plain through several reels. Once, she even tried to look old. That was in “So Big.” Her acting was splendid but you just couldn’t believe in her wrinkles; so probably she won’t be allowed to paint on any more of them for the next twenty-five years, when perhaps (just perhaps) she may have developed two or three of her own. Yes, when you come to think it over, First National and several other studios are really ex- travagant almost beyond limit, in the way of beauty. There’s Natli Barr, and Yola d’Avril, and Molly O’Day, who has sprung into the lime- light—no, I mean the Klieg light—lately. And First National is no more saving of its dollars in the matter of men. Alice, who has private reasons for sympa- thizing with church mice, wouldn’t dare calculate what the salary list must be for such men as Richard Barthelmess, Milton Sills, Lewis Stone, and some of the rest who are costing girlhood all over the world time and money in the piling up of “fan mail.” 189ALICE IN MOVIELAND On the subject of “fan mail,” whose importance to a star Alice has dwelt upon already, she is reminded to say a new word. At the First National Studio, a few miles out of Hollywood at Breezy Burbank (named after the man who could turn grapes into peaches, or something) you and Alice get a peep at some letters from worshippers; and also at the answers prepared for a select few. A girl in Oshkosh fears, from the expression of Dick Barthelmess’ “wonderful dark eyes,” that he is sad at heart and she would love to comfort him. As a prelude to the future, she begs for his latest photo and his autograph. Both are sent, but the young lady is kindly informed that Mr. Barthelmess isn’t really so sad as all that. He finds considerable pleasure in life, and can’t work too hard to please himself. When he has a little time to spare he goes in for yachting. Milton Sills, told by an adorer that he is for her the “most manly man on the screen,” disap- points her with the news that one of his principal interests out of the studio is in—raising flowers! What a knockout blow from a red-blooded hero! Not that you can’t mix red blood with the culture of flowers. . Milton Sills does. It must be a relief to girls that Ken Maynard does like horses—off the screen as well as on. But who would imagine that little Harry Langdon 190Molly O’Day The Prettiest Irish Girl in Movieland (First National)THEY’RE DIFFERENT NOW would find the principal joy of existence in music? Yet, after all, why not? He may look like a lovable male doll turned by a fairy godmother’s wand into a very young, sad-eyed Boy Without a Smile. But in reality he is a grown man who has gone through hardships and misfortunes on the road to becoming a comedy star. He has even needed such consolation as music can give, and in order not to be without it he has learned to play almost every known instrument—except the vio- lin, which is the one he loves best! That is the principal reason why he doesn’t play it. If you had to make a bet on Harry Langdon, as to whether or not he’d be a lover of books, which way would you bet? Alice is afraid she would, just at sight, bet against the books; but if she did, she’d lose her money, for, strange to say, the little comedian in the funny clothes is a deep student. Philosophy, classic and modern, is his favourite study. So you see, you never know about these figures in Movieland! And if you’re wise, you won’t make long distance bets about what they’re apt to do best and like best outside the studio. Not that they have much time outside, so it’s a credit to their energy and intelligence that they can honestly enjoy using up their small leisure in the reading of books and the pursuit of all sorts of sports. Alice thinks that in their place she 191ALICE IN MOVIELAND would sleep most of the time before and after work hours, like her old friend of the Rabbit-hole, the Dormouse. But the stars, most of them, think differently. And that’s one reason why, if you are betting, you would be safer to bet against those “wild parties of Hollywood” rather than for them, where the constellations of First National or of any other studio in Movieland are con- cerned. Most of the parties you and Alice are invited to in Hollywood, or even at gay Beverly Hills, are over, or would inhospitably like to be, at Cinder- ella hour. Even stars, to conserve their light, must sleep! And then, so many more of them are married, and staying married more than we sentimental outsiders like to believe about our pets! If you’re married, and you and your wife give a party, or if you go to one with your wife, you seem to get sleepy after fewer dances than when you were single, don’t you think? Hollywood is no excep- tion to this disappointing rule, save for those married ones who (a true Hollywood expres- sion!) “aren’t working at it.”CHAPTER XV THE COMEDY BEEHIVE Going to the Christie Studio is like bursting into a big country house filled with a large, laugh- ing family and a swarm of week-end guests. Alice knew all about the Christie Comedies and loved them long before she fell down the Rabbit- hole into Movieland, but she thinks now she must have been a stupid little person never to have guessed that life in the Christie Studio is as ab- sorbing at Maeterlinck’s “Life of the Bee.” It’s not unlike it, either! I mean, the Christie Studio is as busy as a beer hive, and as entertaining. Better in lots of ways. They never sting you there. And, pleasant merry bees that they are, they never sting each other or anyone else. One reads that clowns and comedians are Liv- ing Glooms off-stage. Apparently this isn’t true of the screen. The old saying, “It’s more fun than a house on fire!” (i.e. somebody else’s house) suits the Christie Studio. Often it is on fire—for picture purposes: nice easy fire to put out by flooding with a hose or two. That a few 193ALICE IN MOVIELAND comedians should have the most southern parts of their persons burnt (no comedian ever injures any part but this) and some few be nearly drowned, only adds to the joy of nations at the Christie place, including the joy of those most nearly concerned—Jack Duffy for instance! Alice, seeing a toothless, hollow-cheeked man of ninety or thereabouts, scalded, drowned, kicked, and robbed of his most important gar- ments by younger Christie comedians on her first day there, seethed with rage against the merciless tyrants. She yearned to rescue the aged gentle- man at almost any cost to herself. She thought, “Poor plucky old thing! He’s so nearly ready to drop into the grave that he’s thankful to get any job to keep him in bed and board till all he needs next is a coffin! But all the same, how cruel to use him like that! He’ll die under the torture some day! and maybe then they’ll be sorry!” The joke on Alice is that Jack is a robust boy of thirty, who achieves his mummied look and earns his money by the simple expedient of taking out his teeth. Youth, if not beauty, is but teeth deep on the screen; and Jack Duffy enjoys the floods and fires through which he is dragged even more than Alice enjoys the joke. She does won- der, though, if he had his teeth taken out on purpose, as Ben Turpin had his eyes crossed by a surgical operation so as to be funny forever. 194THE COMEDY BEEHIVE Funny, that is, until he falls in love with some rare girl who doesn’t choose to increase the “fan mail” of cross-eyed men. If that time comes, says Ben, he will go to another surgeon and have his eyes uncrossed by a second operation. Jack, however, can never, no never, have his very own teeth implanted again. Still, teeth are a mere incident in the strenuous life of the gay comedian. Any minute you can fall from an aeroplane or be shot out of a cannon, and swallow your molars. They would hardly have got below the diaphragm before you’d be acting again, as if nothing had happened. In- deed, one Christie girl lost an eye the other day, and didn’t wait to be out of bandages before she was back at the studio, telling her friends not to sympathize, because the; new glass eye being built for her by the smartest eye-tailor would have a steady appeal which her natural eye had lacked. So “carry on” is the motto of the Christie world, as it is of the world of bees depicted by Maeter- linck. The great bee lover told, in his artistic way, of the miniature yet perfect mansions of the clever creatures he glorified. And there is something of this miniature but perfect effect in the Christie Studio. Comedies mustn’t have grandiose set- tings, you know, or part of the fun would be lost in too much space. So you find yourself wander- 195ALICE IN MOVIELAND ing into “cute” little drawing-rooms where each tiny detail is complete, and out again into tiny baronial halls; on, to a private salon and state- room of a ship done in cameo smallness and pret- tiness ; so, through a corridor which leads you to a doll’s house lobby in a fashionable Paris hotel. It is the. ship-suite which interests you most. It is so complete and amusing, you would like to live in it. And your praise pleases Mr. Al Chris- tie, one of the two king bees. You see, the Chris- tie hive has kings, a pair of them, instead of the. one tyrannical queen of the beehive. The kings are brothers. Charlie looks after the business and Al looks after the films. It’s a smart combi- nation, and these two brothers have had more to do with the making of Movieland history than almost any other men. Their studio was the first in Hollywood. They have a bronze tablet in the front to prove that fact, in case any one. disputes it. The mayor placed it where it is with much ceremony. And oh, the gorgeous stories the two Christies can tell of the pioneer days of the movie world! If they had time to write a book of their adventures it would be funnier than any fun in fiction. Alice knows this, because she listened spellbound to the tale as told In Mr. Al Christie’s oak-panelled study. Yes, his study! It is right and proper that It should be a study, for there the owner plots his pictures. They come out of 196THE COMEDY BEEHIVE his own brain; at least, some of them do: those that don’t come from the brain of Frank Conklin, head of the scenario department. He too has a study, though not noticeably oak-bound. And when Frank and his assistants sit there discussing future comedies which will be funnier than any comedies have ever been yet, they look so sad you would say they were going to be executed with torture at the end of a short ten minutes. Even Mr. Al Christie does not laugh when he tells those side-splitting adventures of the past. Perhaps long intimate association with comedies dries up laughter at its fount. Or perhaps he is secretly saying to himself in answer to Alice’s suggestion, “Book indeed! Why should I waste this good stuff in a mere book, when some day I can weave it into a film?” And naturally a man wouldn’t stop to laugh when he had got hold of an idea like that. Why not a comedy with a sort of Charlie Chap- lin hero, and a plot like this?— Hero is a young man in the theatrical business. He has never heard of movies, for the ve.ry good reason that there are no movies in existence. And yet, the microbe of them is in the air! Hero en- counters a small but brave band of men who have had an inspiration. They will make moving pic- tures that will tell a little story. The objection is, they have no actors, nor any idea how to build a 197ALICE IN MOVIELAND set. Hero gets the former and develops the lat- ter. Then his troubles begin. Conflict! Sus- pense ! Both necessary ingredients for a film. A great Combine has patented moving picture cameras. The little new concern can’t afford their prices. By stealth, in defiance of law and police, Hero secures a camera which is outside the patent. Maybe he makes it. Anyhow, he gets it. It has to be guarded night and day by a prize- fighter engaged for the purpose at ruinous ex- pense. Otherwise the watchful police would step in and seize the object of contention which, though hidden, has been betrayed and is known to exist. The studio is a tiny camp consisting of three or four tents, capable of moving hurriedly and silently from place to place. Hero plays watch-dog when the prize-fighter rests. He coils himself round the camera to sleep. He steals out with the finished negative in the dead of night, and, draped in black to the point of invisibility, hands it to a fellow conspirator on board a dew- parting train. The company has to change its name with every move, for fear of a warrant or- dering its arrest. It is the Hero who invents new names for the outfit, and most of the details of each escape. Oh yes, there’s a plot for a comedy film in this story, and the happy ending could come at Holly- wood (scarcely a village then) with the leasing of 198THE COMEDY BEEHIVE a little inn (Hero hasn’t the money to buy) and the success which follows. The scenario writer needn’t be too realistic. For instance, he needn’t show Al and Charlie Christie selling such bits of land as they’ve managed from time to time to buy, in order to pay their rent. That part of the story would make the happy ending too long drawn out. But, as a matter of fact, in real life it wasn’t an end at all. It was only a beginning. And now the old inn, transformed into a white- faced studio, with garden courts and labyrinths of rooms and stages inside, is one of the “sights of Hollywood,” with that bronze, tablet and all! As for our hero, Al Christie (his brother Charles has a lower visibility, being generally away on a business trip to New York or some- where), he is a wonderful personality. He no longer calls himself a young man, but to his frie-nds he is the youngest man they know. He has dignity, and not the boldest, hardest-boiled little gold-digging beauty in Movieland would dare try to grab him for a “sugar daddy.” Yet all the girls like the big, handsome man with the magnetic, black-lashed grey eyes, and the kindly smile. Pert as little dogs yapping round the feet of a mastiff, the pretty things call him “Al,” and know that if he grants them some favour he would do the same for one of their grandmothers and grandfathers. 