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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77829 ***
+
+
+
+  SCREEN ACTING
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1921
+  PHOTO-STAR PUBLISHING CO.
+  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
+
+[Illustration: _The Author and Daughter Mary_]
+
+
+
+
+  SCREEN ACTING
+
+  BY
+
+  MAE MARSH
+
+  OF
+  “THE BIRTH OF A NATION,” “INTOLERANCE,” “POLLY OF THE
+  CIRCUS,” “THE CINDERELLA MAN,” ETC.
+
+  ILLUSTRATED
+
+  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
+  PHOTO-STAR PUBLISHING CO.
+
+  CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUILDING
+
+  _All Rights Reserved_
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+In her travels and through her amazing--to put it
+mildly--correspondence, the motion picture star finds that there is
+everywhere a great curiosity about screen acting.
+
+What does it require? What, if any, are its mysteries? What system of
+detail is there that permits fifty-two hundred feet of celluloid ribbon
+to spin smoothly past the eye to make an interesting story?
+
+I look upon this book as an answer to the thousands of letters I
+have received in the past several years asking as many thousands of
+questions. A motion picture star’s most intimate audience, after all,
+is her correspondence.
+
+There comes to her sometimes the vague realization that in a dozen
+different countries little children, their sisters, their brothers and
+their parents may be, at one moment, viewing her image upon the screen
+in a dozen different plays. It is all too stupendous; too impersonal.
+But though she cannot be a breathing part of these audiences she learns
+often what is in the hearts of many. This message comes through the
+mails; that is her broad point of contact with her international public.
+
+Five years ago these letters were largely to request photographs and
+the star could tell something of her popularity by the number of
+pictures mailed out. But, as the screen has grown in importance and
+merit, the star’s correspondence has indicated a lively curiosity in
+the art of camera-acting. So much ambition; so many questions!
+
+I have often thought that to make a satisfactory reply to the thousands
+of questions I have been asked would be to write a book, and--well, I
+wrote it. I have tried to outline the important steps in the building
+of a screen career. In doing this I have evaded technical phraseology.
+It is not indispensable to a knowledge of screen technic and might tend
+to confuse.
+
+I believe that anyone desiring a career in motion pictures can profit
+by that which I have written out of my experience; that others can
+learn from it something of the work-a-day life of the screen actress.
+
+In conclusion I would take this opportunity to thank the tremendous
+number of children and grown-ups who have at one time or another
+written me. They serve always to remind me that those of us upon the
+screen have an influence and responsibility that go beyond a mere
+make-believe.
+
+  MAE MARSH.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+Chapter                                         Page
+
+I. The Universal Impulse                          15
+
+II. Stars and Meteors                             23
+
+III. Seven Qualities                              33
+
+IV. Beauty and Expression                         43
+
+V. Story, Make-up, Costuming                      51
+
+VI. Noses, Chins and Eyes                         61
+
+VII. Camera-Consciousness and Such                73
+
+VIII. Emphasis and Repression                     81
+
+IX. Long Shots, Intermediates and Close-ups       91
+
+X. About Atmosphere                              101
+
+XI. Mr. Griffith                                 109
+
+XII. Home Life of the Star                       121
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+
+                                             Page
+
+The Author and Mary                  Frontispiece
+
+Lillian Gish and the late Robert Harron        27
+
+Charles Ray                                    37
+
+Mary Miles Minter                              47
+
+Mary Pickford                                  55
+
+Madame Nazimova                                65
+
+Blanche Sweet and Wallace Reid                 77
+
+Norma Talmadge                                 85
+
+The Author and Some Beginners                  95
+
+Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan             105
+
+Mr. Griffith                                  113
+
+The Author at Home                            125
+
+
+
+
+MAE MARSH, MOTION PICTURE ACTRESS
+
+
+_I_
+
+    _The arts are old, old as the stones_
+      _From which man carved the sphinx austere._
+      _Deep are the days the old arts bring:_
+        _Ten thousand years of yesteryear._
+
+
+_II_
+
+    _She is madonna in an art_
+      _As wild and young as her sweet eyes:_
+      _A frail dew flower from this hot lamp_
+        _That is today’s divine surprise._
+
+      _Despite raw lights and gloating mobs_
+        _She is not seared: a picture still:_
+      _Rare silk the fine director’s hand_
+        _May weave for magic if he will._
+
+      _When ancient films have crumbled like_
+        _Papyrus rolls of Egypt’s day,_
+      _Let the dust speak: “Her pride was high,_
+        _All but the artist hid away:_
+
+      _“Kin to the myriad artist clan_
+        _Since time began, whose work is dear.”_
+      _The deep new ages come with her,_
+        _Tomorrow’s years of yesteryear._
+
+    --_Nicholas Vachel Lindsay._
+
+  _From “THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE_
+  _and other Poems” by Vachel Lindsay._
+  _Published by The MacMillan Company._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+  _The dilemma of a casting director--A flood of letters_
+          _and their four objectives--What every-_
+                  _one wants to know._
+
+
+When Mr. Adolph Klauber, former dramatic critic of the New York Times,
+was casting director for a big picture corporation I chanced to meet
+him one day in the Fort Lee Studios.
+
+“Read this,” he said, tendering me a letter.
+
+It was from a young girl in Columbus, Ohio, as I remember, who wanted
+to know how she could get into motion pictures. It was not so much the
+letter as a small snap-shot photograph of herself which she had pinned
+to her missive that took my attention.
+
+The picture showed a girl in a sitting position, who was plump to
+the verge of fatness. She had thick legs and ankles, straight hair,
+probably brown, and dark eyes. So far as a front view divulged her
+features were fairly regular. It was not in any way a remarkable
+picture. Nor did it promise any particular animation in its subject.
+
+She had written to ascertain “what chance she would have in motion
+pictures.”
+
+“What are you going to answer?” I asked of Mr. Klauber.
+
+“That’s a poser,” he replied. “I was about to write her that she didn’t
+have any chance; that she probably would be happier if she remained
+home; certainly so until she obtained her parents’ consent for plans of
+a career. Looking at the picture I should say she had one chance in a
+million.”
+
+“That is probably true,” I said.
+
+“But do you know,” continued Mr. Klauber, “that the more I think of
+it the less I believe that I am endowed with authority to tell anyone
+that he or she has no chance in motion pictures. How can I know? We see
+about us every day celebrated stars who, perhaps, began their career
+with apparently no more chance than this little Columbus girl.”
+
+Mr. Klauber paused.
+
+“For that reason I have not sent the discouraging letter which it was
+on the tip of my pen to write,” he continued. “Instead I am going to
+send her a letter telling her that her chance of screen success is
+altogether problematical; that everything depends upon circumstance,
+hard work and the native talent that is developed before the camera.”
+
+“I should like to see a copy of that letter,” I said.
+
+I never happened to see Mr. Klauber’s reply to the girl in Columbus.
+But I am sure it was interesting.
+
+In the past eight years I have received hundreds of thousands of
+letters from motion picture fans in every part of the world. In answer
+now to a question I have often heard asked, “Does a motion picture star
+immediately read all her mail?” I can say for myself, “Bless you, no.”
+
+A single mail has brought as many as a thousand letters and I shall
+leave it to the reader to determine how one could possibly read one
+thousand letters and arrive at the studio at 8:30 o’clock. Personally,
+my secretaries are instructed to attend to such fan letters as request
+a reply--which practically all of them do--and then preserve the
+letters that I may read them in leisure moments.
+
+In that way I have managed I think to peruse at one time or another the
+majority of the letters that come to me. I find the reading of them a
+great pleasure.
+
+It is nice to receive pleasant compliments on one’s hard and honest
+effort to do something worth while. I have on many occasions found
+helpful criticism in my mail. Almost anyone can dismiss a picture with
+a “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” There is the exceptional one in
+a thousand who will tell you he didn’t like it and why, placing his
+finger upon a real defect. Often that is a help.
+
+To get back to my point: The letters I receive seem to be written with
+one, and sometimes all of the following objectives--
+
+1. To request a photograph.
+
+2. To request an autographed photograph.
+
+3. To ask for “old clothes.”
+
+4. To find out how “I can learn to act for motion pictures.”
+
+As for Numbers 1 and 2, the many of you who are making a “collection”
+know that a picture, autographed if requested, is sent you in due
+time. Up to very recently the star has considered it a matter of good
+advertising to remember those friends who are kind enough to ask for
+photographs. But the demand for pictures has become so tremendous that
+some of the stars are now making a flat charge of twenty-five cents
+for their photographs. This barely covers the cost of production and
+postage.
+
+It was Miss Billie Burke, I believe, who was first to establish a cost
+charge on her photographs. She did this during the war and donated the
+receipts to charity.
+
+The most of us have feared to risk offending those picture fans who
+have been at the pains of writing us by asking them for a photographic
+fee. We have spent from $10,000 to $25,000 a year out of our own
+pockets--unless by our contracts our producers agreed to bear this
+expense--and have trusted that it was money well expended. In the
+amount of pleasure brought to the little ones I, for one, am sure it
+has been.
+
+But, as the demand for pictures grows greater and letters pour in
+from all parts of the world, the cost of materials has been steadily
+climbing. In 1915 I could send out three photographs for what it now
+costs to send one. That means something when thousands of photo-mailers
+each month are being sent to a dozen different countries.
+
+Recently a well known star, a particular friend of mine, declared that
+it was but a matter of months before all the more popular stars would
+institute a photographic fee.
+
+As to Number 3, regarding old clothes, I am sure that while the
+requests emanate from worthy sources no star could possibly satisfy
+these many supplications.
+
+To begin with if the story calls for clothes that are actually old--old
+enough to be considered “costumes”--they are usually supplied by the
+producer and belong to him after production. In the case of modern
+clothes--meaning new ones--most stars are very pleased to wear them
+themselves when they have finished before the camera.
+
+Such is mine own case. Whenever there is any danger of my reaching a
+point of clothes saturation I have several growing sisters who, so
+far, have been able to handle the situation. After that our clothes go
+through certain pre-arranged channels of charity.
+
+I make this point in the hope that many young ladies who have written
+me for my “old clothes” will understand that I have few or none, as
+much as I should like to accommodate each one of them.
+
+Which brings me to Number 4.
+
+“How can I learn to act for motion pictures?” Six years ago in “The
+Birth of a Nation” days my mail brought me many such inquiries. Since
+then, with the motion picture steadily gaining in favor, I have been
+swamped with this universal request.
+
+“Do brown eyes photograph better than blue?” “Is it necessary to have
+stage training to act before a camera?” “Can a girl with a big nose
+succeed in the movies?” “What is the accepted height for a motion
+picture star?” “Are the morals of motion pictures safe for the average
+girl?” “If I came to Hollywood and got work as an extra how long
+would it be before I am featured?” “Do you know any director who will
+star a small girl, of blond type, who has played parts in high school
+comedies?” “Are the star salaries we hear of the real thing?” “Does
+Charlie Chaplin make $1,000,000 a year?”
+
+I have picked at random these few questions. I think I could go on and
+on, farther than Mr. Tennyson’s charming brook, with others of the same
+kind. Sometimes I am given to the thought that every young girl in the
+United States wants to go into motion pictures.
+
+Possibly I am right. You know as well as I. Receiving so many of these
+letters I have begun to feel as Mr. Klauber felt. I don’t know exactly
+what to say.
+
+But since there are undoubtedly many thousands of boys and girls not
+only in the United States but in foreign countries--the Japanese boy,
+for instance, is particularly keen on knowing the how of motion picture
+acting--who would like to get into motion pictures, I feel that such
+information as I have acquired through a wide experience will interest
+many and perhaps prove of value to those others who are destined to be
+our cinema stars of tomorrow.
+
+As for my qualifications I was about to say that I am one of the motion
+picture pioneers. Yet when I say pioneer I think of Daniel Boone. And
+Mr. Boone, had he lived, would have been an old, old man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+  _The myth of the “overnight” star--An instance of_
+        _success after long sustained effort--_
+              _What the beginner faces._
+
+
+To become an artistic success one must assuredly be in love with the
+art he has elected to follow. In business or finance a so-called lucky
+stroke may make of a man or a woman a success without there being those
+qualities of esteem and enthusiasm for the thing itself that are so
+essential to artistic endeavor.
+
+Such lucky strokes are rare in pictures. Appearances to the contrary,
+notwithstanding, motion picture stars are not made over-night. Every
+now and then some actor or actress begins to assert his or her right to
+cinema stardom. But if one will take the trouble to examine the records
+in such cases he will usually find that the privilege of stardom has
+come only after a slow climb.
+
+There have been cases where producers have tried to “manufacture”
+stars. But, in the main, it hasn’t worked.