199ALICE IN MOVIELAND Indeed, many grandmothers and grandfathers are on Al Christie’s charity list to-day. No faithful old actor past his work need fear the poorhouse if he has spent a few years in the Christie Comedy Studio. Grandpa’s salary will go on till he dies; and if Grandma survives him she will get a pension. If a diamond wedding day came along with no diamonds to decorate it, Al Christie would supply a few, if he had to take them out of his cuff links. This sort of spirit in the head of an institution creates an atmosphere of kindliness and friend- ship ; which is why going into the Christie Studio is like going into the home of a large, jolly family whose guest you are. Al Christie is like a young- ish Father-in-a-Shoe, who has so many children he doesn’t know what to do. Yet the. children like him and the brother King Bee too well to give trouble, so the Shoe never pinches. And as for the guests, the great wish of the family seems to be to “give them a good time.” So when you and Alice extravagantly admire that miniature suite on a ship, Mr. Al Christie thinks only a few seconds before he has a scheme mapped out. “Would you like to see the rest of the ship?” he asks. Of course the answer is in the affirmative! Alice looks at her wrist watch. There is an- 200THE COMEDY BEEHIVE other engagement to follow this, and Mr. Chris- tie’s stories have been so interesting that you have cut the time rather short. Still, you might spare another fifteen minutes I What is your surprise and Alice’s on hearing that to see the rest of the ship will take several hours. “One would think it was a real ship, and a big one 1” exclaims Alice. “It may not be so big as some ships, the Leviathan, for instance,” says Mr. Christie, “but it has one distinction. Part of it is here in the studio, as you know. Part of it—as you don’t know yet!—is afloat in the water; and the double of that second part is anchored in a wheatfield.” This strange statement needs explanation to the amateur intelligence; but you and Alice are rapidly developing movie minds, so you both spring to the same conclusion; and it turns out to be the right one. Here in the studio are the cabin, the sitting- room and the. very realistic corridor concerned in the picture being made. But some shots will have to show the ship at sea. Well, a ship has been chartered, and there’s plenty of sea, free for all, within a few miles of Hollywood. Movieland wouldn’t be what it is without that well-known sea, to say nothing of Catalina, which has played the part of so many islands of the far Pacific 201ALICE IN MOVIELAND that it has almost forgotten what it really is; just as Arizona and New Mexican deserts are be- gininng to put on all the airs of the Lybian and the Sahara. Mr. Christie goes on to confess that though the sea-going craft is all it ought to be when viewed from outside in long distance shots, the interior and even the decks have seen their best days. Consequently, the suite, etc., in the studio, and an exact replica (in a field where nothing but wheat waves) of this ship at sea. “Sounds expensive,” says Mr. Christie. “But when you stop to think it’s a big saving of money —and time. If we had to do all our work on the water, we’d be at the mercy of the weather. Even the best actors may be bad sailors—and generally are. Directors and camera men are almost hu- man too. Now you understand the situation, do you still want to see the rest of our ship?” You and Alice compromise by accepting a “box- lunch” invitation for to-morrow on board the storm-proof craft. “Sure, to be fun I” you think. And it is! It’s more than fun. It is unique; for not even in the movie world does there exist (at the moment) another vessel standing firm as a rock in a sea of wheat. There, on a stationary deck, warranted not to betray your trust, you safely yield to greed. Out of a neat cardboard 202r Ronald Colman The Englishman Who Has Made an Enormous Hit. (Samuel Goldwyn; photo Melbourne Sparr) Thomas Meighan (Paramount; photo E. R. Richee)THE COMEDY BEEHIVE box come so many little packets done up in tissue paper that they might have been produced by a conjuror’s trick. While the Christie comedians enact a scene you will scream over some day in New York, London, or Paris, you sit in your deck chair devouring chicken sandwiches, Russian salad, custard pie, strawberries, ice cream and Swiss cheese. On what other ship could you go to such lengths without fear that in the end you might have to sing that saddest sea chanty, “Steward, basin, please!” The amazing adventures of little Grace Has- kins (now Grace Conklin) don’t belong legiti- mately at the. end of a chapter about the Christie Studio. Yet, in a way they do belong, since she has now (more or less) settled down as the wife of that very Frank Conklin whom Alice just men- tioned as head of the scenario department there. Anyhow, she must come in somewhere, because no book about Movieland could be complete with- out her as one of the Wonders. Her story shows that even in hard-boiled Hollywood, if a girl has courage, determination and perseverance combined, with enough of each ingredient, she is bound to succeed. Though, of course, there aren’t many girls like Grace there. The tale ought by rights to begin with her 203ALICE IN MOVIELAND childhood in a small mid-western town, when she believed so firmly in Santa Claus that she wanted to go into partnership with him. But let’s speed things up a little, raising the curtain when at sev- enteen Grace realizes her ambition and arrives at Los Angeles. “Why do girls leave home?” was the first question Alice asked after reaching Movieland. And she answered it for herself with: “They leave it for Hollywood.” That was what small, slim, brown-eyed Grace Haskins did. But she did it with a different motive. She would! All her motives are differ- ent. She began with Los Angeles, where she landed with fifty dollars in her purse, and a heartful of hope. America had gone into the war, and after a funny adventure or two, Grace found a job in the Ship Yards. She had to interview and judge boys of military age whose fathers wished to get them into the yards in order to keep them out of the army. She did this so well, that without know- ing it herself she attracted the attention of men at the top, and among these men the most im- portant was Mr. Harry Chandler, a big stock- holder in the Shipbuilding Company as well as the proprietor of The Los Angeles Tinies. He noticed that this child of seventeen was a re- 204THE COMEDY BEEHIVE markably good little business woman, and later on his silent approval was to make all the differ- ence in that little woman’s career. Meanwhile, however, the few thoughts she could spare from her job she gave to the job she had long wanted to get. Presently, after the war was over, Grace decided that the time had come. “On to Hollywood!” was her slogan. Hollywood in distance is only a few miles from Los Angeles. But there are barriers hard to pass which separate Movieland from L.A. Grace thought of one way to pass, though it was a slow one. She called on the manager of the Hotel Hollywood, then, as now, the most important hotel there, and at that time (before they began feverishly building villas) crammed with screen stars, directors, and so on. What she wanted was work: work of almost any kind. But the only kind available at the moment was that of assistant book-keeper and general utility girl in the hotel. Taking a turn now and then at the telephone switchboard, she met a few of the stars, which was the realization of her dream. She didn’t want to be a star herself, but it was part of the game to know stars. Madeline Traverse engaged her as private secretary, to attend to “fan mail.” The next step was to get into the cutting room of a famous studio, and after learning all that the cutting room 205ALICE IN MOVIELAND could teach, the small Miss Haskins progressed from one department to another, till she could do “continuity” as well as she could cut. As the months went on, Mr. Chandler had kept track of the smart little business woman he’d noticed at the Yards, and encouraged her to call now and then to report progress. One morning she had a book to show him. It would make a wonderful movie, she thought, and she was the girl to make it. Would Mr. Chandler lend her a few thousand dollars to set her up as a producer? It was Mr. Chandler’s busy day, in which it differed from no other day except Sunday. All the same, Grace’s eloquence won, so far as per- suading him to read the book was concerned. But as for the rest. . . . “Why don’t you try your hand on some cheap little story, instead of hitting on a big expensive scheme like this?” he wanted to know. Some girls would have been daunted, realizing that a man of affairs was simply finding a gentle way to rid himself of their persistence. Grace’s quick mind didn’t miss this point of view, but she wasn’t dashed by it. She went home and chose the shortest, cheapest way of finding a story. She concocted a plot and typed it out in scenario form. Her title—not inappropriate— was “Just Like a Woman.” 206THE COMEDY BEEHIVE When she took it to Mr. Chandler she learned that he had meant what she feared he had—if Grace could ever fear! He hadn’t expected to hear from her again on the subject of film and finance, and now, though he respected her as a youthful female bulldog, he threw off that trouble- some puppy’s grip! “Nothing doing,” he said. The story might be good enough, but the picture world was no place for a girl of Grace Haskins’ age. Even if she had a chance of success there—which she hadn’t!—she needn’t hope to push her way in on his money! He considered that it would be doing her a bad turn to lend her as much as ten cents to burn her fingers at that game. But Grace was sure she wouldn’t burn her fingers. She continued to play the bulldog part, and on his side of the fence, Mr. Chandler went on enacting the same role. Grace’s idea was that Mr. Chandler misunder- stood not only the situation, but herself. He had often said he would help her. Why shouldn’t he help her in her own way? She was certain he would when the test came, so she went on as if he had agreed to back her scheme instead of refusing. She began by trying to raise money from busi- ness people, boldly sending them to Mr. Chandler, one of the richest and most highly respected men 207ALICE IN MOVIELAND in the whole State, for a recommendation. That he never failed to give. Grace Haskins might be young, he said, but she was honest, and if she promised to pay for anything, pay she would. Also, at her request he introduced her to a bank- ing concern which made large loans to moving pic- ture people; and, naturally, such an introduction counted. If Miss Haskins could get a signed release for her picture, the bank consented to lend her thirty thousand dollars with which to make it. This happened some years ago, but even then thirty thousand dollars “looked like thirty cents” in Movieland. However, little Grace Haskins had secured for herself a very special oppor- tunity, and in the circumstances she saw her way to producing “Just Like a Woman” for just that sum! In a certain studio a change of plan left free for two weeks a few very handsome new sets, exactly what she needed for her film. Also a beautiful girl star had a fortnight to spare “between pictures.” A few other good people were available for a short time, and when Grace had got all the details of what she could do put upon paper, she began trying to do it. She had made friends in the Famous Players Studio, and through influence there, a well-known releasing company in New York gave her the promise she asked for. 208THE COMEDY BEEHIVE Of course, a promise isn’t a contract. But when a telegram came saying the contract would be posted, Grace believed that all was well. She looked upon the telegram as a legal contract, giving her the right to start production. The bank did not go quite so far as this; but Grace didn’t dream that she could be held up for long; and because of the studio sets to be had for next to nothing (if she began and finished promptly), she decided to risk the great adven- ture. The bank wouldn’t advance the money till the release came, but it might come any day; and by waiting it would be too late. Everybody thought it a good joke that this little unknown girl should be producing a picture ; that she should be her own continuity writer, from a story of her own; that she intended to cut the film, title and edit it herself. But there was something about the brown wisp of a creature with its bright, eager eyes, which hypnotized people to do what she wished. Her beautiful star, a popular leading man, and an altogether adequate cast, flew feverishly to work upon this first of the “quickies,” under a director who was the star’s manager and who had himself been a director. All went like clockwork for a week. Then came the day when salaries were due. And there 209ALICE IN MOVIELAND wasn’t a nickel with which to pay them! The “baby producer” (as the newspapers were naming her, unconscious of a possible double entendre complimentary only to married ladies!) had to admit that the release and the money that hung upon it were lacking. But both were secure! All everybody had to do was to go on and finish the picture. But the director ex-producer saw something else that might be done. The picture promised to be very good. He thought it would be a box office success. Miss Haskins had broken her contract by not paying her company at the end of a week’s work. He called them all together, and pro- posed that they “freeze the girl out.” They would finish the picture, yes; but for themselves, not for her. They would market it through him, each taking a percentage of the profits. The one dissentient voice after this reasonable appeal was that of an actor famous for playing old men’s parts. The others decided to offer Miss Haskins an ultimatum. But this man, who liked “the little thing,” was loyal. If they “let her down,” he would “walk out.” In most circumstances this is the unforgivable sin of Movieland. To throw down a part in the middle of a picture is so terrible a crime that it will ruin the person who commits it for ever on the screen. His (or her) deed will be in future 210THE COMEDY BEEHIVE what was the albatross to the Ancient Mariner, or the Scarlet Letter to Hester. In this one case, however, black crime became white virtue. The man’s part was important. The picture couldn’t go on without him. So that plan was thwarted. But the director was sorer than ever against Grace Haskins. He settled with the company that the picture should be made, so far as the scenes taken in the studio were concerned, because the same sets could not be got later. Fortunately, after these scenes were shot Grace’s one friend, their enemy, would be powerless to hurt them. The little left for him to do in the film could be done by a double, at “long distance.” So the company planned a surprise for the “baby producer.” In their name the director promised loyalty to her, and the picture progressed faster, perhaps, than a picture so good ever progressed before. Then came a day when the studio work was finished and the last scenes were to be shot, partly on board a ship sailing from Los Angeles to San Francisco, partly at San Francisco itself. Grace had “scared up” enough money as a loan to pay the return fares of the whole company, including the producer, and the first plot against her, when it failed, had been hushed up, lest it should reach her ears prematurely. But not only did she know what had gone on under the smooth 211ALICE IN MOVIELAND surface; she knew what was going on at the moment. The last scenes could be shot at any time, the sole expense to the director, if he took the film over for himself and the company, being that of the boat tickets, the camera men and the actors. He had the continuity, and he thought he had Grace at his mercy. Having promised to “see her through,” the people would not now openly desert her. Yet she suspected, she was almost certain, that they meant to be late in arriving at the docks. The ship would sail without them and the end of the second week being at hand, all would refuse their services for a third. The pic- ture would be ruined for Miss Haskins, but the director could finish it for himself and the others at his leisure, claiming the whole film for the company, as no salaries had been received. The ships of this line were prompt in their sailings. Grace was “on the spot,” however, not only in body but in brain. Now Mr. Chandler’s benevolent friendship for the girl came into use again, though he was in blissful ignorance of the fact! Grace had asked her people to assemble at the dock more than an hour before the boat was due to leave. They had assured her they would be there; but four o’clock came (the sailing time 212THE COMEDY BEEHIVE was four minutes past) and not one had arrived. Ralph Chandler, nephew of the great Harry, was manager of the steamship company, and Grace had met him when she worked in the Ship Yards. According to his habit, he was on hand to see the boat off, and Grace rushed to him. “You must hold this ship, Mr. Chandler!” she said. “None of my people are here yet, and they must get on board, or my picture will be ruined. Your uncle has an interest in it, and we’ll lose every cent if the boat goes without them.” Ralph Chandler argued that no ship of this line had ever sailed late, and he didn’t see how he could permit this one to do so. All the same, Grace saw that the threat of a big money loss to his uncle weighed heavily with him. She argued on, breathlessly, while the minutes passed, know- ing that Ralph Chandler always gave the word for the ships to sail. Five minutes after the boat ought to have been out of her slip the girl saw her company straggling along. She was quite aware that they believed their purpose accom- plished; but all were full of apologies when they beheld the “baby producer” standing pale and excited beside the manager of the line. They were so sorry to have missed the boat, but their car had broken down and . . . ando . . . 213ALICE IN MOVIELAND “It’s all right,” Grace cut in; “only get on board as quick as you can. Mr. Chandler has held the ship for me.” Amazed, crestfallen, there was nothing to do but tumble on board, shepherded by Grace as if they had been a particularly docile flock of sheep. The picture was finished in San Francisco, but Grace Haskins’ troubles were far from having ended. When she returned to Los Angeles there were five warrants out for her arrest on the part of five different creditors. By and by there were six, for the director sued her, still hoping to get the pic- ture for himself and his “crowd.” But Harry Chandler began to weaken in his decision. Too many people visited his office and assured him that Grace Haskins was a “crook.” According to them, she had obtained large sums of money on the strength of Mr. Chandler’s name, and prison was the place for her, or else a lunatic asylum. Mr. Chandler sent for Grace. She came, somewhat worn, because night and day she was not only in danger of gaol, but she had to protect the precious negative of her finished film, lest it should be seized. Without its actual possession she could not get the release on which all her fu- ture depended. “You used my name, I hear, in this business; 214THE COMEDY BEEHIVE you said I was interested?” began Mr. Chandler, looking stern. “Well, you are interested, aren’t you?” Grace earnestly enquired. “You hadn’t promised me money, but I knew if I went through with my job you would lend it to me. I was as sure of you as I’m sure of heaven.” When he heard the story of all the girl had been through Harry Chandler remembered an or- deal of his own youth. When he was a poor boy, but a boy of genius, the city of Los Angeles was persuaded to give him a contract. They called upon him to dig a tunnel under North Broadway. But the work must be completed at a certain time, or he forfeited the money agreed upon; also a promised bonus. He had counted on selling certain property he had contrived to buy on top of the tunnel, thus getting wages for the foreman and crew he had engaged to rush the job along without delays. The sale fell through. Wages couldn’t be paid. All the men struck except the foreman himself, who stood by his boy employer. Together the two worked like demons, and came upon gravel, which they could sell at a good price. This piece of luck saved the situation. But in telling the story to Grace Haskins, Harry Chandler ad- mitted that in his despair he’d been tempted to run away. 215ALICE IN MOVIELAND “Now, if I don’t do for you what the find of gravel did for me, will you run away?” he cate- chized her. “No,” answered Grace, “whatever happens I won’t run away. I’d sooner go to prison.” “You win!” said Mr. Chandler, He paid the girl’s creditors. If this were a fiction Cinderella story, it might end here, with a little space given for the in- evitable prince. Well, there was a prince in this wow-fiction Cinderella story, the scion of an old, important family, and a war hero, who won the Croix de Guerre. He had burst into an early chapter of Grace Haskins’ Movieland adventure and had become a member of the happy family at the Christie Studio. But Grace wouldn’t be en- gaged to him until she had achieved success of her own. So Cinderella’s adventure had to go on from Los Angeles and Hollywood to New York. The director was the only one of the creditors to remain unpaid, because Grace disputed the claim he had brought, and consequently he had put an “attachment” on the negative. Grace, who had done all the cutting of the film, had a key to the safe in which it and the print she must take with her were kept, and contrived to steal the dis- puted treasures. Having secured them, she had to prevent their being stolen in turn from her, 216THE COMEDY BEEHIVE which she contrived to do by a “cute” trick on the eve of starting for New York. She had no extra money to spend on hiring auto- mobiles; but she had five faithful friends who possessed cars. These friends obeyed her instruc- tions precisely. Within five minutes of one another they called, at Grace’s house, which was being watched by the enemy. Each in turn dashed away bearing objects which looked like a negative and a print. With these they made for the rail- way station. The villains of the piece had been prepared for two automobiles, one negative, and one print, but they were not in force to follow five vehicles. They did their best to keep all in sight, however; and w’hen the coast seemed to be clear, Grace darted away with the real print in her own possession. The negative she dared not take with her, for fear of a quiet holdup en route. That was given to a trustworthy messenger, and sent to a Los Angeles laboratory. It was not to leave there until Grace should wire that she had safely arrived in New York with the print. This was a prudent measure her lately engaged lawyer had urged the girl to take, and for the first time in many weeks she began to lose her sense of strain. She had a little ready money, lent her for pressing needs, and in order to make a good impression upon the releasing company in particular and New York in general, the “baby 217ALICE IN MOVIELAND producer” had been advised to put up at a good hotel. She selected one of the best, and had ar- rayed herself in her smartest evening gown for her first dinner there, when it occurred to the girl to buy a newspaper. She hoped that the jour- nalistic friends now interested in her big venture had chronicled the arrival of the “baby producer from California, twenty-two years of age.” She was right. The news was there. She was starred. But on the same page her eager eyes flashed to a line of big letters at top of a column. A large laboratory in Los Angeles had burned down, with the loss of many important film nega- tives. Grace nearly fainted. It was the laboratory in which her negative had been placed, to remain until it could travel to New York. This was the hardest blow Fate had dealt, and for the first time she felt helpless. With the negative of “Just Like a Woman” destroyed, her courage, her struggles, her exhausting labours, would have been in vain. And worst of all, with the negative lost she saw no possible way of re- paying the money she had borrowed. But a waiter was asking what “Madame” wished for dinner! Grace pulled herself together, that the gay crowd in the restaurant might not suspect her despair. She ordered a good meal and forced herself to eat. 218THE COMEDY BEEHIVE As she expressed her emotion of the moment to Alice in Movieland these few years after the event, “she had too much experience with God to believe He could let things go all to pieces for her after she’d worked and prayed so hard.” “If I can keep a stiff upper lip,” she told her- self, “something is bound to happen.” It did. A telegram happened. It came from the lawyer in Los Angeles, informing Miss Has- kins that the negative had been removed to his house before the laboratory caught fire. Grace thanked heaven for saving her. But it hadn’t finished testing her character even then. The “enemy” was able to make trouble after the negative was taken to the attorney’s house, and there was a delay in sending it east. Until it arrived in New York business could not be com- pleted, and meanwhile Grace was occupying ex- pensive quarters for which she could no longer pay. There she was again, between those well-known horns of a dilemma! She wouldn’t even try to borrow more money. Yet she must continue to make a good appearance. It would be a terrible mistake to let the releasing company and the jour- nalists now engaged in writing her up see that she was “broke.” The girl would not, at this crisis, have been 219ALICE IN MOVIELAND Grace Haskins if she hadn’t at once received a special inspiration! She went with her bad news straight to the manager of the hotel, who had shown himself kindly interested in the “baby producer” from the West. “Will you do me a big favour?” Grace asked. The manager listened to the suggestion which might have sounded “crazy” from any one else. But somehow it didn’t sound crazy from this little, brown wren of a girl! And presently Mr.-------had agreed to grant the favour. Miss Haskins was to move to cheap quarters and find work to see her through until luck changed. Meanwhile, she was allowed to use the hotel as her address, as if she were staying there. Telephone messages were to be forwarded, and everything was to go on for her as if she were a guest of the hotel. With the personality which had impressed im- portant business men in the West, Grace soon found work—such as it was! She was engaged as cashier in a cheap combination of restaurant and bakery. She lodged near by in a small apartment recommended to her, where the tenant put an extra cot into a room already occupied by two daughters. It was winter by this time; nevertheless, Grace got up at five o’clock each morning, and walked 220THE COMEDY BEEHIVE six New York blocks to her “job,” sometimes 7 ploughing through snowdrifts nearly to her knees. But she was too highly keyed up with excite- ment to feel the cold, for she never knew what the next day might bring forth. Often she would get calls, telephoned on from the hotel, asking her to dine or give an interview to some impor- tant newspaper man. Then she would arrange with another girl in the restaurant to relieve her for a certain length of time. She would almost run “home,” change her clothes, and keep an appointment at the smart hotel, with the air of having just come down from her room. In fact, the very day when she first took up her job at the restaurant (it happened to be Christmas morning; for these dramatic touches / do occasionally happen in real life—such a life as Grace Haskins’), the girl glanced at a newspaper, to see a portrait of her smiling self on the first page. It was accompanied with a “big” story by the famous Louella Parsons, wherein Grace was described as the “youngest producer on record.” She was living at one of the best hotels in New York, and had already netted a million dollars from her new film. Poor little Grace! But that was at last the end of her poorness. Faith and perseverance combined had their reward. The negative came, the release was ob- 221ALICE IN MOVIELAND tained, and what was just as important, the pic- ture made, as Grace had always hoped and be- lieved it would, a box-office success. She returned to California and paid her debts. When, charmingly dressed, happy, and engaged to Frank Conklin, she told Mr. Harry Chandler the tale of her hard days in New York, his com- ment was, “Well, that didn’t hurt you!” She agreed with him, and agrees still. Now, on top of a very successful land invest- ment, the indefatigable Grace has invented a scheme which may cause quite a sensation in Movieland before the next few months have passed.CHAPTER XVI DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—MEN All great directors are dynamic. Some have fewer dynamos than others. Some control those they have, just as Vesuvius is able to keep down its emotions for months and years on end, long enough even to grow a new peak on its cone. These last are not spoken of as “dynamic,” though they are known to be so. They are popu- larly “tagged” with other aspects of their genius. But for Eric von Stroheim (I refuse to termi- nate his Christian name with an “h” now that he has worn off so much of his outside Austrian- ness in America) the coined adjective “dynamic” is the first which springs to the lips. “Coined,” I say. And I might add, coined in Hollywood, because I think that the first per- son ever called “dynamic” was a moving picture director. Probably he was Eric von Stroheim himself. I just said that he had worn off a certain amount of his outside Austrian-ness in America. But if the inside Austrian-ness gave way, it would be a 223ALICE IN MOVIELAND case of disintegration for Von Stroheim. He is— inside—in blood, nerve and tissue the most Aus- trian of the Austrians. To cut it still finer, he is Viennese to his finger tips. If he swears (Alice has not heard him swear) he may swear in perfectly good Americanese. It takes longer to say “Donnerwetter” than “Damn!” But he thinks in Viennese; and that’s one of the reasons why he is so extraordinary as a director. German directors are splendid. So are Scan- dinavians. Movieland has imported several, with great success. But the Viennese Eric von Stro- heim is unique. His rather frail, thin body is ablaze with that strange fire which makes the Viennese different from any other people in the world. It is a fire poured into the veins of their long-ago ancestors during the historic sieges of ancient times when the (even then) beauteous ladies of that city’s birthplace had to love Romans and Turks and Russians and Poles and French- men, and a few other soldiers who crossed the Danube before any melodious blue waltzes were written in its honour. Eric von Stroheim has derived his genius from Vienna. He loves Vienna. He is homesick for Vienna. And yet—and yet—Vienna doesn’t love him. At least, it didn’t. It had a very bad grudge against him indeed. 224DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—MEN It seems that during the world war Von Stro- heim, in America (he couldn’t get back to fight, no matter how much he may have wanted to do so) accepted the part of a villainous German and played it too well. A foreign actor in a strange country must live, or is under that impression, which was a fairly good excuse for Von Stroheim, especially as there are apt to be villains in all countries, no matter how blessed. But just then, the Germans were the popular villains of the Allied world. And they were fighting side by side with Von Stroheim’s “home nation.” Both were sensitive, therefore; and a few years ago in Vienna, when Alice sweetly praised Eric von Stroheim, strong men frothed at their mouths, and lovely ladies would have done likewise, only it is so unbecoming to froth. Consequently they merely turned purple. “Let him return here! We will kill him!” was the growl which might have been copied from the Zoo. I hear, however, that opinion has moderated. The Viennese are too charming and too kindly to hold a grudge forever. It is so much easier, and so much better for the liver to forget and forgive, than to hate. I have been told that Vienna has begun to be proud of her son since he did that magnificent movie of her dear “Merry Widow.” 225ALICE IN MOVIELAND He did “The Merry-Go-Round,” too. At least, he did part of it. And thereby hangs a tale which Alice must relate, because a dramatic incident concerning that film of pre-war Vienna occurred one night when a friend of Alice’s first met the brilliant Eric von Stroheim. The friend stood near Von Stroheim, who was directing the actors on a brilliantly lighted out-of- doors scene of the Prater-park, with its great wheel and entertainment shows faithfully copied. Von Stroheim stood on a high platform, using his megaphone when he had to, but more often instructing the members of his cast in a quiet, almost conversational tone. Suddenly he stopped speaking, and whispered with a man from the studio. He then went away with this man and—never returned! He and the management differed about matters of impor- tance, and Julian Ralph finished the film. It was easy for one who knew the story to see where one director stopped and another began. The cast waited. Suspense grew. This was no common delay! Little Mary Philbin, whom Von Stroheim (“Von,” as everybody calls him) had chosen and trained for the lead, began to cry. “Something has happened,” she sobbed. “He won’t come back. I could have been a real star if he’d gone on with this picture. He brings out 226 ilgiiii gy, ,;4 l-|-< : <' •' ? / ■JX’Tgfc Rt V E O Marion Nixon Known as “The Dainty Darling’ (Universal)DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—MEN all that I have in me. Nobody else can ever be like him.” She was right! Nobody else ever was like Eric von Stroheim, or ever will be! Many producers are glad of this, because if other directors cost them half what “Von” costs, the business might soon be bankrupt. Yet there are wise producers who think this man is worth anything he may cost. He puts his whole being into his work, and he can do that only if he is allowed to have his own way. If a scene calls for velvet hangings, they must be velvet, not velveteen, or Von Stro- heim loses all sense of reality. If he needed a square table and a round one was brought, it might be more beautiful, but he had visualized the scene with a square table, and he would not do the scene until the circle had been squared. “Von” uses five times more feet of film than any other director uses. If a man is supposed to walk the length of an immense room, Von Stro- heim wants to see him do it, even if he cuts out all but the finish. He doesn’t know the man until he sees his actions complete. He cannot and will not hurry in his work. People say, “For an actor to accept a part in a Von Stroheim film isn’t an engagement, it’s a career.” Each picture he puts on is apt to take a little longer than the one before. “Foolish Wives.” 227ALICE IN MOVIELAND “Von’s” Monte Carlo play, took about a year. No detail was neglected. But he made one mis- take. He allowed a tram (or “trolley”) to pass between the Casino and the Gardens, whereas in reality the tram does not enter the Place du Casino at all. When Von Stroheim realized that he had made the error, he would gladly have destroyed all the film concerned, amounting to thousands of feet, in order to correct one detail. Needless to relate, the company owning his ser- vices at the time wouldn’t “stand for” anything of that sort. But the mistake was for Von Stro- heim the spider in the glass. The wine of his work was soured for him! He took longer with “The Merry Widow,” which would have “made” Jack Gilbert if he hadn’t already been made by Elinor Glyn’s “His Hour.” And never had charming Mae Murray been half as charming as she was under Von Stroheim’s direction in that really wonderful film. Mary Philbin spoke the truth when she said that he caused his actors and actresses to give out all that was in them. He induces them to give out far more than they themselves know they have it in them to give out. “Von” has the reputation of being able to take an unknown young man or girl, and during the course of directing one film, turn that person into star material. And despite the fact that he can 228DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—MEN be a tempest, a tornado, when things go wrong and exhaustion has set his nerves on edge, he can be exquisitely kind to the humblest extra. It is hard to get into the limelight of his presence, but once an applicant for a part is there, if he has talent, it will be recognized and made the most of. A few people hate Von Stroheim, but more love him, and many are grateful to him for favours he has done and forgotten. His latest picture, “The Wedding March,” has taken him two years to direct, and he has made, so they say, at least one very bright star in it. Her name is Fay Ray. She was an extra when he noticed her, but the fame of the genius, whose flame “Von” fanned, has so spread through Movieland, even before the picture’s showing, that if the girl comes into a room, a whisper goes round, “There’s Fay Ray!” Eric von Stroheim said a rather interesting thing to Alice in one of the few moments she passed with him. The subject of conversation was the different attitude of European and American men towards women. The average European was somewhat more romantic in his attitude than the American, Alice suggested. The American was a better “pal,” often a better husband. But—was he as thrilling a lover? Eric von Stroheim thought perhaps not. “The 229ALICE IN MOVIELAND reason is clear,” he said. “We Europeans are allowed to associate very little with girls when we are boys. There are no ‘co-eds’ among us! Girls remain a mystery to the boys of European countries, and are problems to be solved (if they ever can be solved) when we grow up. American boys very early get the big brother attitude with girls. It’s splendid. But—well—doesn’t it ac- count for the difference you were talking about?” It seems to Alice that Mr. Fred Niblo has the same magic art of getting all there is to get out of his people that Eric von Stroheim has. He does it in a different way; yet he makes them feel that they have power, genius to give forth, and he makes them wish to give it, not only for their own sakes, but his. He has been so well known on the stage in England, that people often think of him as English. Besides, his voice has the best and most agreeable accent of that island of many misunderstood accents. But he is all Spanish in blood. He is Spanish in feature and bearing, too. When you listen to his charming voice, and ad- mire those dark, expressive eyes, that magnificent head of his, thickly covered with waved silver, you are sorry that he has left the stage. But when you watch him directing a picture, your re- gret for the theatre merges into congratulations for the screen. For Fred Niblo is a very great director. 230DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—MEN He proved that long ago, but all the world had a chance to recognize the fact when he was making the picture of “Ben Hur,” in Rome. His work was the sensation of the hour in the Eternal City. The King and Queen of Italy and all the royal family paid Mr. Niblo and his com- pany a long visit. They were interested in every- thing, and went away praising him as a host. Il Duce was interested too, and wished to come. An engagement for him to do so was made. A marvellous luncheon, with plenty of cham- pagne, was prepared, but ... a very important assassination took place that day, and the visit had to be called off. Some murderers are terribly tactless! In England there was a “command” showing of “Ben Hur” at Windsor Castle and the royalties were enthusiastic. They were surprised to learn that after working for a long time in Rome, Mr. Niblo had decided to film the great chariot race in California. In fact, it could not have been as well done as it was, except in the vast, uninter- rupted space he found for the scene. Still, there was a certain sentimental disappointment in not doing the race on the native soil—so to speak— of chariot races. And to justify his decision, Mr. Niblo had to out-Rome Rome in the effects he gave. He determined to make that scene a more sensational success than if it had been shot in 231ALICE IN MOVIELAND Italy, and he succeeded as few directors could have succeeded. It took immense patience as well as genius. But Mr. Niblo believes that genius is of little use to a director without patience. More than that, he says that patience is to genius what the tail is to a kite. If you soar without any attach- ment to earth, you are lost I About the quality which is just as necessary as patience—even more so, perhaps—magnetism, Mr. Niblo doesn’t speak. A man can’t be con- scious of his own gift of magnetism. If he became conscious of it, he would lose it soon. But Fred Niblo has immense magnetism, with which he can almost hypnotize his cast. In Italy that was very useful, for there were many difficulties there; difficulties of language, and of getting “proper- ties” and permissions. He overcame all, with the patience he knows he possesses, and the power of his magnetism, which he thinks nothing about, but which is as much a part of him as the ozone he takes in through his lungs. Mr. Niblo loved the stage, and is sure that his experience on it helped him to understand and sympathize with screen actors. He learned in the theatre that an actor must be taught, unobtru- sively, how to show himself at his best, not to be a mere translation of a director’s idea. One splendid present which the stage has given Amer- 232DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—MEN ica, Mr. Niblo says, is the preservation of the English language. There is a new, American one: a very smart, “wise-cracking” language of slang, and because it is so smart, so apt in emer- gencies, it might supersede the dignified old Eng- lish language as it used to be—if it were not for the theatre. There the beautiful words are pre- served, and sent forth, and the stage folk will never let them vanish into obscurity. Books, of course, carry on this legend of the language (some books), but Mr. Niblo thinks that the sound, the impression on the ear, is particularly valuable in a psychological way. He has lived a good deal in Austria, the ancient friend of Spain, and loves Vienna almost as much as he loves London and New York, so that he takes pleasure in making Viennese pictures. Alice derives a guilty joy from talking to him, because she knows how busy he is, and how each minute is costing him dear. At last, however, she will strain his courtesy no longer. She will let him go!—But, suddenly, her eyes fall upon a framed photograph standing on his desk. “Why, isn’t that a picture of Enid Bennett?” she asks. “I’ve often wondered what she’s been doing lately. Such a beautiful girl! Such eyes—such hair! An English girl, I think—no, Australian. That was it! Is she going to be in one of your new films?” Mr. Niblo laughs. “She is playing a star part 233ALICE IN MOVIELAND in my new home,” he says. “The part of my wife, and the mother of two rather adorable little children. That’s why you haven’t seen her lately on the screen, and why probably you won’t see her there again. She quite likes her present role, and it seems to me the very best thing she has done yet.” Clarence Brown is another man who was a born director because of his own strong person- ality and his power to bring out—to wring out, if necessary—the personality of others. Yes, he was born to be a director, though he and his people had very different ideas in his boyhood of what a young man’s career should be. He studied engineering and became an important expert in his profession. He was even celebrated, and when a man has become a celebrity he is generally contented in his life’s work. But it wasn’t quite like that with Clarence Brown, though as theatrical experience helped Fred Niblo, so has his experience as an engineer helped Mr. Brown. It implanted ideas of constructive- ness and showed him his own talent as an or- ganizer. Perhaps, also, it gave him something of his famous “flair” for “spotting” successes. Clarence Brown seems to know by instinct what will succeed and what will not. Otherwise, would he have risked his whole future in giving up one profession for another so different? His prophe- 234* X“t Don Alvarado (United Artists)DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—MEN cies never fail. Producers fear, and yet respect the prophet in him. Luckily for a penchant of his, however, they won’t always take his word for a “sure fire” success. Occasionally a picture is made, and high heads in a studio are shaken over it. “Better pigeon-hole the thing than put it out to have it crabbed by the critics and see it flop,” the verdict is. Then the film is shelved. But if Clarence Brown has seen a private show- ing and liked it, he has the courage of his con- victions. He buys the picture, probably at a small price, and puts it out independently. He gets a good deal of fun and a good deal of money from this sort of “gamble,” for he has never yet failed to “guess right.” James