+
+To recall one example: One of the shrewdest of our producers not long
+ago signed a young, beautiful and talented vaudeville actress to a long
+time motion picture contract. Screen tests proved that she photographed
+beautifully. She had the grace of carriage to be expected of the
+professional dancer. Her face was expressive. That a capable director
+would find in her all the qualities necessary for stardom the producer
+never doubted.
+
+Thousands of dollars were spent in an ocean of advertising ink
+announcing the debut of this star. Her name was flashed from one end of
+the country to the other, indeed, around the world, in electric lights
+and on bill boards. Her photograph was published in the metropolitan
+dailies and small town papers. So far as the campaign was concerned it
+was an unqualified success. By the time the little star’s first picture
+was ready for release there had been built up about her a tremendous
+curiosity.
+
+I own I was as curious as the next. I think the majority of us, who had
+attained stardom only after years of rigorous training, self denial and
+hard work, were interested, even anxious, to know if motion picture
+stars could be developed after the formula of this producer. It meant
+something to us.
+
+If the magnitude of the motion picture actress was to be in proportion
+to the size of an introductory advertising campaign then our own
+position was none too secure.
+
+As a star this little actress failed. Thanks to some natural talent her
+failure was not so disastrous as it might have been. But as a star, she
+was soon withdrawn. The fortune spent in exploiting her was gone, but
+not forgotten. As a proof of the impossibility of “manufacturing” stars
+under the most favorable of circumstances it probably served a purpose.
+
+Why did she fail? Why would a baby, who had never walked, fail if she
+were told to run a foot race? She simply didn’t know how.
+
+All the little important things that one can learn by nothing save
+experience, things which mean everything to successful screen acting,
+were missing in her work. She was like one trying to paint without
+knowing color, to compose without a knowledge of counter-point, to
+write without having learned grammar school English. Contrary to a
+tradition which exists in some localities the best swimmers are not
+developed by throwing the child into the water and telling him to sink
+or float.
+
+There is another interesting point in the case which I have cited. When
+the plans to make this young lady an over-night star failed she became
+a featured player in a group. Surrounded by experienced, capable screen
+actors and relieved of the responsibility that stardom entails she has
+developed splendidly and is, in point of fact, a better actress today
+than she was when she was advertised as a star.
+
+It has been simply a matter of training. If sometime in the future she
+is again starred she will be prepared to make a better job of it.
+
+I have brought up this case because it has been my observation that
+there exists a feeling that in motion pictures anybody can be a star
+anytime. There is talk of influence, managerial favoritism, luck
+and, goodness knows, what not? There may be truth to some of these
+assertions.
+
+But the year in and year out stars--Mary Pickford, Dorothy and Lillian
+Gish, William Hart, Mme. Nazimova, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Ray,
+etc.--are those who stand solidly on the ground of genuine merit.
+
+And the solidity of their stance is usually determined by the amount of
+their natural talent, plus the excellence and length of their training.
+
+I believe many people have the habit of falling in love with an idea.
+The idea of becoming a motion picture star is appealing. But like many
+other general conceptions the idea of the star’s life--as gathered from
+a smoothly displayed picture drama or a magazine article portraying the
+artist’s home, her automobile and her pets--is misleading.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson wept in despair over the composition of many of
+his stories. A great many of us have had occasion to weep over our own
+more modest efforts. We have found, indeed, that the most beautiful
+roses are very often those with the cruelest thorns.
+
+[Illustration: _Lillian Gish and the late Robert Harron in a love scene
+from “The Greatest Question.”_]
+
+It has been proved that motion picture stars cannot be made over-night.
+It is equally true that many promising actresses do not become
+stars--in the accepted professional sense of the word--even after long
+years of work.
+
+I suppose if I said that nobody can succeed in motion pictures and that
+the star is the exception to the rule I should be accused of being a
+pessimist. Yet that is more nearly the truth than may appear on the
+surface.
+
+Consider, for instance, the thousands of actors and actresses who have
+appeared before a camera in the past decade. After you have done that
+count the number of genuine stars now before the public. You can name
+the majority of them on the fingers and thumbs of four hands.
+
+Yet in the heart of each of the thousands, who have stepped before the
+batteries of motion picture cameras, there was undoubtedly the hope
+that natural ability, circumstance or hard work would bring success.
+
+It is well to take this into consideration when one looks toward the
+screen for a career.
+
+But sometimes this law of average is defeated by that exceptional
+person whose faith is undiminished, whose confidence in one’s self is
+boundless and whose capacity for work never flags.
+
+Let me cite you the case of one of the best known young actresses
+on the screen who, as this is written, has never enjoyed the full
+privileges of stardom though she has shared most of its disadvantages.
+
+She began her screen career more than a half dozen years ago. She was
+frail, and slow to absorb the lessons of the screen. Even her dearest
+friends never imputed to her a great natural acting talent.
+
+But this young lady was dauntless. She kept everlastingly at it.
+By systematically exercising she gradually built up strength and
+endurance. When she was given a part she read everything she had access
+to which would help her in the development of her character portrayal.
+
+She over-came any tendency toward self-consciousness while before the
+camera. She became adept in the matter of thinking up business. The
+fact that she did not attain stardom, in its generally accepted sense,
+never deterred her. Year after year she gave to the screen and to her
+parts the best that was in her.
+
+Her courageousness has been rewarded. It is my opinion that in the past
+two years she has contributed to the photographic drama two of its most
+distinguished characterizations. She is a motion picture star in the
+true sense of the word. Her name is Lillian Gish.
+
+If I seem to be gazing on the darker side of a screen career I assure
+you that it is not because such is my habit. Quite the contrary. But
+it appears to me that since there seems to be such a universal impulse
+to gain fame through the medium of the moving picture drama that it is
+as well to consider some of its difficulties.
+
+Trained actors and actresses from the spoken stage to their sorrow have
+found these difficulties. The established star finds sometimes that
+success has seemed merely to double her troubles.
+
+The beginner will discover, therefore, that when he or she sets his or
+her face toward a screen career there will come moments when it will
+seem much easier to give up than go on. Those who give up will be those
+who should never have started. They will have wasted time that could
+have been otherwise more profitably spent.
+
+Those who go on--well, there is always hope for such.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am always interested in and can sympathize with the young girl who
+yearns for a career. It seems but yesterday that I was in short skirts
+and Miss Marjorie Rambeau was the most talented and beautiful actress
+that was ever permitted upon the face of the earth. After a matinee
+at the old Burbank theater in Los Angeles a young girl friend and I
+often followed Miss Rambeau discreetly and at what might be called a
+worshipful distance.
+
+Then there was Mr. Richard Bennett. What a masterful, handsome man was
+he! My goodness! he was one to occupy one’s dreams; to make one wonder
+if somehow it might not be possible to grow up and become his leading
+lady. I am sure that the very paragon of modern-day leading men could
+not come up to my childhood estimate of Mr. Richard Bennett.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+  _Seven qualities that indicate fitness for a screen career_
+            _--Why they are important--An illus-_
+                    _tration of vitality._
+
+
+As I have said, I have been asked by thousands of correspondents for
+the formula for screen success. I have never felt able to answer. I
+don’t believe there is any such formula.
+
+Putting the proposition another way:
+
+If I were requested to choose from among ten beginners the one who
+would go the farthest in motion pictures I should unhesitatingly lay my
+finger upon the one who possessed the following qualifications:
+
+(1) Natural talent.
+
+(2) Ambition.
+
+(3) Personality.
+
+(4) Sincerity.
+
+(5) Agreeable appearance.
+
+(6) Vitality and strength.
+
+(7) Ability to learn quickly.
+
+I am sure that I should not go far wrong if I were to place my trust in
+one endowed with these qualities.
+
+A natural talent for acting implies more than a mere desire to act. It
+is the art, usually discovered during childhood, of mimicry, and the
+joy in that art.
+
+How many of us have been convulsed in our earlier years at some school
+girl friend’s take-off of our teacher? How many of us, indeed, have
+played the mimics? I seem to remember that in my grammar school days I
+was called upon more or less to take-off one of our teachers.
+
+If not called upon I volunteered. None of my school chums got more
+enjoyment out of my “imitation of Miss Blank” than I did. I never
+dreamed at that time--or, if I did, they were vague dreams--that I was
+to become an actress. Since then I have come to the conclusion that I
+was actually taking my first steps toward what I chose as a career.
+
+Natural talent, as I have called it, is no more than a tendency toward,
+or an aptitude for, some form of endeavor. In youth my first artistic
+loves were for mimicry and painting--the latter of which took the form
+of sculpturing--and both of these loves have been enduring.
+
+For that reason unless my candidate for screen success had previously
+shown some love for acting or mimicry I should come to the conclusion
+that he or she was intoxicated merely with the glamour of the
+profession, with no especial love for the fundamental thing itself.
+
+This is an important point. If its significance were duly impressed
+upon the thousands of girls and boys, who would like to choose the
+screen for a career, perhaps, some of them would abandon their dreams
+and turn to things for which they have displayed some natural aptitude.
+
+Ambition must, of course, go hand in hand with natural talent. In
+any form of vocational training it is assumed that the student has a
+feverish desire to succeed in the particular line that he has elected
+to follow. It is the same on the screen.
+
+Possibly I might have written down enthusiasm in the place of ambition.
+After one has attained stardom and thus, perhaps, achieved his or
+her ambition the ability to sustain enthusiasm in one’s work becomes
+more important than ambition. But ambition and enthusiasm are closely
+correlated.
+
+They mean that one has an ambition to gain the top, and that to reach
+that position one has the enthusiasm to practise all the forms of
+self-denial, discipline and study that are important to artistic
+success in any line.
+
+Personality is important for the reason that the camera has a way of
+registering it unerringly. It is keen in detecting the weak or vapid.
+
+In my eight years before a motion picture camera I have never met a
+person of inferior fibre whose inferiority was not accentuated by the
+camera. For that reason to sustain success on the screen I believe
+there is nothing more important than clean thoughts and clean living.
+They do register.
+
+It is precisely the same with sincerity. In any line there is probably
+little hope for those who lack this salient quality. But a motion
+picture camera seems especially to delight in exposing insincerity.
+
+I think considerable of the success of Mary Pickford and Charles
+Ray--to name but two stars--is due to their absolute and abundant
+sincerity. The camera, finding so much that is clean and real, has
+joyously reproduced it. It is the love that Miss Pickford radiates from
+the screen and the obvious manliness of Mr. Ray that are among their
+biggest assets. This is sincere love and sincere manliness, or it would
+never be so emphasized by the camera.
+
+My candidate for screen honors, therefore, must have the God-given
+quality of sincerity. Only that kind can feel deeply, think cleanly and
+develop the sterling traits without which neither a camera or a public
+can be very long deceived.
+
+I now come to the matter of personal appearance. This is a topic
+in which every man under 65, and every woman under 100 years seem
+interested. I sometimes wonder if it is not the desire to see how they
+would look on the screen, rather than how they might act, that fills
+so many boys and girls and men and women with an ambition for a screen
+career.
+
+[Illustration: _Charles Ray, plus his abundant sincerity, as reflected
+in “The Old Swimmin’ Hole.”_]
+
+I have found the subject of such universal interest that I believe it
+deserves a chapter to itself. Therefore I shall dismiss this matter
+until the next. I may say, however, that in my candidate I should rank
+agreeable appearance and an expressive face as superior to mere beauty.
+
+To paraphrase, nothing succeeds like good health. Of itself it is the
+most valuable thing that we should own. Good health can be translated
+into terms of capacity for work. Therefore since a screen career means
+both hard and trying work I should insist that my candidate possess or
+develop the qualities of strength and vitality.
+
+I am aware that in many forms of art such artists as Chopin, Stevenson
+and Milton, have become famous in spite of great physical handicaps. I
+do not believe the same can be done in pictures.
+
+It seems to me that healthy persons like to see and be among well
+people. Motion picture audiences being invariably in first-class
+physical shape themselves, desire that those who appear before them on
+the screen be likewise fortunate. It is my belief that an audience is
+usually bored to tears by a convalescing hero or heroine. If I were in
+charge of all the scenarios played I should cut such episodes very
+short. They beget more impatience than sympathy.
+
+But it is not only because good health radiates from the screen that it
+is important. In point of nervous and muscular strain, and the often
+long studio hours that are necessary when production has begun, good
+health is essential.
+
+To illustrate: While we were filming “Polly of the Circus” in Fort Lee
+one morning I reported at the studio at nine o’clock. We were working
+on some interior scenes that were vital to the success of the story.
+My director at that time was Mr. Charles Horan. Mr. Vernon Steele was
+playing the male lead.