Cruze is one of the great American directors. So is King Vidor—and one of the youngest up at the top. John Stahl has dark, brilliant eyes and a helmet of waved silver like Fred Niblo’s, and he too was on the stage. He too has a beautiful voice; and in his method of direction there is another resem- blance to Mr. Niblo’s, and also to Mr. Brown’s. He makes his actors and actresses talk aloud during their scenes as if they were on the stage, which he thinks helps them to learn and keep “tempo.” He is often called, however, the American Lubitch, as he likes to do the same type of intimate pictures of young married life. 235ALICE IN MOVIELAND Many directors do this nowadays; but there are others who instruct their players to use lip language, which they don’t consider either “melan- choly or depressing,” as Mr. Brown and Mr. Stahl do. Several of the foreign directors, like Ernest Lubitch and Victor Seastrom, have a very special genius of their own, and some of the favourite foreign actors can’t be directed to advantage by anyone else. Herbert Brenon, an Englishman, is one of the star directors. So is Rex Ingram, an Irishman, and such a hater of England that his very name is almost enough to set fire to an Eng- lish book. The German, Paul Leni, who directed “Vaudeville” (called “Variety” in America), has made a shining mark in the field of direction in Movieland. But American by birth or naturali- zation, English, French, German, Austrian, what- ever they may be by blood or bringing up, di- rectors are as important to the motion pictures as the stars they direct. This fact is known and acknowledged in Movieland. But it seems little known outside. The eyes of an audience pin themselves to the screen when the names of the stars who will appear in the forthcoming film are flashed on. But interest flags for the director’s name, no matter how well advertised he may be. Producers appreciate the value of directors they 236DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—MEN have fought to get from other companies and to whom they pay salaries rivalling those of their best stars. “A Fred Niblo Production,” “A Clarence Brown Production,” and so on down the list is the “ad” supposed to tempt connoisseurs; and of course it does. But only the connoisseurs I The “poor simps” outside are blissfully unaware that, while a good director can create a new star, a poor director can go far to break one. Give a clever director a decent looking, in- telligent lot of actors, and he can make a splendid picture without a single known name except his own. After seeing such a picture, an audience will go out pleased; whereas many a sensation- ally heralded film, blazing with starry names, will disappoint, and disagree with the mental diges- tion, because an unsuitable director has massacred the whole production. If Alice came into a few millions (two or three would be enough), and if she fancied the idea of being a movie magnate, do you know what she would do, now that she has learned “What’s What,” even more than “Who’s Who” in Movie- land? Supposing she had to choose between having a “best seller” to be turned into a film, with a galaxy of stars to appear in it, and—an original story 237ALICE IN MOVIELAND invented in a hurry by a director genius, with a lot of “unknowns” whom he had picked, she would shout at the top of her voice : “Bring in the director I Let the book and the stars go!”CHAPTER XVII DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN There used to be a saying that no matter how clever and “smart” a woman might be, she couldn’t direct a moving picture. Nobody could explain why, but it was so. There was something about women which prevented them from making good directors. And that was that. World without end. Amen. This dark, stupid microbe of an idea was so destructive that it nearly ruined one woman who had been a successful producer as well as director: Lois Weber. She lost faith in herself, and so she lost interest in herself. The two things go to- gether. She was beautiful, and still young. Her intelligence and talent were just reaching their prime, but she felt that life was a horrible disap- pointment. She was outside it, and she wanted to go a little further outside it. She simply dis- appeared. She was really at home, in her own pretty and charming house with its gay resem- blance to a chalet. But no one dreamed that she was there. She had paid off her servants and let 239ALICE IN MOVIELAND them go. They supposed that she was taking a holiday somewhere. Few young women in Movieland are more warmly liked, or even better loved, than Lois Weber. The reason is that she has a kind, sweet heart. She wishes good to all the world. Never does she do the thing known in Hollywood as “dishing dirt,” for if she can’t say something pleasant about an acquaintance, she says nothing at all. This is so unusual that no wonder she has crowds of friends! And when she vanished a few years ago, people began to ask each other, “What has become of dear Lois?” Many knew that she was sad. None knew how sad. But there was one who guessed—a man who had fallen in love with Miss Weber. Maybe she suspected this, maybe she didn’t. Anyhow, she was not in a mood to grant much importance to love. All that belonged to the world she wished to leave behind, because it had so deeply disappointed her. Naturally, people thought that she must have gone away without bidding anyone good-bye. The house had the air of being completely shut up. Windows were closed, curtains closely drawn. No ring at the door was answered. Newspapers lay uncollected. Who could have dreamed that a woman had deliberately hidden inside, meaning to starve herself to death? And 240DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN yet one man did have some such nightmare dream. He couldn’t be sure, but he wondered. The instinct of love, even in a man, is very strong. Going without food didn’t seem like suicide. There was nothing violent or horrible in simply letting oneself go as the ancient Romans and others did: refusing food; allowing life to slip slowly away like a receding tide. In those far-off days, however, it was generally old people who abandoned themselves to death in this classic way. Lois was not old; far from it; and though she had made up her mind, she could not quite subdue the restlessness of her body. She would walk about in the night. And she hated to be in the dark. Now and then she gave herself away—if there had been anyone on the watch—by switching on a light in some dim, echoing room. As it happened, there was someone on the watch—Captain Harry Gantz, a soldier by nature as well as by profession. He had rung the front doorbell of Lois’s house many times and had prowled round to the back. No answer had come to him, but once or twice he had fancied a slight sound in one of the shut- tered rooms. So he watched and refused to give up. One night after he had knocked and rung in vain, Captain Harry Gantz was sure he saw a flicker of light between the dark folds of a pair 241ALICE IN MOVIELAND of curtains. That decided him! He summoned up all the strength that had helped to make him a good soldier, and putting his shoulder to the locked and bolted door broke it open. Inside he switched on light after light. At last he found a pale, almost fainting Lois, and carried her out of the house to his car. Precisely what he did next, Alice doesn’t know, or she has forgotten. But her Sherlock Holmes instinct causes her to imagine that he carried Lois straight to the house of some friend, who helped to nurse her back to health of mind and body, so that she might soon be ready for him to propose marriage to her again. Anyhow, he did propose, and was refused. But having now no house to hide in, Lois was more exposed to direct attack, and at length she capit- ulated. Captain Gantz and Lois are one of the most devoted couples in Movieland. He had such a fight to get her, that even now, when she is Mrs. Gantz in private life (in public, she’s still Lois Weber), if you want to make him happy and at ease at a dinner party, you must smash con- ventions and seat him next his wife. No woman could be more vital and happily interested in life than Lois Weber is again in these days. Ever since she came back to herself (dragged back, out of that shut up house) she has stood once more at the very apex of success 242 Maria Corda As Helen of Troy (First National)DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN as a director. Happiness has caused her genius to shine out more brilliantly than ever. For awhile she went back to Universal City, where her work with Billie Dove caused that lovely young woman’s talent to be as fully recognized as her great beauty had been for years. Now Lois has gone to the Cecil de Mille Studio, where she was welcomed as if she were a queen. Perhaps partly because her own life since child- hood has been more romantic than a movie would dare to be (you have just been given one small sample), Lois Weber can put more heart- piercing romance into a situation for a picture than most directors are able to do. She knows more about joy and sorrow through personal ex- perience than any average six women have crowded into their lives. Yet with all she has kept the most beautiful calmness I It is more than just manner. It seems like a kind of peace-in-the-soul which she has won. It is in her dark, wide apart blue eyes. It is in her dimpled smile, which is so gracious and so kind that it would warm the heart of a hard-boiled burglar in a subway train—than which Alice can imagine nothing more difficult to do! Even her way of wearing her soft brown hair, and the quiet tints she likes best for her hats and dresses, ex- press something of the gentleness that is in her. Yet there is steel under the soft velvet, when steel 243ALICE IN MOVIELAND is needed I Lois Weber can be firm and unyield- ing, although she never shows temper. If a star thought to conquer in a dispute, Lois Weber’s quiet strength would always triumph over storm in the end. Besides, the most stormy personalities find themselves soothed to sweet reason under Lois’s directions. Men directors—John Stahl, for instance— sometimes find that the only way to bring out the fire which smoulders within is to rouse an actress to fury, and make her weep. But somehow women directors never even try this method. It doesn’t work between woman and woman I Lois Weber’s extraordinary sympathy stands her in good stead with the temperamental ones. She has a warmth that radiates, like sunlight beaming through clouds on a cold day. And there is nothing she can’t do with stars who have the reputation of being “difficult” or “dumb.” She wins them. They are hers. Not only does she direct a picture. Before she begins to direct, she writes her own rough scen- ario from the story selected. It may be her own story (she has had several successes with “origi- nals”), or it may be a book, or a play. In any case, she comes to a more satisfactory understand- ing of what she wishes to make of it if she does not only the first rough cast, but the full con- tinuity, herself. By this time she sees the picture 244DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN complete, though occasionally she changes her mind and makes a few alterations. Then she writes captions, for this seems in her eyes to be part of a director’s job. When there is a chance for fun Lois Weber—who looks so soft and sweet—can be as funny, as “smart,” as any of the expensive “gag men” whom all the studios keep on high salaries nowadays, to “pep up” a languid film. Though she never uses slang in con- versation, and rather dislikes it personally, as she dislikes smoking, no one can use slang to better advantage on the screen than she. No one can depict the “hard-boiled” modern flapper with keener touches than can this seemingly old-fash- ioned, gentle-mannered, soft-eyed woman, Lois Weber. Madam Elinor Glyn, as famous now for the direction of her books as for writing them, is one of the most interesting “personalities” of all Movieland. “Personality” as a word has become rather a cliche, and its place is among the potted phrases; but out it has to come, to be dusted and polished, and used in connection with Madam Glyn, because her own personality is such a thrilling asset. Thrilling isn’t too strong or sensational a word in this connection, for, though I’m sure she is no sensation seeker really, but a sincere and intel- lectual woman, Fate and circumstances have com- 245ALICE IN MOVIELAND bined to give Elinor Glyn a halo of sensationalism. Partly this is because she has exploited the quality she calls “It,” and the exploitation has been mis- understood. Alice has Elinor Glyn’s own word to prove that by “It” she means only a strong and fascinating personal magnetism. She writes what she really feels and believes to be important, both in her novels and articles. And it is important. It happens to be the subject which all women have at heart, and on which they seize eagerly when it appears in print or on screen. Her ideas are front page news, therefore she is sensational without wishing to be so. And the noble religion by which she lives and succeeds, the religion which is as much a part of herself and her life as the blood in our veins is part of ourselves, is the phase of her least known to the public. Alice calls her “Madam” Glyn because every- one else does, though in England she was, and is, Mrs. Glyn. But “Madam” as a handle suits her somehow, partly because she has lived for years in France and has some French blood in her veins, partly because it is “different.” No prefix, no name, nothing that might suit others en masse would suit Elinor Glyn as a frame or pedestal. She would need something all her own. Nobody would ever think of classing her 246DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN with other women, and in a way she is a law unto herself. She is as remarkable in looks as in everything else. Alice had met her on the French Riviera, years ago, but she has not changed since. You can’t imagine her ever changing. She has that ageless appearance a classic statue sometimes has, neither girlish nor yet old, nor even middle-aged, for “middle-aged” is an uninteresting expression, sug- gesting fat and a double chin. Elinor Glyn will never be fat, nor will she have a double chin. It simply couldn’t happen to her! She always had, and she still has, masses of rich, gold-red hair. Her skin is dead white. Her long, slightly-slanted eyes under low-drawn black brows are green, really green. They are wise, ex- perienced eyes. They seem to have seen every- thing on this small earth, to have remembered and understood all, to have laughed and to have wept over all. Some people who read her latest books and see the films she directs say that Elinor Glyn is clever, but she “has no sense of humour”! They haven’t caught a certain glint in those green eyes if they can say that! And surely they haven’t read her first book, “The Visits of Elizabeth,” which was full of a sly, “pawky” humour; or that book’s sequel, “Elizabeth Visits America”—not quite so cynical, nor so gay, yet having in it 247ALICE IN MOVIELAND something of the quality that made its predecessor a delicious success. Behind those green eyes, too, is great tact, great discretion. Madam Glyn would always know when to speak, when not to speak. She does not gossip. She does not speak ill of people, not even of those who misunderstand or are jealous of her success. A dear old man in England, a man who bore a very high and rather famous title (his heir holds it now) told Alice a few years ago that Elinor Glyn as a young girl was the most dazzling creature he had ever seen, and “so well brought up!” “She knew how to treat her elders! Ut- terly unlike the flappers of to-day, and a hun- dred times more attractive.” She is exceedingly attractive still, and in a way peculiar to herself. No other woman is in the least like her. What woman in America, in these days, when to be heard at a dinner party each per- son outscreams the other, could arrest and hold the attention of everyone at a long dinner table, by speaking in a quiet, low voice, scarcely above a whisper? Elinor Glyn can do that. Perhaps she does it deliberately. Perhaps it is an art. In any case, it belongs to her personality. She can startle a dinner table to keen interest without raising her voice. There is something in its timbre, its 248DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN strange composure and quietness which makes everyone want to listen, and hear what that voice is going to say. As it is pitched so low, only per- fect silence on the part of everybody else can se- cure the desired result. What a score for Madam Glyn in our noisy jazz epoch! All this sounds irrelevant to Madam Glyn, the director. But that is just what it isn’t! It largely explains her peculiar success in the screen world. She is known as a “star maker.” And she is one—through her personality, her experience and knowledge of human nature learned in Europe, imported to America. Her very surroundings are part of her per- sonality, and express it. They impress the young men and women whom she chooses to direct, al- most hypnotize them. But she would not like that word. She would object to hypnotizing peo- ple. She would wish her influence upon others only to show them what they can be at their best, and make them reach up to grasp that. Still, she wouldn’t be what she is, if she didn’t live and move in a soft radiance of colour which is like an aura. The radiance is, in a way, part of her religion, because she believes that certain colours influence the spirit and help to bring inspiration and success. Wherever she goes she lives surrounded by the 249ALICE IN MOVIELAND right colours, though she wears very few, and has a fondness for white and black. Even when she travels her maid packs up for her to take along a trunkful of cushions, draperies and sometimes even curtains which will give her the right feeling of peace in the most uncompromising hotel rooms. But in her own rooms at the Ambassador Hotel, midway between Hollywood and Los Angeles, and in her “work-bungalow” at the Paramount Studio, she is able to give herself all the colour expression she craves. Speaking of the Ambassador, Alice must di- gress a little, because her visits there to Madam Glyn and others have left such a strong impres- sion of “uniqueness” upon her mind that her brain has been almost bursting with it, through every chapter of this story of Movieland. But it isn’t entirely a digression from the sub- ject of Madam Glyn, because if the Ambassador were not the place it is, she would not have chosen to furnish a suite of rooms there—furnish and decorate in such a way as to make the big hotel seem like a permanent home, a very intimate and individual home. Many hotels are perfect, some in grandiose ways, some in triumphs of modernity, some in cosy homeliness (like, for instance, the lovable old Hotel Hollywood, which one calls “little” as a pet name though it is really rather large, with all 250DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN its spreading wings, in its tree-shaded gardens) ; but the Ambassador is more like a town than an hotel. You could live in it or in one of its bunga- lows for a whole season without ever needing to go outside its grounds for business or amusement unless you chose. It has dozens of shops for hats, frocks, flowers, sweets, jewels; and others for all the things you need as well as those you want; a show of paint- ings and etchings; a theatre, a movie. You can play tennis and croquet. You can get your for- tune told, and you can do so many things besides, that you could never be bored if cut off from the outside world. You can even take a reasonably long walk; and from the higher storeys (heaven knows how many there are) you have a view which seems to look over half Southern Cali- fornia—including, of course, California’s blue Pacific I Madam Glyn lives up at the top. “I’m happy here, at the top of the world,” she says. And it seems a good saying. It looks like the top of the world, where the sun and moon live! She has four or five rooms, including a sleep- ing porch. Her sitting room has lovely blues and greens which harmonize as those colours do in flowers and their leaves. Besides there are touches of a peculiar orchid shade which is neither 251ALICE IN MOVIELAND pink nor mauve. And an extremely clever cabinet maker who has come from China to work in Los Angeles has made for this room, and for Madam Glyn’s bungalow at the Paramount Studio, chairs and desks and tables of this green and this orchid shade, in admirable Chinese lacquer. Madam Glyn’s bedroom has a good deal of cheerful rose colour in it, but she sleeps there only in Cali- fornia’s very rare bad weather. On the blue and gold nights which decorate most of California’s year she uses the blue sleeping porch adjoining, whose azure roof is the sky itself. “I love to lie there for hours—not asleep but thinking,” she tells Alice. “Thoughts come to me there, which never come anywhere else. Nature loves the colours I love best, and of all these flower colours, for me blue—just this special blue —is the colour of thought. It is like a current flowing through me. I feel here the immense power of Mind! I try to mould myself and my life by thought, and the mind-power which I use. The violet ray which permeates one more readily in this crystal-clear climate renews my health and strength of brain and body. And I do what I can to direct it through other minds and bodies—those of my friends, and those of the people in my pic- tures. It is amazing how it vitalizes them! I atn only the conductor, for them, of these glorious currents of health and hope and joy and success, 252DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN but it is good to help pass magnetic vitality on to others.” How it would surprise readers of that long ago success “Three Weeks,” who think of Madam Glyn as a siren on a tiger skin, to hear this “line of talk” from her! But it doesn’t surprise Alice, who knew her in France years ago. She had, and has, her “siren” side, perhaps. Red-haired women and tiger skins go well together. But this side which she is showing now, sincerely and with- out pose, is the truest and most important side of Elinor Glyn. It is this phase of her nature which has brought her through almost incredible diffi- culties to her present triumph in the moving pic- ture world. Six years ago she came to Hollywood with al- most everyone against her. She was supposed, even then, to direct a picture which would be made from a book of hers; but in truth she was allowed to have no authority at all. She was merely a picturesque figure-head, to whom those really in authority tried to be polite while being evasive— she was permitted to tell a pretty young star what style of hair-dressing became her best, or what the daughter of an English duke would wear when she “followed the guns” in the shooting season. But even so, most of her hints were disregarded. Instead of an informal picnic luncheon at a shoot in a picture, a marquee was provided, with caviare 253ALICE IN MOVIELAND sandwiches and champagne. If Madame Glyn went east, fondly imagining that she had directed a film, she would see it on the screen and hardly be able to recognise it as her own. But all is changed now. She is trusted and respected as a director. The girl stars whom she moulds for their parts in her pictures feel her fascination, and believe that her influence upon them doesn’t end when their work together is finished. Sometimes she has even changed the entire trend of a man or woman’s personality by offering a few seem- ingly small suggestions which have proved later to be the making of a new individual and a new career. Miss Arzner—Dorothy Arzner—is the newest as well as the youngest woman director. She “broke into the game” as no other woman has ever broken into it, without influence and without great experience—for in all, her years of life have been only twenty-seven. Yet she is a brilliant success as a director. (Cautious, elderly persons who wish to warn the young against Hollywood had better not read this. Maybe they would be wise even to tear out a page or two introducing Dorothy Arzner, good- looking, chic, well-dressed, knowing just what in the way of a hat and frock best suit her black- lashed, “forthright” grey eyes, her neat dark 254 S' 1 Jetta Goudal A Cecil B. de Mille Star (Photo Fred B. Archer) VlLMA BANKY The Imported Beauty, (Samuel Goldwyn)DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN hair, her pale olive skin, and her trim, slim figure of a girl.) Well, anyhow, here she is for those who dare read the story of another young woman who has braved and conquered all the alleged dragons of Movieland! “Arzner” as a name isn’t in the least suggestive of Scotland, yet Alice couldn’t help fancying some- thing Scottish in a dark, bright, Pictish sort of way, about Miss Arzner. There, as often before, came up that conviction of Alice’s, that curiosity is a “misunderstood virtue.” Anyhow, you never get far in Movieland or elsewhere without it! So Alice pours forth questions upon Dorothy Arzner. Why, yes, her mother was a Scots- woman, born in Edinburgh, and the girl seems proud of that, though luckily for her—as she was very young when she began to long for Hollywood —her father was an American. That brought her within train distance of Movieland, without too much trouble, before she was quite twenty. If she looks a mere girl at twenty-seven, what must she have looked then! But they say that there, was something “rather compelling about her.” And Alice can almost see her convincing hard-boiled eggs disguised as people, that she would be of the greatest use in the scenario de- partment. 255ALICE IN MOVIELAND She would have been a good “type,” and might by now have become a star if she’d had ambitions towards stardom, for that “compelling-ness” of hers would have got her in anywhere, past any shut door which she had willed to fly open. But no! From the very first, while almost a child, she wanted to be a director. She went into the cutting room at the Para- mount Studio, and as time passed, became so ex- pert that she began to be noticed by those “at the top.” Maybe, however, you don’t quite realise what very important work is done in studio cutting rooms? Well, you couldn’t be in Movieland long before you would hear that sad little song, “I’m only a face on the cutting-room floor!” Imagine, if you were a beautiful young small-part girl, who had contrived to get a few close-ups, the agony of seeing the pre-view with all those dear close- ups cut out! You would know that in the “rushes” you’d been found wanting, or at least, irrelevant, and even if you flattered yourself “it was all that cat of a star’s jealousy” still there’d be no help for it. All that was left of you would be that “face on the cutting-room floor.” Think of the responsibility vested in the hands which put it there! Well, Miss Dorothy Arzner’s hands (in cotton 256DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN gloves, because of all the nasty, poisonous acids which endanger those who cut film) knew just which faces to leave in and which to take out. Those hands, and the brain that taught them to wield the scissors, could judge which parts of a picture, pieced together, would liven it up and eliminate all chance of boredom. Miss Arzner could even have made a whole picture out of bits of film discarded from several separate pictures; and that’s a thing which only the cutter-magicians can pretend to do, for a prize! A genius of the cutting room is already almost a director, with a certain amount of continuity talent thrown in. But, then, the two go together —without saying; and it was rumoured round the studio that Dorothy Arzner was studying to be- come a director. After a few years the girl began to think that the time had come when she ought to be one! Still, in a studio a young person doesn’t go about yelling at the top of her voice how good she is, even when she knows that the Big Boss is actually looking outside for a new director. That was exactly what was happening at the Paramount. Mr. Lasky thought that a certain new star should have a certain director. But that director had been engaged to direct another star, in another studio. It was very annoying—very annoying indeed! . . . Then somebody said to 257ALICE IN MOVIELAND Mr. Lasky, “But, look here, you’ve got a wonder- ful girl in your own studio, Dorothy Arzner. She’s just the right one. Why don’t you give her a tryout?” Easier said than done! Miss Arzner was so young, and the business of being a director is so terribly important. The thought of possible failure, of wasted film and time and money made Mr. Lasky “think twice”—and then, perhaps for- get. Now the girl began boldly asking for her chance, and it was promised—again and again. “Yes—some day. Soon!” But “some day” began to look like “never.” The girl grew depressed, and finally discouraged. She remembered that prophets have no honour in their own country. The Paramount Studio was her country. She loved it, but it seemed that if she were to “get anywhere” it must be somewhere else. Of course such a girl as Dorothy Arzner could not live in Movieland for several years without making plenty of friends, social and business friends. So one day she went to the head of a Hollywood studio which had made a good name by turning out the very best “quickies.” In five minutes she received an offer to direct the next “quickie” that was to be made, and to go on di- recting more “quickies.” From the Paramount Studio, the richest and 258DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN most famous in Hollywood, certainly it would