+
+That day we became so engrossed in playing some rather delicate scenes
+that before we knew it--or at least before I could realize it--it was
+six o’clock, and we weren’t half done.
+
+“What do you say to continuing?” asked Mr. Horan.
+
+“Good; we’re right in the spirit of it,” I replied.
+
+We had a bite to eat and worked on until midnight. In spite of our
+hard and earnest efforts there were several scenes with which we were
+dissatisfied.
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Horan ruefully. “Tomorrow will be another day.”
+
+As he spoke it dawned upon me how one of the scenes on which we felt
+we had failed could be done with probable success.
+
+“Why tomorrow?” I replied. “Let’s make a night of it if necessary. We
+simply have to get that scene.”
+
+Mr. Horan grinned. That had been his wish. But he had feared breaking
+the camel’s back.
+
+We worked until four o’clock that morning. Things went swimmingly. It
+was broad daylight when I ferried across the Hudson but if I was very
+tired I was equally happy.
+
+Several times during “Polly of the Circus” we had experiences which, in
+the number of hours put in, were similar to that which I have related.
+But in the end it was worth while. We had a picture.
+
+At that time I was feeling in the best of health but, even so, the
+long hours had been a severe drain upon my none too great vitality.
+For anyone lacking strength and vitality such hours would have been
+impossible.
+
+It is not my intention to write a booklet on health. But all of us
+should be very careful of our most precious possession. I know of so
+many young girls in motion pictures who have let their health get away
+from them. And some of the cases are so pitiful....
+
+My candidate, then, will have strength and vitality and, equally
+important, he or she will cling to both, whatever social sacrifices may
+have to be made to preserve them.
+
+The ability to learn quickly will save anyone going into screen work so
+much trouble and possible humiliation that it may well be listed as an
+essential qualification.
+
+The screen is no place for the mental laggard. The beginner,
+particularly, must be alive to learn the new lessons that each day will
+bring, and learning them he must remember.
+
+During the course of production in a studio things are at high tension.
+Time is money. Each of us constitutes a more or less important cog in
+a great machine. Those cogs that inexcusably forget to function are
+eliminated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+  _Beauty and the measure of looks upon the screen--_
+      _Expression most important--Tragedies of_
+        _doll-faces--Photographic “angles.”_
+
+
+What follows happened during the National Convention of Motion Picture
+Producers in 1917 at Chicago. The convention was held at the Coliseum.
+There were jazz bands, gay and costly decorations, and motion picture
+celebrities from both Coasts. The carnival spirit ran high and
+thousands of motion picture fans squeezed into that huge old building.
+
+The opening was called “Mae Marsh Day.” I shall not soon forget it.
+That night as our party entered the Coliseum through the manager’s
+private office I espied in the center of the building a newly erected
+platform draped with bunting and decorated with flowers.
+
+“You will make a little speech,” the manager said.
+
+I gasped. I think I almost fainted. I had never made a formal speech.
+The idea of it was as foreign to me as becoming Queen of the South Sea
+Islands.
+
+“All right,” I gurgled weakly.
+
+My voice has never been strong. As I walked to the platform the
+Coliseum was a bedlam of sound. I was introduced with difficulty. With
+sinking knees I stepped forward.
+
+“Ladies and gentlemen I am sure I am pleased to--”
+
+A jazz band, which seemed to be located somewhere immediately beneath
+my feet, began to loudly play. I didn’t know whether to dance or sing.
+It was a medley in which “The Star-Spangled Banner” was predominant. I
+blessed the band. I doubly blessed our national anthem. Looking about
+me I saw a small American flag. I grasped it and stood waving it to the
+strains of our national air. The convention was duly opened.
+
+Afterward, when I stood upon a small table giving away carnations until
+my wrist ached--smiling like a chorus girl meantime--a woman informed
+my mother that she wished to see me on an important matter. In the
+press of those thousands of children and grown-ups I was virtually
+trapped.
+
+“Tell her,” I suggested, “to call at the Blackstone Hotel tomorrow
+morning.”
+
+She came. She was a plain woman with an honest eye. She brought along
+two small daughters aged, respectively, ten and twelve, I afterward
+ascertained.
+
+“Miss Marsh,” she declared, leaning forward expectantly in her chair,
+“I think my two daughters should succeed in motion pictures. One of
+them is very beautiful, and the other looks like you.”
+
+I told this honest lady, with as straight a face as I could command,
+that while her daughters were still too young to think of playing in
+motion pictures that some day, perhaps, I could do something for them,
+particularly the one that looked like me.
+
+In approaching the matter of screen faces I am strongly reminded of
+that Chicago lady. I believe her logic was essentially sound. There
+is no measure of looks for the motion picture screen. If there is a
+yardstick it applies to expression, or animation, and not looks.
+
+No one admires a beautiful face upon the screen more than I. If it so
+happens that this beauty is allied with ability then I am often given
+to the thought that they are not a congenial combination. For beauty,
+ever a queenly quality, is diverting and manages in this way and that
+to steal some of the thunder that rightfully belongs to ability.
+
+If, as sometimes happens, I see mere beauty being exploited on the
+screen with no semblance of acting talent, I am ready to give up my
+seat to the next one along about the third reel. Nothing palls upon one
+more quickly.
+
+Therefore, I am at odds with those who believe that beauty is necessary
+for the screen beginner. Say for beauty that it has the merit of more
+quickly attracting attention to the one who possesses it and you have
+done it full justice. But even then, if it is unaccompanied by ability,
+it is just another tragedy of a doll-face.
+
+Acting is primarily the ability to express something. If the face that
+conveys that feeling is not disagreeable then it becomes a matter of
+not how much beauty is in the face but how much expression. That was
+certainly the case with Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. All of us know plain
+appearing persons whose faces, when they have something to say, become
+interesting and expressive.
+
+They impress us as individuals whose beauty is inside or spiritual.
+That is a lovely quality for the screen. On the other hand we know,
+all of us, persons who are generally considered beautiful whose faces,
+under any circumstances, have no more animation than a mask. These
+people strike us as spiritually barren, lacking in humor, or something.
+
+If my candidate for screen honors has simply an agreeable appearance
+and good eyes--which I consider most important of all facial
+features--I shall be satisfied provided his or her face, and
+particularly the eyes, are expressive.
+
+[Illustration: _A beautiful young star and her director, Mary Miles
+Minter and Chester Franklin._]
+
+It has been my observation that while beauty or good looks is largely a
+matter of opinion--which has furnished many lively debates--the quality
+of expression or animation is seldom denied those who possess it. For
+that reason my candidate, if he or she has an expressive face, will
+have a more valuable and certain stock-in-trade than mere good looks.
+
+In spite of this logic most of us stars go on wishing to be thought
+beautiful, or to have it thought that we could be beautiful if we
+wanted to be. I recollect that it took time and courage for some of us
+to brave our publics in other than our pet make-ups.
+
+There are, for instance, two stars who had always regarded their curls
+as indispensable. After many years of stardom one of them decided to
+take what she thought was a desperate chance. She skinned her hair back
+and played the part of a little English slavey. The result was that she
+turned out one of the most successful pictures in her career.
+
+Another, a dear friend of mine, we used to call “The Primper.” She
+never appeared upon the set without her curls just so. I think at that
+time she thought they were the most important part of her career.
+
+She has reformed. As her art developed she became less particular about
+her hair dress. One night in a little theater in Jamaica, Long Island,
+I dropped in to see one of her photoplays. It was an excellent picture.
+Her hair was drawn back tightly over her head into a knot. That night I
+wired her congratulations.
+
+No; curls, Grecian noses, up-tilted chins and rose-tinted cheeks are
+not the measure of success upon the screen. It is something that goes
+deeper than that.
+
+It is something that goes deep enough to over-ride facial defects.
+There is one excellent little star, for example, who, because of a nose
+unfortunately large, must always work full face when near the camera.
+I think she is charming. Another, for an odd reason, permits only a
+one-way profile to be taken. There are many such cases.
+
+Indeed, the majority of us have our “angles.” By “angles” I mean the
+full, three-quarters, one-quarter or profile views in which we think
+we appear at our best. Each star has studied that point out for his or
+herself. And, since we are taking largely our own opinion for it, it is
+possible we are mistaken. But our vanity upholds us.
+
+In my own case I was hauled into motion pictures while sitting rather
+forlornly on a soapbox waiting for my sister Marguerite. Since at that
+time I was without curls, having never had any before or since, and
+looked as I look, so to speak, it has never been necessary for me to
+expend any great amount of time in make-up. That has been satisfactory
+to me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+  _The story, make-up and costuming--Rouge riots and_
+          _their disadvantages--The blond_
+              _and the “back spot.”_
+
+
+In any art or profession the ability to seize opportunity when it
+presents itself is important. This is especially true in motion
+pictures. Things move very fast there. It is like a game where the
+knack of doing the right thing at the right time determines one’s value.
+
+After the beginner has done his extra work, or small bits, if he is of
+the right stuff, he will some day be given a part. He may be unaware of
+it, but that will be the biggest moment of his screen career.
+
+When doing extra work or small bits the critics, the public, and the
+profession have paid little attention to the beginner. But once the
+beginner secures a part he comes instantly into the eye of everyone
+interested in the screen. We are all diverted by new faces.
+
+Thus the impression that the beginner will make in his first part is
+one that will for a long time endure. It comes very near making or
+breaking him. This may seem hard. Often it is unjust--a beginner may
+have a part forced upon him for which he is unfitted. But it is true.
+And we have to deal with conditions on the screen as we find them.
+
+For that reason when the big moment comes, and the part is secured,
+the beginner must do everything within his or her power to be as well
+prepared as possible.
+
+There are in this respect three important mechanical details that must
+be looked after. I should list them as follows:
+
+  (1) Studying the story.
+  (2) Studying make-up.
+  (3) Studying costuming.
+
+The beginner will be given the story--or script--typewritten in
+continuity form. Continuity means the scene by scene action through
+which the story is told. Ordinarily there will be some three hundred
+scenes or “shots” to the average photoplay.
+
+The beginner will first look to the plot and theme of the story. We
+want to know what the author is telling and how he is trying to tell
+it. We find the big situations and the action that precedes them. More
+important, we locate the why of it.
+
+When I have established the idea of the play I immediately go over the
+script again with an eye alert for business. By business I mean the
+tricks, mannerisms, and the apparent unexpected or involuntary moves
+that help to sustain action.
+
+The value of good business cannot be over-rated. It goes a long way
+toward making up for the lack of voice. Without clever business any
+photoplay would drag. The two-reel comedy, which I have observed is
+popular with audiences of all ages, is usually but a sequence of
+business.
+
+If the business that is planned upon seems natural to the
+character--the wiggling of a foot when excited, the inability to
+control the hands, the apparent unconscious raising of an eyebrow,
+etc.--I am sure there can be no real objection to it. The audience, who
+are the final critics, love it.
+
+Just the other night I saw Mr. Douglas Fairbanks in a play the final
+scene of which depicted him in the act of making love to his intended.
+That there might be some privacy to the undertaking they were screening
+themselves from the view of the guests--and the audience!--with a large
+silken handkerchief.
+
+The girl might have stood still. If she had there could have no
+criticism. Neither would there have been much of anything else, as her
+face was hidden from view. She laid her hands over a balustrade and
+wiggled her fingers. The audience roared.
+
+These are the things which keep a photoplay from dragging. They give
+the action a piquancy and charm.
+
+Now while the audience may believe that these things are done on the
+spur of the moment the facts are very contrary. These bits of business
+must be planned in advance and it is only an evidence that they have
+been well planned when they appear to be done unconsciously.
+
+While it is true that we have all discovered very telling bits of
+business during the actual photographing of a scene, we can count this
+as nothing but good fortune. To leave the matter of business until the
+director called “Camera!” would be fatal.
+
+Thus in going over a script I look for business. I think of all the
+business I can, knowing that much of it will prove impracticable and
+will have to be discarded. Nor is that all. When the scenic sets upon
+which we are to work are erected at the studio or on location, I look
+them over very carefully in the hope that some article of furniture,
+etc., will suggest some attractive piece of business. An odd fan, a
+pillow, a door, in fact, anything may prove valuable.
+
+I should suggest to my candidate that he or she be just as alert for
+good business as the star is. The good director is always open to
+suggestion. Business may make all the difference between a colorless
+and a vivid portrayal of a part. Thus for the beginner who, in
+obtaining a part, has reached the most vital moment of his career,
+the value of keeping an eye open to the possibilities of business is
+apparent.
+
+[Illustration: _Mary Pickford’s love radiates from the screen. A scene
+from “Pollyanna.”_]
+
+Make-up, like much of everything else on the screen, is a personal
+matter. There are, however, some general rules that can be followed to
+advantage.
+
+I should instruct my candidate not to make up too much. It seems to me
+that I have observed a tendency in this direction recently.
+
+Some actresses have laid on lip rouge so thickly that their lips seem
+to run liquid. Rouge photographs black. The result has been that this
+riot of lip paint has given them the appearance of having no teeth.
+Others have used too much and too dark make-up about the eyes. Nothing
+more quickly ruins expression. Such eyes have the look of holes burned
+in a blanket and for dramatic purposes are only slightly more useful.
+
+Since my candidate will have youth, good health and vitality he or she
+will not have to resort to tricks of make-up. There are many such. I
+recall the case of one actress who is considered a beauty on the spoken
+stage. On the screen she discovered that the motion picture camera is
+not very kind to some people. The lines and flabbiness which were in
+her face were accurately reproduced. She thought, of course, they were
+exaggerated.
+
+She was in despair until she found that by laying heavy strips of
+adhesive tape over her ears and behind her neck--she wore a wig--these
+lines and flabbiness were overcome. The tape pulled her face into
+shape! But, I am sure it must have been painful.
+
+Another actress, it is an open secret, undergoes periodic operations
+for the removal of the flabby flesh underneath her chin. Others
+afflicted with the hated “double chin” rouge the guilty member heavily
+with more or less success. Still others wear collars and necklaces to
+thwart flabbiness.
+
+None of us need laugh; that is if we are in motion pictures. If we stay
+there long enough we may be driven to similar measures.
+
+In make-up, to begin at the top, is to consider the hair. Let me say,
+first of all, that this should always be kept very clean. The camera
+has a way of treating us unpleasantly if it isn’t.
+
+Some actresses have set styles of hair dress which they seldom vary. I
+think of Madge Kennedy’s “band of hair,” Dorothy Gish’s black wig and
+the Pickford Curls.
+
+Dorothy Gish had tried many styles of hair dress and found none of them
+to her liking. She experimented with a black wig and was delighted with
+the result. It contributed something to her expression--brought it
+out, as it were--which she felt had been lacking. Since “Hearts of the
+World” she has never stepped before a camera without her trusty B. W.
+
+But while most of us have a favorite style of wearing our hair most
+of us are forced often to lay aside that style to suit the character
+we are playing. Playing a child we let our hair hang. The length or
+abundance doesn’t seem to particularly matter.
+
+If enacting the daughter of a well-to-do business man then we may have
+our hair plain or marceled to suit our fancy. Plain hair seems to
+suggest sweetness. If playing a saucy character we must contrive some
+dress that will convey the desired effect.
+
+Blonds, in motion pictures, are traditionally fluffy-haired. There is a
+very good reason for this, by the way. Some years ago Mr. Griffith--who
+usually does everything first--discovered that by leveling a back
+spotlight on Blanche Sweet’s fluffy, blond hair it gave the appearance
+of sunlight showing through.
+
+On the screen it was beautiful. Since that time the “back spot” has
+been worked to death. In spite of the fact that it is an old trick it
+is one that is still very much respected by the actress--or us blond
+actresses, as it were.
+
+The back light shining through the hair has a tendency to take away all
+the hard lines of the face. It leaves it smooth and free from worry.
+How often in a motion picture have I heard the involuntary expression,
+“How beautiful!” when such a shot--usually a close-up--is shown.
+
+Many of you may have wondered why a blond seems to have dark hair in
+many interior scenes and blond hair out of doors. Here is one fault,
+at least, that we can shift to other shoulders. If a blond’s hair is
+dark indoors it is because the cameraman has failed in his lighting
+arrangement.
+
+But even with the most expert manipulation of lights there is no rival
+in motion pictures for the sun. For blonds and brunettes alike he is
+Allah.
+
+And now since this matter of make-up requires more space and this
+chapter is growing long we shall skip to the next.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+  _More about noses and chins--Costumes as important_
+      _to the star as a story to the director--_
+                  _Rags and riches._
+
+
+In the matter of face and make-up we seldom think of the forehead. Yet
+I personally admire a pretty forehead very much and think it is as
+important as a good mouth or nose, if secondary to the eyes. Comprising
+as it does--or should--one-third of the face it is nothing if not
+conspicuous.
+
+If to be deep and learned is to have an extremely high forehead then
+to be deep and learned on the screen is to labor under one definite
+handicap. For the girl with a too high forehead cannot skin her hair
+back without appearing ugly.
+
+Those of us with medium foreheads are more fortunate. Whatever may be
+said for our mental capacity we can, at any rate, skin our hair back
+and thereby add very much to our expression.
+
+The girl with the high forehead compromises by trying to keep some of
+it covered but it never gives quite the effect of hair drawn tightly
+back.
+
+I should particularly admonish my screen beginner against too much
+make-up about the eyes. For blue or gray eyes, a light gray make-up is
+used; for brown or black eyes, a light brown make-up.
+
+We frequently hear it said that brown eyes photograph best for the
+screen, but I have never heard anyone whom I would accept as an
+authority say that. I believe that all colors are equally good. It is
+far more important that a screen actress’s eyes be expressive than it
+is that they be either brown or blue.
+
+Thus if we have expressive eyes and evade the error of making them up
+so heavily as to create the “burnt hole” aspect we shall have nothing
+to worry about. Generally speaking the more prominent the eyes and
+eyebrows the less of make-up should be used. There are exceptions.
+
+A nose is something we can do nothing about. We either have or haven’t
+a good nose. If the nose is so badly out of symmetry with the face as
+to be unsightly its possessor will probably have to confine himself, or
+herself, to character parts. There are some who have attained stardom,
+even with ill-shaped noses, but I think of very few. These by devious
+practices conceal the defect as well as possible.
+
+Make-up for the nose is usually for character and not star parts. A
+spot of rouge at the tip of the nose will give it a turned up or pug
+appearance. When playing a mulatto in “The Birth of a Nation” Miss
+Mary Alden inserted within her nostrils two plugs that permitted her
+to breathe and yet had the effect of greatly widening her nostrils.
+The late and beloved “Bobby” Harron broadened his nose with putty in
+the same play in one of the scenes in which he doubled as a negro.
+The screen lost one of its sweetest and most lovable characters when
+“Bobby” Harron died.
+
+But these cases were characterizations. For star purposes a nose is a
+nose. The pity is that sometimes even well-shaped noses seem to lose
+something or gain too much when they are reproduced on the screen.
+
+The lips and chin require a light make-up for the very good reason,
+again, that to overdo in this respect is to stifle expression. It is
+my opinion that those who are becoming addicted to an extremely heavy
+make-up of lips are making a mistake. It is unreal. It is not art. Such
+thick, sensuous, liquid lips as I have beheld on the screen during the
+past year have never been seen on land or sea.
+
+The chin is a good deal like the nose. Very little can be done about
+it. If it protrudes too much, or is abruptly receding, its possessor
+will probably find himself chosen for character parts. Here what are
+otherwise considered facial defects will be no handicap at all. On the
+contrary they may be a decided help.
+
+As in the case of the ill-shaped nose there are stars who have
+succeeded in spite of an absence, or too great presence, of chin. They
+have learned the photographic angles at which they appear to the best
+advantage. In one way or another, when working close to the camera,
+they keep always within these angles. Thus they prove that there can be
+an exception to any rule.
+
+If in the matter of make-up I can convince my candidate that he or she
+will be better off by using as little as possible of it, I shall be
+willing to pass on to the next topic.
+
+Hands, too, must be kept clean and are usually made up with white chalk.
+
+I often think that costumes are to the star as important as the story
+is to the director.
+
+Whatever may be the case in everyday life clothes do make the man,
+or the woman, in motion pictures. They establish character even more
+swiftly than action or expression. No where so much as in motion
+pictures does the general public accept people at their clothes value.
+There are the over-dress of vulgarity, the shoddiness of poverty, the
+conservatism of decency and so on, each of them speaking as plainly as
+words of the person so attired.
+
+Now if mere over-dress, shoddiness, conservatism, and so on, were all
+that were necessary the process would be quite simple. But the art of
+costuming is more subtle than that.
+
+[Illustration: _Madame Nazimova, one of the few dramatic stars who
+quickly mastered the art of the screen._]
+
+In each costume there must be something original and personal. In other
+words, something that is peculiarly suited to the precise character
+that is being portrayed. There must be also a color contrast or harmony
+that will be favorable to good motion picture photography.
+
+In addition, the costume in a broader sense should harmonize with the
+scenic setting. The costume, more than anything else, will establish
+the fiction of age. To appear very young or middle-aged is to dress
+young or middle-aged.
+
+In addition to its value in suggesting character the costume has
+attained a new importance in that the screen has become a sort of
+fashion magazine. The thousands of young ladies who live outside of New
+York, London or Paris have come to look more and more to the screen for
+the latest fashions, and are accordingly influenced.
+
+With this phase of costuming my candidate need not particularly
+interest herself beyond remembering that women love to see pretty
+clothes and that those who give them the opportunity occupy an especial
+niche in their affections.
+
+The beginner who learns the knack of dressing for the screen in a
+manner that is sharply expressive of the character being played, and,
+in a way to bring out what the actress herself has come to regard as
+her strong point, will find her pains rewarded.
+
+Mr. Griffith has always been extremely painstaking about screen
+clothes. Even in the early days of the old Biograph two-reelers we had
+screen tests for costumes. It was no unusual thing to hear him say,
+after one of us had been at much pains to select a costume which we
+thought did justice to both our part and ourselves, “No, that won’t
+do!” Possibly we were trying to do too much justice to ourselves.
+
+Anyhow we often had as many as four costumes made before Mr. Griffith
+was suited. Then he invariably suggested a ribbon, a fan, a bit of old
+lace, etc., the effect of which upon the screen was always pleasing.
+
+I have been told that one of the sweetest and, at the same time, most
+pathetic scenes done in motion pictures occurred in “The Birth of a
+Nation” where I, as Flora Cameron, the little sister of the Confederate
+soldier, trimmed my cheap, home-made dress in preparing to welcome home
+my big brother.
+
+It was Mr. Henry Walthall, himself a southerner by birth, who suggested
+this bit of business.
+
+You will remember the situation. The Camerons, an old and distinguished
+Southern family, had been impoverished by the war. They were
+preparing for the return of the big brother--played capitally by
+Mr. Walthall--with the mixture of emotion to be expected under the
+circumstances. I, as the youngest member of the family, was least
+affected by our cruel poverty. The joy of being about to see my big
+brother again overcame any other feeling.
+
+I begin to dress. The sadness of my stricken family cannot affect my
+holiday spirit. I have but one dress. It is of sack cloth. I find
+that its pitiful plainness is not in keeping with my happiness or the
+importance of the event. Looking about for something with which to trim
+that dress I find some strips of cotton--“southern ermine,” as it was
+called. With these I trim that homely old dress, spotting the “ermine”
+with soot from the fireplace, in a manner that I think will be pleasing
+to my big brother.
+
+Mr. Walthall suggested the “southern ermine” and it was Mr. Griffith,
+always kindly in the matter of accepting a suggestion, who built the
+drama about it. I have had many women, from the North as well as the
+South, tell me that to them this scene is the most affecting they ever
+have seen in the picture drama. I know I have played few, if any, in
+which I have felt more deeply the spirit of the action.
+
+In “The Birth of a Nation,” by the way, all of us were forced to do a
+great deal of research work upon our costumes. This is a good thing. It
+gets one quickly into the spirit of the drama that is to be played.
+
+As I say, I have always appreciated the advantages of modish dress upon
+the screen even though I have had in my eight years of acting only one
+“clothes” part. By clothes part I mean one in which the star dresses in
+modern garments in every scene. I began my career as a screen waif with
+the result that the literary men who have to do with the stories picked
+for me, have kept me at this style of part.
+
+There is never a story written in which a poor, little heroine conquers
+against great odds--usually after much suffering and not a few
+beatings--but that many friends rush to tell me that so and so is “a
+regular Mae Marsh part.” Such is the power of association.
+
+Yet I very much enjoyed my one dressed-up part. That was “The
+Cinderella Man.” I understand that there was great doubt expressed
+by the scenario department that I should be able to play such a role
+for, since the heroine was the daughter of a wealthy man, there was no
+occasion for her appearing in rags.
+
+Miss Margaret Mayo, the well-known dramatist, who wrote “Polly of the
+Circus,” “Baby Mine,” etc., was here my stanch advocate. Both she and
+Mr. George Loane Tucker, one of our greatest directors, insisted that I
+could do the part. It was decided to make the trial.
+
+“Go to Lucille,” suggested Miss Mayo, “explain the story to the
+designer and let her show you the kind of costumes she would suggest.”