be a step down to move into “Poverty Row.” But —well, before we go any further with Dorothy Arzner and what she made up her mind to do, Alice would like to sandwich in a question? Do you know anything about the “quickies” ? Do you know about “Poverty Row”? It’s not a disgrace to confess you don’t! Alice had to be on the spot to find out. And when she did find out she thought she had hit on one of the most amusing features of Movieland. She went there, she remembers, the very same day that she saw scenes of her own serial being “shot” by the Pathe company, which makes it a date quite unforgettable. Think of having your picture taken with that marvellous little “stunt” actress Allene Ray, who looks like a golden-haired child, and fears nothing in earth or heaven! Think of seeing yourself in a “still” photograph side by side with So Jin, the most famous Asiatic “villain” of the screen, though a kind and gentle philosopher in private life! Think of knowing that he, and Allene, and big, handsome Walter Miller are all appearing in a serial from a scenario which you wrote yourself, and bravely named “The Man Without a Face!” Think of a movie company actually keeping the title you gave, instead of changing it to something as different as possible, just on principle if nothing else! Oh, a series of 259ALICE IN MOVIELAND thrills! But when one stops to think calmly, that particular set of thrills is not connected with the newest woman director of the screen, nor with the “quickies” into which she nearly walked! So away from the famous Pathe people, into that fascinating little “Poverty Row”! It has become famous too, in its way, or Miss Arzner would never have thought of going to work there. And “Poverty Row” is really a most inappropriate name for that long street of neat, smart looking little studios where movies are turned into “quickies” by the speed with which they’re made. Perhaps “Poverty Row” was christened because the studios there have no vast capital or solid motion picture industrial history behind them. But they need neither. They have money enough and smartness enough to do just what they set out to do. And what they aim to do is this: turn out in ten days or a fortnight a pic- ture to compare quite favourably with a master- piece to which one of the great studios would de- vote several months, and on which it would spend at least ten times the money. A “quickie” concern can do this because, in making a picture, time is money. It hires sets which happen to be free in some big studio, and uses garden effects at private places willing to let or lend to a company of movie actors the use of their swimming pools and tennis lawns for a few 260DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN hours. Its scenario writers put in plenty of park and street scenes which can be had free. It buys “locals” of distant or foreign towns, also polo and football games, carnivals, races, processions, and its cutting-room experts match the film so cleverly that the whole scene appears to “belong” in the picture. Popular “free lance” stars who happen to be disengaged for a couple of weeks are snapped up at a high salary, high enough to com- pensate for the fast and furious work that must be done for a “quickie.” Sometimes, too, a star under permanent engagement in some important studio can be got for a short time; and so, by such methods, the “quickie” people keep free of all heavy permanent expenses. Nowadays it is only a snobbish or “highbrow” star who is ashamed to say, “I’m going to play in a quickie next week!” Therefore Miss Arzner had no need to blush when she walked down “Poverty Row,” went in at a certain studio door, and came out a few minutes later with her first job as a director. At least she knew the contract was being made ready for her to sign, and it was a very good one. The next day, at the same time, she was to return and put her name to it. Meanwhile, she went back to her own studio, the Paramount, to say goodbye to all her friends. She would see them again, of course, but it wouldn’t be the same 1 261ALICE IN MOVIELAND She began with one of the heads, who happened to be present at the time. “But, we don’t wish you to leave us!” he said. “What is it you want? A raise of salary? You can have it.” “No, that isn’t what I want,” she explained. “I want what I’ve been wanting for years: a chance to direct. I should have liked to have it here, but the next best thing is to get it somewhere else.” “You can have it here,” was the prompt an- swer. “Is that a sure promise?” she asked. “Can I count on it?” “You can. And you get it at once,” she was told. So she telephoned to the studio in “Poverty Row,” and the contract she signed was with Para- mount after all. She was given the beautiful Esther Ralston, and “Fashions for Women” to direct, exactly what she would have chosen, and she flew to work with joy in her heart. The scenario and continuity went well. Miss Arzner and her colleagues had a number of origi- nal ideas sure to be very striking. The star was pleased; and then came the day when the actors and the new director were to meet on the set. It was the great day of which Dorothy Arzner had dreamed, and to which she had looked for- 262Esther Ralston Called “The Dazzling One” (Paramount; photo E. R. Richer)DYNAMIC DIRECTORS—WOMEN ward as girls who choose the career of marriage look forward to the moment when they’ll walk up the aisle to the strains of a classic wedding march. Always pale, the youngest and newest woman director suddenly felt as if her very blood had turned white. She faced the cast with a mist be- fore her eyes. She had such a case of stage fright that it seemed she must either die on the spot of heart failure or else run away never to return. Suddenly she realized as she never had before that a director must possess all the qualities of a successful general in a difficult campaign, as well as those of a musical composer and a trainer at the Zoo. “Who am I? What am I?” she asked herself. But somehow she conquered her fears. Cour- age and self-confidence rushed back in a warm flood. No one had even suspected her weakness. And she had told no one until she told Alice! Her direction was brilliant, and she has gone on from one success to another. She loves the work even better than she had thought she would. Her whole heart is in it. If, at some luncheon or dinner party, the smartly dressed, handsome dark girl looks bored or even cross, her next door neigh- bours needn’t be hurt. It is only because she is thinking of a “scene” which has bothered her. Suddenly she has got an inspiration about what to do with it, and she must, follow it out to the end.CHAPTER XVIII THE POWERS BEHIND THE SCREEN We lose sight of these unseen Powers in the blazing glory of the stars. But the stars couldn’t blaze without them. Directors we have talked about, and seen. Now we come to the scenario and continuity writers, the “titlers,” the film editors, the men and women who select books, plays, or ideas best suited for the talent of their studio stars: such as Mrs. Adams of the de Mille Studios, Lloyd Sheldon and beautiful Miss Franke of the Para- mount, and so on through a brilliant list of ex- perts. There are many other powers behind the screen, because each electrician and mechanic counts, and would be missed if he dropped out of place. But beyond all in importance, perhaps, are the camera men. Think, too, of the great artists engaged as architects, decorators, scene painters, furniture makers, costume designers, planners of gardens —a long list, because some new experts in new departments are continually being added at huge expense. 264THE POWERS BEHIND THE SCREEN Let’s begin with Jeanie MacPherson, the one scenario and continuity writer whose name is al- ways shown in the bright lights with those of the stars. There are others equally well paid, and maybe equally talented, equally talked about, too, by those “in the know.” But for some reason Miss MacPherson’s name is the only one that blazes with electricity along the Broadways of the world. Not only has she the right to wear the Mac- Pherson tartan, but an ancestress of hers, another Jeanie, gave to the clan a design for its hunting tartan of purple and grey, so becoming to the red MacPherson hair. Still another Jeanie snatched up from the ground where it had fallen the banner of Prince Charlie, in the battle of Cullo- den; and for that deed was called Scotland’s Joan of Arc. So you see this Jeanie isn’t the first of her name to deserve the bright lights! Because her mother had French blood, Miss MacPherson was sent to school in Paris, and speaks French like a Parisian. Stories of hers in French were published in French magazines. She had to come home to be re-Americanized! Her ideas for a future career were vague then. She took lessons in stage dancing from Theodore Kosloff, whom she was destined later to put into a picture whose scenario she had written. She had a beautiful voice and studied with great 265ALICE IN MOVIELAND teachers, who told her she might think of Grand Opera. But after all she was lured to the screen by the genius of D. W. Griffith. She became a “featured” actress with him, which was something for a girl to be proud of in those days; and when she first went to Cecil de Mille it was to ask for a part in a picture he was producing. The part had been assigned to another actress, but Mr. de Mille, who has an almost uncanny instinct in finding out with a flash what people can do, said, “Why not come into the scenario department? You write, I know.” Miss MacPherson confessed that she did. She’d written stories ever since she was a child so small that she had to print them in pencil I She had had a little experience in scenario writing. For Universal, she’d done “Tarantula,” and worked on “The Sea Urchin,” in which Lon Chaney made his first hit. Still, she thought she preferred to act. At least, the French side of her preferred it. She wasn’t so sure about the Scots side. “Let’s put the Scots side to work at writing,” Cecil de Mille said. Jeanie MacPherson con- sented; and out of that consent sprang a wonder- ful partnership, whose latest result is “The King of Kings.” There are so many clever scenario and con- tinuity writers that pages could be filled with 266THE POWERS BEHIND THE SCREEN their names, and praises, and the amounts of their enormous salaries. Even the worst paid ones get a couple of thousand dollars for a “con- tinuity”—the scenario of a picture all ready for the director’s hands, each scene being numbered as well as described in technical detail. The best paid get so many thousands that you’d hardly be- lieve Alice if she tried to tell you. And besides, all those permanently engaged in the important studios have a regular weekly salary, which comes in whether they are at work or not. This has to be granted, or valuable writers would escape from the studio fold and become free lances. Many do this, in any case, liking to be their own masters, and knowing that, if they’ve made their names, their work will always be in demand, practically at their own price. And it is the same with stars. Madge Bellamy is one of the clever young beau- ties who has done best at this game. “Where is Della Darling just now?” somebody asks, and the answers comes: “Oh, she’s free lancing.” If Della is a success she is free lancing for fun, because it suits her temperament and her bank account to be a free lance. But—if the poor girl has “flopped,” free lancing for her means what “resting” means for an actress of the theatre who is out of work and wants to save her face. One of the best known “photoplaywrights,” as 267ALICE IN MOVIELAND they’re often called, is Bert Le Vino—Albert Shelby Le Vino, to give him his full name, which he rather likes, as he is descended from the famous Southern Shelby of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” days. Sometimes he “free lances.” Sometimes he binds himself to work for a studio, but he is always in request. Said to be the most temperamental of them all, he is still one of the most dependable. It is “sure fire” that he will turn out a good story, and if it must be done within a certain time limit, it will be done, even if accompanied by fireworks of language which the censor would object to on the screen. “Holy Howling Hell, How He Hates Himself,” known as the “Seven H’s of Holly- wood,” was given to the world by Mr. Le Vino in a temperamental mood after writing a scenario for a star notoriously hard to suit. This saying has been preserved since as a valuable classic. Give Bert Le Vino three characters, two men and a woman, or vice versa, and you needn’t sup- ply him with a plot. The characters will do that. When he has his characters he considers his pic- ture half written. And this method is far more likely to turn out a moving human drama for the screen than the one which spreads a plot like syrup, in order to entangle characters in it as flies are caught on fly paper. Bert Le Vino thinks that with certain people associated together, the happenings in their lives become inevitable, and 268THE POWERS BEHIND THE SCREEN he has worked out his best original scenario suc- cesses on these lines. Agnes Christine Johnston, of the Metro-Gold- wyn-Mayer Studio, is another of the photoplay- wrights who is trusted to do the very big things. Never yet has she failed to satisfy even the vaguest directors who don’t know what they want but are sure they want perfection at least! And she has been a good many years at the work, though she is still young. When she was a school-girl of fifteen, about a dozen years ago, all her friends were trying to write what they called scenarios for the movies. Most of these came back; or else went into the discard. But Agnes sent her effort to a newly born picture company in far-off Hollywood. She almost fainted when she received a letter accept- ing her script and asking for more! The girl wasn’t supposed to finish her educa- tion for a year or two. But what mattered a detail like that to a budding millionaire? She didn’t post her next scenario. She took it by hand. “California, here I am,” were her words, or others to that effect. “I should like to join your staff, and write for you regularly,” she calmly informed the Boss. (One got to the Boss more easily in those days, as there were fewer laby- rinths leading to him.) He smiled, and was inclined to reply that there 269ALICE IN MOVIELAND were others who thought they would like the same thing. But she had travelled so far, and she was such a child, and the dark eyes in her little round face were so big and bright, that he almost felt the sensation of “having a heart.” Besides, the babe was a smart babe. He might regret sending her away forever. Instead, he compromised. They had already as many people in the scenario department as they could possibly need. (They had two; but three would have been a crowd in those