+
+Expense was to be no object. Mr. Tucker and I met one afternoon on
+Fifty-seventh street and, entering Lucille’s, we went into a clothes
+conference with a designer. The result was a mild orgy of beautiful
+gowns.
+
+It was decided that Lucille should make two dresses of a particular
+design, one green and one gray, as the gown which I was to wear in a
+great many of the scenes.
+
+Showing that cost does not indicate fitness I remember that the gray
+dress--which was $100 cheaper than the green--was the one which we
+decided to use. My costume bill for “The Cinderella Man” exceeded
+$2,000. There are many actresses who spend far more than that for
+clothes on every picture. But compared with the amount that I had been
+spending in my “poor girl” roles that $2,000 was as a mountain to a
+sand dune.
+
+“The Cinderella Man” was a great success and we were happy;
+particularly Miss Mayo and Mr. Tucker, who had never doubted that I
+could do a dressed-up part.
+
+The matter of costumes, then, is one of the important things that the
+beginner must consider. On the screen clothes may be said to talk;
+even to act. The male artists, I am sure, also realize this. But the
+actress, particularly, must always dress in a manner to get the maximum
+of benefit from her clothes whether they be cheap or expensive.
+
+In “The Birth of a Nation” during the famous cliff scene I experimented
+with a half dozen dresses until I hit upon one whose plainness was a
+guarantee that it would not divert from my expression in that which was
+a very vital moment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+  _Camera-consciousness and a way to cure it--Why it is_
+            _fatal to imitate--Some scenes_
+                  _in “Intolerance.”_
+
+
+The several qualities most likely to succeed upon the screen having
+been discussed, and the importance of knowing the story, make-up and
+costuming having been established, my candidate is now ready to go
+before the camera.
+
+All that has been done before is but to build up to this vital moment.
+The camera tells at once and usually in no uncertain terms whether one
+is possessed of star possibilities.
+
+It is a sort of court from which there is no appeal. For that reason
+every expression, every movement, every feeling and, I verily believe,
+every thought are important once the camera has begun to turn.
+
+Now the actress or actor is standing entirely upon her or his own feet.
+Previously they have had the benefit of all the advice and help that
+the many departments of a studio could proffer. In a word they have
+been able to lean upon someone else and to correct mistakes at leisure.
+
+It is different before the camera. The beginner will at once
+feel very much alone and terribly conspicuous. This tends toward
+self-consciousness, or camera-consciousness, which must be immediately
+overcome or success is impossible. Camera-consciousness is the bane of
+the beginner. I think most of us have suffered more or less from it. I
+have known actresses who possessed it to such a degree that, finding
+they could not rid themselves of it, they left the screen. By extreme
+good fortune this never happened to be one of my troubles.
+
+Self-consciousness on the screen is much the same thing as stage fright
+in the spoken drama and proceeds, I suppose, from the same source,
+which is the inability to forget one’s self.
+
+When a dear friend of mine first began playing small parts she found
+that she suffered from it. She also saw that it would certainly be
+fatal if she didn’t cure it.
+
+“For that reason,” she said to herself, “the best thing to do is to
+think so hard about the part that I am playing that I won’t have time
+to think of anything else.”
+
+She gave herself good advice. Anyhow it worked and I am sure it
+will be successful in the case of the average beginner. If so, then
+camera-consciousness will really be a blessing in disguise, for it will
+have taught the actress concentration upon her part and concentration,
+in every fiber of one’s being, I believe, is the big secret of screen
+success.
+
+I remember the case of one young actress who came to me in tears saying
+that when she rehearsed her part in the privacy of her own home, or
+dressing room, she felt every inch of it, but once under the gaze of
+the director, the assistant director, the cameraman, possibly the
+author and perhaps a number of privileged persons about the studio, she
+seemed to wilt.
+
+“Look at it this way,” I advised. “When you are acting the director has
+his work to do and is doing it. So has the assistant director. Likewise
+the cameraman and the assistant cameraman have their work to do and are
+doing it. So are the other actors. As for the lookers-on, request that
+they leave. Then imagine you are in a big schoolroom where everyone
+is busy at his or her lessons. You have your lesson to get which is
+concentrating upon your part. Go ahead with it.”
+
+It helped the girl in question. She has become a very excellent and
+charming star and while she still prefers to work upon a secluded stage
+she does not find it positively necessary, as do some actresses. In any
+event there is no trace of camera-consciousness in her acting.
+
+Camera-consciousness having been eliminated the beginner can now throw
+himself or herself entirely into the part being played. By throwing
+one’s self into the part I do not mean forcing it. Nothing is quite
+so bad as that. I mean feeling it. If you do not feel the particular
+action being played then the result will certainly be a lack of
+sincerity. We have already decided that that is fatal.
+
+Let me illustrate:
+
+While we were playing “Intolerance,” one cycle of which is still being
+released as “The Mother and the Law,” I had to do a scene where, in the
+big city’s slums, my father dies.
+
+The night before I did this scene I went to the theater--something,
+by the way, I seldom do when working--to see Marjorie Rambeau in
+“Kindling.”
+
+To my surprise and gratification she had to do a scene in this play
+that was somewhat similar to the one that I was scheduled to play in
+“Intolerance.” It made a deep impression upon me.
+
+As a consequence, the next day before the camera in the scene depicting
+my sorrow and misery at the death of my father, I began to cry with
+the memory of Marjorie Rambeau’s part uppermost in my mind. I thought,
+however, that it had been done quite well and was anxious to see it on
+the screen.
+
+I was in for very much of a surprise. A few of us gathered in the
+projection room and the camera began humming. I saw myself enter with a
+fair semblance of misery. But there was something about it that was not
+convincing.
+
+[Illustration: _Back to the old Mutual days with Blanche Sweet and
+Wallace Reid._]
+
+Mr. Griffith, who was closely studying the action, finally turned in
+his seat and said:
+
+“I don’t know what you were thinking about when you did that, but it is
+evident that it was not about the death of your father.”
+
+“That is true,” I said. I did not admit what I was thinking about.
+
+We began immediately upon the scene again. This time I thought of the
+death of my own father and the big tragedy to our little home, then
+in Texas. I could recall the deep sorrow of my mother, my sisters, my
+brother and myself.
+
+This scene is said to be one of the most effective in “The Mother and
+the Law.”
+
+The beginner may learn from that that it never pays to imitate anyone
+else’s interpretation of any emotion. Each of us when we are pleased,
+injured, or affected in any way have our own way of showing our
+feelings. This is one thing that is our very own.
+
+When before the camera, therefore, we must remember that when we feel
+great sorrow the audience wants to see our own sorrow and not an
+imitation of Miss Blanche Sweet’s or Mme. Nazimova’s. We must feel
+our own part and take heed of my favorite screen maxim, which is that
+thoughts do register.
+
+It is true that we have good and bad days before the camera. There are
+times when to feel and to act are the easiest things imaginable and
+other occasions when it seems impossible to catch the spirit that we
+know is necessary. In this we are more fortunate than our brothers upon
+the spoken stage, for we can do it over again.
+
+It is also very often true that even when we are entirely in the spirit
+of our part, and believe we have done a good day’s work, that there
+will be some mechanical defect in the scenes taken which makes it
+necessary to do them over, possibly when we feel least like so doing.
+
+In this event it is a good thing to remember that it doesn’t pay to
+cry over spilt milk. We must learn to take the bitter with the sweet.
+Fortunately the mechanics of picture taking are constantly improving.
+
+The hardest dramatic work I ever did was in the courtroom scenes in
+“Intolerance.” We retook these scenes on four different occasions. Each
+time I gave to the limit of my vitality and ability. I put everything
+into my portrayal that was in me. It certainly paid. Parts of each
+of the four takes--some of them done at two weeks’ intervals--were
+assembled to make up those scenes which you, as the audience, finally
+beheld upon the screen.
+
+Therefore, when first going before a camera it is well to resolve to
+put as much into one’s performance as possible. We cannot too greatly
+concentrate upon our parts. If we do not feel them we can be very sure
+they will not convince our audiences.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+  _Over-acting and a horrible example--the value of_
+          _repression and emphasis--How we_
+                _act with the body._
+
+
+Good screen acting consists of the ability to accurately portray a
+state of mind.
+
+That sounds simple, yet how often upon the screen have you seen an
+important part played in a manner that made you, yourself, feel that
+you were passing through the experiences being unfolded in the plot. I
+imagine not often.
+
+If a part is under-played or, worse, over-played--for there is nothing
+so depressing as a screen actress run amuck in a flood of sundry
+emotions--it exerts a definite influence upon you, the audience.
+
+You begin to lose sympathy with the character itself. You are
+interested or irritated by the mannerisms--often hardly less than
+gymnastics--of the actor or actress. You never identify such an actor
+or actress with the part they are playing for the very good reason that
+they are not playing the part. They are playing their idea of acting
+_at_ a part.
+
+In any event your interest in the story crumbles. What the author
+intended as a subtle character development flattens out. An ingenious
+plot is ruined by its treatment. You index that particular evening as
+among those wasted. I know. I have done the same.
+
+For those who would like to take up the screen as a career, however,
+such an evening may prove very profitable. For it is the learning what
+not to do that is important. There never was a character portrayal done
+upon the screen that could not have been spoiled without this knowledge.
+
+I have in mind a photodrama of 1920 that because of the excellence
+of its plot gained quite a success. But for me it was ruined by the
+ridiculous overacting of the heroine.
+
+She had beautiful dark eyes and seemed to think--it was a
+melodrama--that the proper way to display screen talent was to dilate
+and roll those eyes as though she were constantly in terror.
+
+She had added to that trick one of dropping her jaw which I understood
+to be her idea of the way to register astonishment. I cannot begin to
+describe the effect upon me of those horrified eyes and open mouth. At
+the end of six reels I felt like screaming. There was no time when I
+should have been surprised had she wiggled her ears.
+
+Either she was unfortunate in her choice of a director or he, poor
+fellow, was powerless to stop her once she had decided upon her
+program of mouth and eyes.
+
+One of the first things that a screen actress must learn is the value
+of emphasis. In the case that I have cited above the actress threw
+herself emotionally (?) so far beyond the mark in little moments that
+when a big situation in the development of the plot occurred she
+had nothing left. The impression consequently was one of a strained
+sameness. Than that there is no quicker way to wear out one’s audience.
+It is like shouting at one who has sat down for a quiet chat. The shout
+should be used at no distance less than a city block.
+
+No screen actress makes a shrewder use of emphasis than Norma Talmadge.
+She seems invariably to hold much in reserve with the result that when
+she does let go in a big emotional scene the effect is brought home
+to the audience with telling force. There are other actresses who
+play with reserve. But it is important that with Miss Talmadge her
+repression seems ever illuminated by the fires of potential emotion.
+
+The student of the screen will do well to study these matters of
+emphasis and repression. They are all important. Our manner of life
+itself is an accepted repression, outlined by laws for the streets and
+conventions for the drawing room. From the screen viewpoint repression
+is a vital thing, if for no other reason than the fact that it gives
+the audience a breathing spell. After a breathing spell it is the
+better disposed to appreciate emphasis.
+
+Whenever I study a scenario or story it is with an eye for the contrast
+of moods and the situations that call for emotional emphasis. I plan
+in advance of the actual camera work the pace at which I will play
+various stages in the development of the story. By shutting my eyes I
+can almost _see_ how the part will look upon the screen. If there is a
+sufficient contrast of moods and opportunity for emphasis I feel that I
+shall, at least, be able to do all within my power to make the story a
+success.
+
+The physical strain before a camera is a peculiar thing. At no time
+is the motion picture actress or actor called upon for a sustained
+performance such as is true on the spoken stage. For that reason we
+should theoretically be in condition to put forth our very best efforts
+on each of the short scenes or “shots”--averaging not over two minutes
+in photographing--that we are called upon to do. The ordinary director
+is well satisfied if he averages twenty “shots” a day during production.
+
+But here, I should say, appearances are deceiving. Genius has been
+described as the ability to resume a mood. In the case of motion
+pictures it is necessary that a mood be resumed not once or twice, but
+possibly twenty times during a day.
+
+[Illustration: _Norma Talmadge whose acting is notable for its
+admirable repression._]
+
+This is no less important than it is at first difficult. There may
+be an hour or two hours’ interval between scenes--often longer than
+that--and picking up the thread of the story where it was dropped, the
+actress must resume the mood of her characterization.
+
+I can suggest no better aid to this undertaking than retiring to one’s
+dressing room and remaining quiet. Absolute quiet is an excellent thing
+for the actress during the working day. It gives her a rest from the
+turmoil of the studio set. It provides her a chance to do a little
+mental bookkeeping on the part she is playing. I have found it a great
+help.