prehistoric times twelve years ago.) So how would Miss Johnston like to be taken on as a stenographer? While she did that work she could pick up extra money by writing them another scenario now and then. “Very well,” Miss Johnston gravely replied, for even at that childish age the words “I can’t” were not in her vocabulary. This being settled, she went out, found a school for stenographers and typists, and touched a typewriting machine for the first time in her life. The next day she was back at the studio, and “on the job” tapping out other people’s script (not half such good stuff as she could do herself) with two busy little fingers. Even if the other people's scripts were bad (some of them) they taught Miss Agnes Christine Johnston things while she typed. Many taught 270THE POWERS BEHIND THE SCREEN her what not to do. Others, more expert, helped her to learn technique. A girl like this doesn’t linger long on the way to the top. Little Miss Johnston soon became one of the most dependable continuity experts in Movieland. She was allowed to select books, for her judgment was found infallible. She could write a good “original,” too; so if novelists should strike for a year, Miss Johnston could give Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer enough ideas to keep them going out of her own fertile brain. She is such a quick worker at all she undertakes that she has even had time to marry, have three little children, and combine being a particularly good housekeeper as well as wife and mother, with eight hours a day (sometimes more) at the studio. Directors often get temperamental over a scenario which has to be changed at the last mo- ment, even though they have had dozens of con- sultations on the subject with the writer, and thought everything settled. But Miss Johnston’s scripts never need be altered. They are always “just right.” That is her reputation. If any one had told Alice ten years ago that men could make fortunes writing captions, titles and sub-titles for the screen, she would have dis- figured her countenance with a sneer. Silly things like that! Pooh! Nonsense! All you had to say was, “Came the dawn,” or “Father, I would 271ALICE IN MOVIELAND rather die than marry a man I do not love,” and there, you were! The things practically wrote themselves, and would probably be better if not written at all. But it was just because they were silly, and bored the audiences that men are making fortunes writing them now. In these days they seldom mention the dawn. They let it announce itself with light signals while they spend their grey matter putting into words what the star and her boy friend think about the sunrise after the sunset before. Ex-newspaper men make magnificent titlers. One of the best and the richest of these is Joe Farnum, who titled “The Big Parade,” and “Tell It to the Marines.” Comedy is his forte, and comedy, of course, is ten times more difficult than “sob” stuff. Still, it takes a hard-headed titler to keep off the rocks of sentimentality (“Hokem” is Hollywood for that) ; to be pathetic without be- coming bathetic. Ex-publicity men seem to have the same quick wit in snapping out smart titles for the screen as the journalists are showing. The reason for this in both cases must be that it has been these men’s business for years to play with words and link them together showily, just as a designer of jewellery groups the right-coloured and right- shaped stones. 272THE POWERS BEHIND THE SCREEN Malcolm Stuart Boylan, known as “Mike,” is a splendid specimen of the publicity expert turned titler, to the tune of fifty thousand dollars or so a year. He is of the type who would have lisped out something screamingly funny to upset the nursery when he cut his first tooth. I can imagine his mother having kept a note-book full of “Mike’s” witticisms from the age of one year up to his dash into the world war. He won a deco- ration there for some such thing as keeping the enemy off his crashed airplane. He probably yelled out such funny things in broken German that the boys in field-grey were too weak to move; and so saved his bullets as well as his ’bus. Just at present he sheds his light on the Fox Studio, which has been making so many fine pic- tures of late. One night he took Alice to see “The Seventh Heaven,” a Fox production which is as nearly perfect as these poor mortal films can be. He hadn’t titled it. Another of the top men had done that, and done it so well that there wasn’t a fault to find from one expert to another. But suddenly Mike groaned and slapped his massive forehead. “What’s the matter?” gasped Alice. “Is some old wound hurting you?” “No, it’s a new wound,” says Mike. “I’ve just thought of a title: ‘There’s nothing to fear but 273ALICE IN MOVIELAND fear.’ It would have come in well in that place, don’t you think? Pity to waste it.” “You won’t!” ventures Alice. “I have a sort of idea that it’s your motto in life.” Sometimes a titler (never a Joe Farnum, or a Malcolm Boylan) “falls down on his job.” That happens now and then even with the second best, if a picture is so bad that it threatens to be a film Humpty Dumpty; “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, etc., etc.” When it aims to be funny, but instead of getting those laughs which the “bosses” record at pre-views it gets groans, the “gagmen” are rushed to the rescue. Not that they haven’t been on the spot before. In some studios comedies and farces are prac- tically made by the gagmen, whose “wise crack- ing” wit suggests situations as well as captions. But there are pictures which at pre-views show fatal flaws. The disease is so serious that the “gags” em- ployed have made as little mark as “dud” bombs used to make in the war. Then the film doctors put their heads together, and the gagsters rub up their well-paid wits, which are worth their weight in diamonds. Many an alleged comedy would be tragedy for audiences and box offices if it hadn’t been waked up by funny “gags.” The best of these get such guffaws that only experts 274THE POWERS BEHIND THE SCREEN know they have laughed at the title and not at the film. Then there are the camera men, of whom Mr. Miller, the one-time British jockey, now of the de Mille Studio, stands in the front rank. And there are the expert photographers who take the beautiful still pictures for “publicity” such as Mr. Freulich of the Universal Studio. A camera man can do even more for a star than a director can do in some ways. A director can make a girl act, but he can’t turn her into a radiant beauty. A camera man can do this, through marvellous devices of lighting; and he often does. Woe to the screen actor or actress, even those hovering in the hope of near stardom, who get disliked by a head camera man, or one of those tremendously important powers behind the screen, a high au- thority in the cutting room. Almost better to have a director annoyed with you, rather than that should happen! They are stars of their kind, these people be- hind the camera and in that mysterious lair, the cutting room. Men and women there are draw- ing large salaries, because they earn them. In- deed, the millions of Movieland don’t all stream into the pockets and the vanity bags of the screen stars!CHAPTER XIX STAR DUST “Star Dust” is the bright haze through which Alice sees Movieland as she turns back for one last look from the door of the Rabbit-hole, soon to shut her out from the Klieg lights and “baby spots!” Now, please don’t ask what she means by “baby spots.” She doesn’t quite know herself. They sound like an attack of infantile measles; but they’re certainly not that. Alice thinks they are little lights which gently follow individual stars about, much as small white puppies follow their masters. They help to give the star dust a silvery sheen, as Alice prepares to climb up the Rabbit-hole where a few weeks ago she so hap- pily slid down into the glitter of Movieland. Her visit there has developed a microscopic quality of eye so that in the general blaze she can pick out objects smaller than stars, less brilliant, yet of interest: objects indigenous to Movieland and to no other land on earth. Just little things they are! Just little funny 276STAR DUST things, some of them; and just little sad things, some others. She sees a studio where a Russian picture is being produced on a grand scale. All the male extras in a certain scene are foreign men of title. There are several princes, tall, handsome, rather sad-faced young men of great families, who have known tragedy. There are a few barons, and then come what they call “the counts and the don’t counts.” The “don’t counts” are, of course, the gentle- men whose titles are somehow under suspicion. But it’s too much trouble to trace titles home to roost! If a “don’t count” has a good presence and a good manner, why worry? He’s only an extra, anyhow, at ten dollars (alias ten “bucks”) a day. Alice sees beautiful girls and men of marvellous “type” turned away from casting directors’ doors without being given “tests,” because beauty and talent are such gluts in the market that casting directors have got mental dyspepsia. With some of these men, the fact that a girl or a boy wants something they can give seems to make them want not to give it. They value more the types they stumble upon by accident, and can feel they have discovered. Which is why most studios employ movie sleuths in big cities seeking the very faces they refuse at Hollywood. 277ALICE IN MOVIELAND Alice stares at the floating star dust, and picks out bright little particles here and there. She sees a young mother bringing to a studio her small daughter, quite a well-known child actress, engaged for a part in a picture being made. In the mother’s arms is a baby of the mis- chievous age, an amateur baby, who has never acted at all. Mother couldn’t leave it at home, as there was no one to look after it; and this she explains earnestly to the annoyed director. “Well,” he says irritably, “don’t let that kid get on the set while I’m shooting! If I lose one foot of film on account of your darned baby, I tell you your whole family will be out of this studio from to-day on!” The mother promises, and hangs on to the wretched infant for dear life, and bread and butter. But when the older child is called, some- thing has to be adjusted about the little dress. Baby is set down hard on the floor with stern instructions to “keep still.” However, the flaring lights, the sparkling dresses, and the flowers in the imitation garden attract a pair of year-old eyes. Baby is thrilled, and while Mother’s back is turned crawls gaily on to the set. There it fancies one of the glittering frocks, and while the cameras crank, the unexpected actor—all smiles and dimples and bobbing curls—tries to climb up into a horrified lap. 278STAR DUST Mother sees too late what tragedy has hap- pened! Nothing can be done except to apologize, and take a scolding. But when the “rushes” are run in the projection room that night it is the forbidden one who has become the chief figure in the scene. So charming is the little creature that a part is written for it, and Baby makes the hit of the picture. Big sister’s nose is out of joint, and Baby becomes a popular figure of the screen! Alice sees another studio, whence several pretty girls have walked sadly away, “not wanted to-day.” A beautiful young heiress from a big city of the Middle West is visiting Los Angeles for the first time, and has received permission to enter that same studio. She has a school friend who is playing a part in a new picture, and the millionaire’s daughter is allowed to stand behind the Klieg lights, watching a scene as it is shot. As a matter of fact, she isn’t much interested in moving pictures. She cares more for the stage. But it has seemed a waste of time to be in Holly- wood and never go inside a studio! The girl is somewhat bored, and inclined to pity her friend, who has been reduced to tears, by the director. “Brute!” thinks milady, “I’d walk out if a beast of a man talked to me like that!” Her indignation shows on her clear, expressive features. All unaware, she becomes an Interest- 279ALICE IN MOVIELAND ing Type! Suddenly she starts at a touch on her shoulder. She turns and sees that fiend of a director. “Have you ever had a test taken?” he brusquely enquires. The spoiled beauty is not used to being ad- dressed in that tone, or in any tone by an unin- troduced male. Without answering she looks into space with an air that says: “I do not hear you. I do not see you. You do not exist.” But successful motion picture directors are quite as spoiled as the beauteous daughters of multi-millionaires. The man is fawned on, wept upon, knelt to, every day by girls as fair as this! Only it happens that he fancies this type and she pleases that adventurous “discoverer” complex of his. He doesn’t know so much as her name, much less that she is a dollar princess! Again he touches the indifferent shoulder. He can’t believe that it is indifferent. “I asked you if you had ever had a test taken,” he sharply repeats. This time the girl answers. The expressive brows he has admired draw together in a frown. “No, I have not!” she snaps. “And I don’t want one taken.” The director gazes upon this abnormal female as if he thought of telephoning the nearest insane asylum. “Do you understand that I am offering you fame?” he demands. 280STAR DUST “Pooh!” says the girl. “Fame in the pictures! As if I would care for that.” Dazed, hurt, amazed, incredulous, furious, the director stalks away. But he can’t get the girl out of his head. Even when he finds out who she is, which he makes a point of doing, he can’t bear to give her up. He comes back to the charge. He gets himself introduced. He argues. He is eloquent, and at last worries the quarry into per- mitting (mind you, “permitting ” not pleading for!) the proposed test. The best camera man in the whole studio makes it, and milady finds her- self so fascinating that she accepts her fate—and fame! She is soon to be starred. Moral: If you want to get into the movies, try to do it—just try! If you don’t want to, try to keep out! Of such are life’s little ironies, seen floating in the star dust of Movieland. But life is ironic everywhere, Alice has noticed. And in Movie- land the sunshine is so bright, the sky so blue, the air so crystal clear that those who fall blinking in the haze of star dust always find courage to stumble to their feet and try again. For, you see, nothing is too wonderful to hap- pen in Movieland! Alice has found it so. (’) THE ENDThis book is a preservation facsimile produced for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It is made in compliance with copyright law and produced on acid-free archival 60# book weight paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper). Preservation facsimile printing and binding by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2020