+
+This ability to resume a mood, however, soon becomes something that is
+subconsciously accomplished and for that reason need not be too much
+worried over by the beginner.
+
+There is one quality on the screen that the audience always likes. That
+is vivacity, and by vivacity I mean both of the face and the body.
+
+Vivacity in this respect is a lively and likable sort of animation
+which goes a long way toward establishing that mercurial quality which
+is known as “screen personality.”
+
+I have never heard anyone give a very good definition of “screen
+personality.” The most that can be said is that some seem to have it
+and some don’t. Certain it is that it is valuable quality, for it will
+not stay hidden.
+
+In the news weeklies that are so popular on the screen I can, in
+a group of men or women, almost instantly pick those persons who
+have screen personality. It makes them stand out sharply in contrast
+to their companions. Ex-President Wilson, for instance, has screen
+personality while President Harding, I am certain, will make a better
+President than he would an actor.
+
+The movement of the body contributes to this sought after animation.
+The body is almost the equal of the face in expression and the way to
+talk and use the hands and feet are things that must be sedulously
+studied.
+
+Many stage directors have advised famous actresses to “learn how to
+walk” and before a camera one not only has to learn how to walk but how
+to walk in many different ways.
+
+We would not, for example, expect a little girl on New York’s East Side
+to employ the same body carriage as a society girl walking down Fifth
+avenue. There seem to be so many schools of walking!
+
+Thus in going over a part it is of the utmost importance that we
+decide upon the way our heroine is going to carry herself and then
+throw our body, as well as our thoughts and expression, into our role.
+I have often used this matter of walking--I was about to say art of
+walking--to very good effect. I should advise the beginner to observe
+the many different ways in which various persons accomplish expression
+through the movement of the body.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the early days. It was in Yonkers. We were making “The
+Escape.” It was a street scene and we were working with a concealed
+camera. Mr. Donald Crisp was playing the brutal husband. He drew back
+his fist to strike me. I was the forlorn wife.
+
+“If yu’ touch that lady I’ll knock yer block off,” said a threatening
+voice.
+
+It was a young Yonkers bravo. Absorbed in the scene he had forgotten
+that it was acting, particularly with the camera concealed.
+
+I often think of that incident when at a picture play I hear someone
+say: “People don’t act like that in real life.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If I were a director there is nothing I should rank as more important
+than rehearsals. I do not mean merely running over the scene before
+it is filmed. All directors do that. The ideal rehearsal is one which
+calls together the leading parts perhaps a week before production and
+meticulously works out every vital scene in the story.
+
+No director of the spoken stage would think of producing a play without
+doing this. Yet in motion pictures a production that may cost twenty
+times as much as the average spoken drama is often put on with twenty
+times less of care in rehearsal. It is illogical and costly.
+
+Working with the director of the type who leaves everything until the
+last minute the actor or actress feels a strain that takes away from
+the performance rendered. On the other hand where painstaking rehearsal
+is practiced the actor acquires a poise and deftness of touch that
+justify the preliminary preparation, say nothing of the labor spared in
+editing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+  _Long shots, intermediates and close-ups--“Hogging_
+        _the camera” and ingenious leading men--_
+            _Keeping one’s poise under fire._
+
+
+While the actress will exert herself in every “shot” or “take”--as
+the separate exposures of a scene are called--she comes to know that
+the result of her acting upon the screen is greatly influenced by the
+distance from the camera that she has worked.
+
+There are, for our present purposes, three different distances which
+we work from the camera. There is the long shot, the intermediate and
+the close-up or insert. With the gradations of these we need not now
+concern ourselves.
+
+The long shot is usually taken to establish the atmosphere and setting
+of a scene. In this the actress finds herself ordinarily so far from
+the camera that her facial expression registers indifferently. For
+that reason the body movement, with which she is playing a character,
+substitutes for facial expression. She is known to the audience by her
+costume and carriage and makes her appeal largely through these.
+
+Most of the dramatic action is now played at three-quarters length;
+that is from the face to the knees. As we weave in and out of a
+scene, very often the entire body is shown and the feet have their
+opportunity for expression--they assuredly act!--but the majority of
+the intermediate shots through which the dramatic action is conducted
+cut off the lower part of the body.
+
+Here, in brief, is the combination of facial expression and bodily
+movement that establishes the actress. It will be through the
+intermediate shots that my candidate will make or break. All our
+preparation for a part and our fitness for it are here brought to the
+test.
+
+An important item in this phase of screen acting is the effect that
+those playing opposite will exert upon one. The good actor or actress
+helps one. Things seem to swim along. Work becomes a pleasure!
+
+But very often the actress will find that she is forced to work
+opposite other actresses or actors whose style is disagreeable. If
+they are too loud or too full of antics it has the effect of taking
+your mind off your work--if you let it! In such a case very often the
+director will observe the difficulty and a word of caution spoken in
+private to the offending actor or actress will improve conditions.
+
+But sometimes the director is not observing and you are forced to make
+the best of conditions. I recall one rather well-known actor who,
+to use a frank expression, “spits as he talks.” If I should ever be
+compelled to play opposite him again I should prepare myself either
+with an umbrella or a bathing suit. I think it was only his total
+unconsciousness of this habit that made it possible for me to continue.
+
+We women are told that we are very vain. Perhaps we are. But if my
+experience with male actors may be taken as a criterion I should say
+that vanity has been pretty well distributed throughout the world.
+
+With a few notable exceptions, I make bold to affirm that the leading
+man counts that day lost when he has not stolen the camera from the
+star (poor girl!) not once but several times. In the profession we call
+this “hogging the camera.”
+
+The tricks that some of these amiable gentlemen will play to keep
+themselves in the immediate center of the foreground deserve nothing
+less than a volume. This leads to many amusing experiences.
+
+I remember one leading man who had a habit of falling back from the
+camera during the progress of a scene. The result of this, of course,
+was to turn me toward him, leaving my back exposed to the camera. He
+was very ingenuous. I thought, at first, the habit was unintentional.
+
+But as work upon our play progressed he repeated this maneuver often
+enough to convince me that I was dealing with a rather clever artist in
+his way. I began to anticipate him. When he started to drop away from
+the camera, instead of turning toward him, as I had previously done, I
+stood still and practiced talking over my shoulder.
+
+This had the value, at least, of showing my face and not my back to the
+audience. In addition it gave me an unequal prominence in the picture,
+since he was standing three or four feet behind me. Realizing his
+disadvantage he quickly resumed a position beside me and thereafter
+abandoned his little trick.
+
+Since that time, however, I have seen him in other plays and he is
+quite as original as ever.
+
+I might go on indefinitely with such instances. Enough that the artist
+must be on her guard for it seems to be acting-nature to want to “hog
+the camera.” But as the stars and directors are aware of this tendency
+its accomplishment has become more difficult.
+
+It is particularly trying, too, to play opposite one of your own sex
+who insists upon over-acting. This is a common case. This kind of
+actress generally realizes that she has but a few important moments
+before the camera and is determined to make the best of them even if
+she has to “act the star off the set.” I have actually felt sometimes
+as though I were being pushed from the stage by some actress, who,
+without any particular reason, has come in like a whirlwind.
+
+[Illustration: _A long shot, the author, and some screen beginners in
+the days of “Hoodoo Ann.”_]
+
+The beginner will find himself best off if he does not let the style of
+those playing opposite him affect him too much. If the style is good
+take advantage of it. It will be real help. If it is bad one should the
+more concentrate upon his part and thus maintain his own poise under
+difficulties.
+
+If in these important intermediate shots where the most of the dramatic
+action is sustained we remember the various points that we have
+discussed we should come off acceptably.
+
+The silent drama is silent only in its completed product. Before the
+camera lines are spoken and it is of utmost importance that they be
+pronounced clearly and with feeling.
+
+In spoken sub-titles that are expressively mouthed and well-timed in
+the cutting, the sub-title seems to blend in with the voice--though it
+be unheard--of the speaker, particularly so to the spectator who is
+clever at lip-reading.
+
+While it is not necessary to memorize a great number of lines, as on
+the spoken stage, it is necessary that those lines which are read be
+given with the correct shade of feeling, just as they should be on the
+dramatic stage.
+
+Lines are particularly important to many persons who show a maximum of
+expression while speaking. Here the silent voice is a genuine asset.
+
+Most close-ups, or inserts, as we call them, are of the face alone.
+Sometimes there may be a close-up of a hand, a foot, etc., but the most
+acceptable style of direction these days seems to be not to overdo in
+this respect.
+
+In the close-up the face of the actress is usually about 24 inches from
+the camera. Every line of her face, every thought, indeed, her very
+soul, will now be more or less registered. Nothing, in the whole range
+of screen acting, is more effective than the close-up.
+
+The insert is always to depict a particular emotion. In a single scene,
+in the intermediate shots, we have perhaps expressed several degrees of
+feeling but in the insert it is a matter of one emotion at a time.
+
+Here we are not aided by the action or expression of any brother
+artist. It is entirely a matter of imagination or feeling. The lens of
+the camera, like the eye of a Cyclops, is staring sheerly at us and
+it is not necessary to feel its breath to believe that it is a living
+thing.
+
+When called upon for an insert we know precisely the emotion that we
+are supposed to express and will bend every effort to concentrate upon
+it.
+
+To begin with there are two important things to remember in the insert.
+One is that the make up should be very much lighter than in the long
+or intermediate shots; the other, that the action will be slower.
+
+The reasons are fairly obvious. If the same make up that is used in the
+dramatic action is continued it becomes immediately too conspicuous.
+Slower action is necessary because at the distance of two feet the
+camera is limited in the speed of movement that it can faithfully
+record.
+
+In the insert we are ever reminded of the value of repression. The mere
+expression of the eyes may be all that is necessary to convey to the
+audience the emotion of the player. The truth is that the effectiveness
+of the close-up seems to be in inverse proportion to the amount of
+facial action in it.
+
+When we behold an insert in which there is much grimacing and
+contortion of the face we realize that there is no real depth of
+feeling. It is playing at feeling.
+
+On the other hand I have seen vital emotion so delicately expressed
+in the insert that its effect was haunting and beautiful. Observe in
+“Broken Blossoms” and “Way Down East” the close-ups of Lillian Gish.
+
+Much as the good old “back spot” is popular among the fluffy blonds,
+so is the insert welcomed by all screen actresses. We believe that
+it shows us off at our best and brings us nearer, as it were, to our
+audiences.
+
+Yet there are some actresses favored over others by the insert. One
+whose features are naturally coarse, or hard, loses something when
+in close contact with the camera. Others, like myself, who have small
+features, and believe, therefore, that we are often at a disadvantage
+in the long and intermediate shots, are only too glad of the
+opportunity to prepare for an insert.
+
+Indeed, our directors sometimes make a jest of saying that we seem to
+want a drama of inserts. But it is never quite so bad as that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+  _Atmosphere and studio morale--Where best work is_
+        _done--Importance of story--Value of_
+                _“Observation Tours.”_
+
+
+The beginner has learned that he or she must at all times stand
+solidly before the camera upon his or her own feet. I mean this in a
+metaphorical sense. So much depends upon courage and self-reliance.
+
+If it is well not to let the style of supporting artists affect one, it
+is equally well to steel one’s self against the conditions under which
+one must sometimes work.
+
+The motion picture, after all, is a commercial proposition. It is very
+much so to the producer. For that reason the beginner will find that
+different studios create and maintain their own atmosphere. Here one
+will discover a wide range. But since we may consider ourselves called
+upon to work now in New York, again in California, and sometimes in
+Florida, passing from studio to studio, we shall win a big battle if at
+the outset we will determine to let conditions and studio atmosphere
+affect us as little as possible.
+
+It is here, again, a case of taking advantage of conditions if they are
+good, and trying to ignore them if they are distasteful.
+
+I know from experience that this will be a hard thing to do. If the
+actress finds, in the very air of which she breathes, unpleasantness
+and intrigue, she will be normally inclined to resent it hotly. Yet
+such resentment only takes away from her acting, for it diverts her
+mind, and she will be the greater loser as between herself and her
+producer.
+
+I have worked under such profound systems as considered studio spies
+and time charts upon make up, etc., as necessary to production. I will
+leave it to the reader to decide how much morale one will find in this
+sort of studio.
+
+Fortunately such a studio and such a morale are the exception. But, if
+encountered in the many vicissitudes that an actress will face, it will
+be well to make the best of it; to steel one’s nervous system against
+odds. Self-reliance in such a case is no less than golden.
+
+But in the majority of studios the manufacture of motion pictures is
+not put upon the same level as the making of gloves or brooms, and the
+beginner will find a kindly and friendly atmosphere both charming and
+helpful.
+
+In those studios that glow with a warm, friendly atmosphere there
+is always a good-natured rivalry and spirit of fellowship which is
+certain to reflect itself in the finished picture. For that reason it
+is a genuine asset. Here hours are buoyant minutes and the actors and
+directors find their reward in the excellence of their endeavor, as
+well as somewhere in Heaven.
+
+Another point that the beginner must remember is that it is much harder
+to make good in pictures now than it was when I started. That, of
+course, is because of the greater competition.
+
+Where ten years ago there was one boy or girl ambitious for a screen
+career there are now a thousand. I often think that the screen has been
+very kind to those who had faith in it in its babyhood. It has brought
+to so many of these fame and fortune.
+
+And sometimes, when I observe some fairly competent actress or actor
+thwarted in an attempt to reach stardom, I wonder if the screen, after
+its own fashion, is not asserting itself for this lack of faith in
+those early days.
+
+At any rate those who got in first secured a big advantage over those
+who wondered if a multiple-reel picture could be a success and doubted
+it for, as some said, “It would be too great a strain upon the eye.”
+
+But if there are more aspirants now there are assuredly more
+opportunities and my candidate need have no fear. Sooner or later merit
+may be counted upon to assert itself. All about us in motion pictures
+we every day perceive the truth of this.
+
+It is also true that the screen is in a state of constant change. The
+methods of acting change; the methods of direction; the methods of
+presentation; the methods of story selection--all is continually in
+flux.
+
+No one knows what another five years will bring. But we do know
+that some of our prized pictures of five or more years ago would be
+instantly pointed out as old-fashioned by the average theater-goer.
+That is because there is no fundamental point about them that has not
+been somehow affected by time.
+
+Yet no pictures I ever will make will be dearer to me than my “The
+Sands of Dee,” “Apple Pie Mary,” “The Little Liar,” “The Escape,”
+“Hoodoo Ann,” “The Wharf Rat,” etc.
+
+This constant evolution is a matter to be reckoned with. To stand still
+is to be lost. We must always be pushing ahead. For that reason the
+beginner and the star will find it greatly to their advantage to follow
+everything that is done on the screen.
+
+In unexpected places we discover new development. Some unheard-of
+player in a boisterous two-reel comedy may disclose some little trick,
+or expression, or bit of business, that can be easily interpolated in
+the more serious drama with good effect. And so on.
+
+[Illustration: _A pair excellent in its screenic balance--Gloria
+Swanson and Thomas Meighan._]
+
+We must read widely. Try as they may, we can be mortally certain that
+no scenario editors can always supply the vehicle which we feel is
+suitable for us to play. There will come a time when the actress will
+be thrown upon her own resources, either in the matter of rejection or
+selection of a story. She must be able to put her finger on what she
+considers a vital defect in some narrative that appeals to the editor,
+or discover for him good points in some other story against which he is
+prejudiced.
+
+In any event it will be extremely hazardous not to participate as much
+as possible in the business of deciding upon the play.
+
+Nothing is so vital as a good story. Even when poorly acted it will
+be of greater appeal than a well played scenario of no merit. Motion
+picture actresses prosper almost in exact ratio to the inherent worth
+of their scenarios.
+
+At first this story matter will not greatly concern the tyro. But as
+the beginner finds himself or herself slowly crawling up the ladder to
+stardom he or she will do well to think often upon the type of story to
+be preferred if given a chance to star.
+
+By this process the beginner will be visualizing himself in a role.
+Of a certain his most pleasant visualization will be the role in
+which he feels that he would be at his best. In such a way, when the
+chance comes, the star may know exactly the story he or she will fit
+perfectly.
+
+Once the story is decided upon there are many ways to bring to it
+genuine color. In several of my early plays Mr. Griffith sent me down
+into the New York slums on an “observation tour.” We all made such
+tours. In “Intolerance” I visited sick and stricken mothers in baby
+hospitals. We spent a half-day once in a jail observing the characters
+therein.
+
+It is always important in acting to show a thing as it is, not as we
+think it ought to be, and for that reason these “observation tours” are
+of great benefit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+  _Mr. Griffith and some of his methods of direction--_
+        _What everyone associated with the screen_
+              _owes to him--About patience._
+
+
+I have planned all along to dedicate this chapter to Mr. David Wark
+Griffith, and now that I have arrived at it, I find that my pen is
+unequal to the task. No mere chapter, nor book, could undertake to tell
+Mr. Griffith’s importance to motion pictures. The things that he has
+accomplished in the past ten years, invariably in the face of great
+odds, almost pass belief.
+
+For Mr. Griffith I have the strong and mixed feeling that the child has
+for its benefactor, or the student for a beloved preceptor. At an age
+now where I can more appreciate the many trials that he endured I look
+back fondly to those days when Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet, Lillian
+and Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, and myself were beginning our careers
+and at the same time founding what has come to be known as the Griffith
+school.
+
+Nor were we all. If the list of actresses, actors and directors who
+spent the formulative days of their screen careers with Mr. Griffith
+were compiled I believe it would be found to include many of those who
+have reached the heights. Mr. George Loane Tucker, Mr. Thomas Ince, Mr.
+Marshall Neilan and Mr. Raoul Walsh, to name but four, were directors
+that he started on the road to success.
+
+Those were the days of the old Biograph. I am sure they were of the
+happiest that any of us ever have spent. We made two-reelers then. But
+we made good two-reelers. And the guiding genius of the organization
+was Mr. Griffith, tireless in his quest for something new, something
+big, something that would expand and elevate this new art to which he
+had pledged his very soul.
+
+His energy in those days, just as it is now, was astounding. Traveling
+from New York to Los Angeles not long ago, I happened to meet aboard
+the train Mr. Griffith’s private secretary.
+
+“He seems never so unhappy,” she said, “as when he is taking a day off.
+He mopes around the studio, hands in his pockets, with an air almost
+comical. It is as though he were silently resenting such foolishness as
+days off.”
+
+With this energy I remember those early days best for Mr. Griffith’s
+infinite patience. I can truly say that he had the patience to make us
+succeed. He never despaired no matter how backward we might be. He
+kept at us constantly to bring out the best that was in us. And even on
+those extraordinary occasions when he seemed to lose patience--usually
+when we had worn his nerves to a frazzle--we always had that wonderful
+feeling that he was intensely loyal to all of us.
+
+Those were the days when in addition to schooling us to pictures Mr.
+Griffith was constantly experimenting with such things as close-ups,
+fade-outs, etc., that were to revolutionize the entire picture drama
+and lift it above the atmosphere of the nickelodeon.
+
+For he did lift it. And he is still lifting it.
+
+Not only those privileged few of us who consider ourselves of the
+Griffith school are indebted to his genius. Every actress, or actor, or
+director, on the screen today, who has a weekly salary that runs into
+three figures, can thank Mr. Griffith for making motion pictures big
+and prosperous enough to so recompense them.
+
+It is not the money that Mr. Griffith has made possible, but the
+dignity that he put into this new art for which we are most beholden
+to him. Motion pictures were lightly held until “The Birth of a
+Nation” shook an entire continent and showed the deep significance and
+possibilities of the screen art.
+
+It took the courage of the born fighter and worlds of confidence to
+put on such a picture as “The Birth of a Nation.” For here at one
+step he was doing the unheard of thing, the thing almost everyone in
+the profession said was impossible. But it wasn’t impossible to Mr.
+Griffith. He did it.
+
+He has continued to do things just as fine. And if there is one fault
+to which the most of us are addicted it is that we have come to expect
+more than is humanly possible of this patient, humble genius.
+
+In my correspondence I am often asked many questions regarding Mr.
+Griffith’s manner of directing. Wherein is it different from other
+directors? Wherein does it excel? How is it possible to become
+associated with him? Can he make anyone a star? And so on.
+
+These questions are, in a way, difficult to answer. So far as I know
+Mr. Griffith possesses no magic lamp by which he makes a star out
+of anyone. It is not any one quality--unless it be patience--but a
+combination of many that make him the foremost of our directors.
+
+Mr. Griffith is extremely human. There is no unnecessary flourish,
+or blowing of trumpets, about his manner of direction. That has the
+simplicity of true greatness. He never lords it over his players
+as I have seen some directors do. He is kindly, sympathetic and
+understanding.
+
+[Illustration: _Mr. Griffith, at the left, directing a scene in
+“Intolerance.”_]
+
+Perhaps we are about to do a very vital scene. Mr. Griffith tilts back
+in his chair--he has a manner of directing while seated--and may say to
+the actress:
+
+“You understand this situation. Now let us see what you would do with
+it.”
+
+Here is a direct challenge. The actress is put upon her metal. After
+giving the matter careful consideration she plays the scene after her
+own idea. If she does it well no one is quicker in his praise than Mr.
+Griffith. If otherwise, no one is more kindly in pointing out the flaws.
+
+In other words, Mr. Griffith gives the actress a chance. How different
+from other directors I have seen. They might say under the same
+circumstances:
+
+“You understand this situation. Now here is the way to do it. Follow me
+closely.”
+
+With that the director will proceed to act out a scene according to his
+notion of how a woman would conduct herself under given circumstances.
+The flaw in this is obviously that a man and woman have a way of acting
+differently in the same situation and Mr. Griffith, by letting the
+actress show what she would do, is shrewd enough to profit by Nature.
+Our self-sufficient director, on the other hand, wants us to act only
+as a man would think a woman _ought_ to act in a given situation.
+
+In this way Mr. Griffith draws out the best that is in his players,
+and, by seeming to depend upon them to stand upon their own feet,
+maintains an enthusiasm among his players--a sort of big family
+spirit--that I never have seen equalled in any other studio.
+
+I hope no one understands me to say that the actress, under Mr.
+Griffith, has the say of how she shall act. Quite the contrary! No one
+has a way of bringing a player more abruptly to his or her senses when
+he or she is unqualifiedly in the wrong.
+
+And no matter how well we think we have outlined a scene Mr. Griffith
+may entirely change it. When he does change it we know it is for a
+reason other than a fondness for showing authority. In other words, he
+has built up among his artists a great and abiding faith in his ability
+to do the right thing at the right time, or, as importantly, have it
+done.
+
+For another thing, Mr. Griffith is big enough not to be small about
+receiving suggestions. His people know that, with the result that they
+are always thinking up something to put into a scene that has not been
+written there. He listens attentively to these suggestions, even though
+he knows in advance that he probably cannot use one in a hundred of
+them. Yet that one may be important enough to balance the patience
+expended in listening to the other ninety-nine.
+
+To illustrate:
+
+In “The Birth of a Nation,” when the Cameron house was being mobbed by
+frenzied negroes and the family had barricaded itself in the cellar it
+was a matter of some moment how the little sister, which part I was
+fortunate enough to play, would be affected.
+
+I can hear your average director:
+
+“Roll your eyes,” he would say. “Cry! Drop to your knees in terror.”
+
+In other words, it would be the same old stuff. It is this same old
+stuff that makes so many pictures positively deadly. The least that can
+be said about this conventional style of doing things is that, if it
+cannot be criticized, neither can it be applauded.
+
+Mr. Griffith, when we came to the cellar scene, asked me if there had
+ever been a time in my life when I had been filled with terror.
+
+“Yes,” I said.
+
+“What did you do?” he inquired.
+
+“I laughed,” I answered.
+
+He saw the point immediately.
+
+“Good,” he said. “Let’s try it.”
+
+It was the hysterical laugh of the little girl in the cellar, with the
+drunken mob raging above, that was, I am sure, far more effective than
+rolling the eyes or weeping would have been.
+
+Mr. Griffith is quick to appreciate the involuntary action of one
+of his actresses while a scene is being played or rehearsed. As for
+instance, in the court room scene in “Intolerance” (“The Mother and the
+Law”) when I began unconsciously to wring my handkerchief and press it
+to my face.
+
+“Good,” he said, “keep it up!”
+
+We are gratified when Mr. Griffith accepts any suggestion for business,
+etc., for we know he has a fine sense of distinction and, for every
+idea we give him, he returns a hundred.
+
+This system of suggestion extends beyond the players to the mechanical
+department with the result that camera men and assistants, as well as
+assistant directors, are always on the alert for something new. They
+know their suggestion will be given due consideration. And for that
+reason to Mr. Griffith and his staff we owe credit for most of the new
+inventions of telling a story by pictures. This director is as expert
+in the mechanics of his art as he is bold in story conception.
+
+We are familiar with that smoky, hazy, beautiful close-up that Mr.
+“Billy” Bitzer invented by using gauze or placing the camera slightly
+out of focus. In some recent pictures bearing the “D. G.” stamp I have
+seen some beautiful blue values that I have not elsewhere observed.
+
+I find the space allotted to this chapter beginning to dwindle with a
+sense of having left unsaid so many important and interesting things
+about this wonderful director and his methods. But someday someone will
+set down the true estimate of the man who has done so much for the
+picture drama. And Time will write it even larger.
+
+Many of us are deeply indebted to Mr. Griffith and none of us owe that
+which can be repaid. For he gave us of his genius and personality and
+for these there is no return coin.
+
+Other directors I have had of many experiences and varied training.
+Sometimes we have succeeded and sometimes we have failed, and success
+is made only the more sweet by taste of failure. But whether we failed
+or succeeded we know, all of us, that we did our level best. That is
+something.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the matter of public acknowledgement the stage has never been so
+kind to its directors as the screen. We think of Belasco, Hopkins,
+Cohan, not forgetting Mr. Oliver Morosco, and are almost done.
+
+But on the screen, to name a few of many, there are the De Milles, with
+their uncanniness in seeming to make the screen talk; Tucker, with his
+painstaking thoroughness and ability to limn the separate values of
+a story; Neilan, with his quality of gay, unexpectedness; Tourneur,
+with his grand manner of picturization; Dwan, with his workman-like
+comprehension; Fitzmaurice, with his ability to make every scene
+beautiful as a painting; Walsh, with his all-around cleverness--all
+these are famous, and there are more.
+
+No medium has equalled the screen in its kindness to those who do
+creditable work. Witness, for instance, our camera aristocracy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While I have ridden faster than seventy miles an hour in an
+automobile, have been “ducked” in lakes, rivers, and oceans--two of
+them--have braved the wintry blasts of New England until I thought I
+was frozen, and done scenes with tigers, bears and lions, I have never
+feared greatly for my personal safety nor need the beginner.
+
+In really dangerous scenes “doubles”--acrobats, trick jumpers, bareback
+riders, animal trainers, etc.--dress in feminine garb to resemble the
+star, assume the role being played and risk death or danger for so many
+dollars a day. The star’s services are too valuable to the producer for
+him to allow her to take any unnecessary chances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+  _Opportunity for home life of motion picture actress--_
+        _Los Angeles and New York as production_
+            _centers--Screen morals and such._
+
+
+In this final chapter I shall try to say something about the home life
+of the motion picture actress. In general actresses are of two classes:
+those who act both on and off the screen, and those who confine their
+efforts merely to the studio.
+
+The first class is not particularly open to censure. For, unless I am
+mistaken, the public desires to see its actresses act on an average of
+sixteen out of twenty-four hours. One friend of mine, a star, stoutly
+maintains that she would not go to the theater in anything except the
+most up-to-date garb and a conspicuous car! Why? Because otherwise
+there would be sure to be many who would be disappointed in her! If
+there is anything funny about this it is that it is somewhat true.
+
+Actresses, as public favorites, maintain a peculiar position, as Gil
+Blas points out, somewhere between royalty and the citizen without
+being of either. The public seems to feel something of pride when it
+points out some glittering dreadnaught of an automobile, conspicuous
+for color or equipment, and says, “There goes Dolly Twinkletoes!”
+
+Personally I have never had this inclination to act both “off and on.”
+I am afraid, having been of a large family, I should have found it
+extremely difficult even had I the inclination. A number of sisters,
+and a brother or two, are a fine cure for any tendency to undue
+importance.
+
+And now that I have an especially charming daughter, and am happily
+married, I must really be set down as a conservative. That baby of
+mine! Being detained beyond hours at the studio one night I hurried
+home to see her before she was tucked in bed, having no time to take
+off my make up. She gazed at me as though she were beholding a ghost or
+a total stranger!
+
+A Chicago picture critic once gave me such advice as I think fit
+to pass on to those who think of the screen as a career. “Save the
+pennies,” she said, “they can always be spent if you have them.”
+
+Yet how many, with a splendid opportunity, do not save! Then some day
+they wake up and find their golden chance gone. As an old philosopher
+has pointed out, we, who find money so easy at times, must guard
+against intemperance and folly.
+
+But this is not a sermon. We live up in the beautiful California
+mountains. There, in a colonial house on a small acreage, with flower
+and vegetable gardens, Airedales, chickens, a car, a cow, and a cat,
+I have a feeling of substantial worth-while happiness and that is the
+kind that counts.
+
+Indeed, one of the best things about motion pictures is that it
+permits of a home life. The actress in vaudeville or on tour, or even
+on Broadway with the uncertainty of the length of runs, never has any
+surety where she will be on the morrow. We, in motion pictures, are
+fortunate enough to sign contracts that usually call for a year or more
+work in one city and that New York or Los Angeles. This, I should say,
+is one of the most advantageous things about the screen as contrasted
+with the spoken drama. There are many others.
+
+Since Los Angeles and New York are the two centers of the motion
+picture industry each has its staunch advocates as to suitability, etc.
+In any group of actresses and actors this will usually be the topic of
+a lively discussion. Personally I like Los Angeles. At a dinner that I
+attended some time ago the head of a big distributing company, who is
+interesting for his shrewd observations, said there had never been a
+really great picture done in New York City. “For the entire atmosphere
+of life there,” he continued, “is too superficial.”
+
+I agree with him. Los Angeles is friendly and natural. Its climate is
+only one of its many virtues.
+
+The screen actress will be called upon to meet the people of the press.
+Interviews are important. She will find that the number of them will
+usually be determined by the degree of success of her newest screen
+play. As for screen writers, one will discover them, in the majority,
+keen, sympathetic and altogether delightful. No one need have the dread
+of coming in contact with them that I originally had; nor resort to the
+subterfuges to evade them. I was very young then.
+
+Public appearance is another factor the screen has to deal with
+and sometimes I think this is rather overdone. During the separate
+campaigns for the sale of Liberty Bonds all of us tried to do our
+share. While I never hope to be able to make a speech, I find that the
+anticipation of being expected to do so fills me with greater terror
+than actually being called upon.
+
+I believe it is a good idea for the actress to cultivate some companion
+art. In between productions, or during an enforced vacation, she will
+have something then as an off-set to mere indolence. I have been
+interested in sculpture for many years, and I have an ambition to do
+something in it that will be of real value. If I don’t, the ambition
+will have been of real value, for it has assisted in providing me with
+many happy and instructive hours. That is the main thing.
+
+[Illustration: _The author at home and happy._]
+
+The study of another art is interesting, too, because we immediately
+perceive in its form and substance the truth of the saying that all
+arts are one. Sculpture is a matter of repression and emphasis just as
+acting is. And when I am doing the figure of my baby, or modeling from
+life, I am startled to find that my errors, in their way, are akin to
+the errors of the beginning actress.
+
+There may have existed at one time a silly idea that actresses
+shouldn’t marry; that it hurt their box-office value, destroyed an
+illusion, etc. As though actresses were not women! Most of my actress
+friends are married and glad of it. Almost without exception those
+who have gone highest in the profession are married. The public has
+invariably been pleased about it.
+
+I should recommend any young actress to a suitable husband. It
+will give her a better and deeper insight into life and broaden
+her sympathy. There is something a little pitiable, something that
+doesn’t ring quite true, about the actress too ready to boast of her
+star-spangled freedom.
+
+I have often been asked about the morals of motion pictures. Will
+someone tell me why we, all of us, are so deeply concerned with our
+neighbor’s morals? And when we find them not all that could be desired
+are we filled with sorrow and the wish to effect an honest reform, or
+with a sort of unholy joy and a desire to spread scandal?
+
+It has been my observation that in motion pictures a girl can be as
+good as she wants to be. In that way our profession is identical with
+others. It is true that the glamour of the screen has attracted people
+who would be undesirable in any business or profession. But we should
+recognize them as such and never mistake them as representing the
+entire profession.
+
+The majority of those who succeed in motion pictures do so by honest
+work. That means long hours and application. I doubt if the average
+successful business man puts in as much time or as high-tension effort
+as the picture actress, actor or director who gets somewhere. My
+friends are of that kind. They are too busy to worry unnecessarily over
+what the public may think of motion picture morals. They assume only to
+regulate their own conduct.
+
+I have enjoyed doing this book. From time to time I have been forced
+to drop my work upon the urgent appeal of my eighteen-months’ old
+daughter. She has gorgeous blue eyes with lashes long as twilight
+shadows. Her cheeks are exquisitely pink and her little mouth is like
+a rose-bud in spring. Her name is Mary. She has brought me worlds of
+undreamed of happiness.
+
+Someday Mary may want to go upon the screen. Even now she acts before
+the long mirror. If she can, in any way, secure her mother’s hat she
+gives a complete performance. My blessed baby!
+
+When the time has arrived for her to start upon her career I shall
+place my little book in her hands and say:
+
+“There is the most and the best that I knew about the screen back in
+those old-fashioned days of 1921.”
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained.
+  p. 30 changed “had” to “has” in “she has contributed”.
+  p. 40 changed “The” to “the” in “Polly of the Circus”.
+  p. 46 added a period in “mask. These people”.
+  Removed excess whitespace at bottom of p. 89 and top of p. 90.
+  p. 97 changed “diffculties” to “difficulties”.
+  p. 99 changed “bonds” to “blonds”.
+  p. 115 changed “closelly” to “closely”.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77829 ***
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+      Screen Acting | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77829 ***</div>
+
+<p class="front">
+  SCREEN ACTING
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1921</span><br>
+PHOTO-STAR PUBLISHING CO.<br>
+<span class="smcap">Los Angeles, California</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Frontispiece"></span>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="The Author and Daughter Mary">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>The Author and Daughter Mary</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<h1>SCREEN ACTING</h1>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+
+<p class="front">MAE MARSH</p>
+
+<p class="center small">OF<br>
+“THE BIRTH OF A NATION,” “INTOLERANCE,” “POLLY OF THE<br>
+CIRCUS,” “THE CINDERELLA MAN,” ETC.</p>
+<br><br>
+<p class="center">ILLUSTRATED</p>
+<br><br>
+<p class="center">LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA<br>
+<span class="large">PHOTO-STAR PUBLISHING CO.</span><br>
+CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUILDING</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>All Rights Reserved</i></p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOREWORD">
+    FOREWORD
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>In her travels and through her amazing—to
+put it mildly—correspondence, the motion
+picture star finds that there is everywhere
+a great curiosity about screen acting.</p>
+
+<p>What does it require? What, if any, are its
+mysteries? What system of detail is there
+that permits fifty-two hundred feet of celluloid
+ribbon to spin smoothly past the eye to make
+an interesting story?</p>
+
+<p>I look upon this book as an answer to the
+thousands of letters I have received in the past
+several years asking as many thousands of
+questions. A motion picture star’s most intimate
+audience, after all, is her correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>There comes to her sometimes the vague realization
+that in a dozen different countries
+little children, their sisters, their brothers and
+their parents may be, at one moment, viewing
+her image upon the screen in a dozen different
+plays. It is all too stupendous; too impersonal.
+But though she cannot be a breathing part of
+these audiences she learns often what is in the
+hearts of many. This message comes through
+the mails; that is her broad point of contact
+with her international public.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</span></p>
+
+<p>Five years ago these letters were largely to
+request photographs and the star could tell
+something of her popularity by the number of
+pictures mailed out. But, as the screen has
+grown in importance and merit, the star’s correspondence
+has indicated a lively curiosity in
+the art of camera-acting. So much ambition;
+so many questions!</p>
+
+<p>I have often thought that to make a satisfactory
+reply to the thousands of questions I
+have been asked would be to write a book, and—well,
+I wrote it. I have tried to outline the
+important steps in the building of a screen
+career. In doing this I have evaded technical
+phraseology. It is not indispensable to a
+knowledge of screen technic and might tend to
+confuse.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that anyone desiring a career in
+motion pictures can profit by that which I have
+written out of my experience; that others can
+learn from it something of the work-a-day life
+of the screen actress.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion I would take this opportunity
+to thank the tremendous number of children
+and grown-ups who have at one time or another
+written me. They serve always to remind
+me that those of us upon the screen have
+an influence and responsibility that go beyond
+a mere make-believe.</p>
+
+<p class="rindent">
+  <span class="smcap">Mae Marsh.</span>
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Contents">Contents</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="toc-container">
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+ <td class="tdl">Chapter</td>
+ <td class="tdr">Page</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">
+  I. The Universal Impulse</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">15</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">
+  II. Stars and Meteors</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">23</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">
+  III. Seven Qualities</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">33</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">
+  IV. Beauty and Expression</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">43</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">
+  V. Story, Make-up, Costuming</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">51</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">
+  VI. Noses, Chins and Eyes</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">61</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">
+  VII. Camera-Consciousness and Such</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">73</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">
+  VIII. Emphasis and Repression</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">81</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">
+  IX. Long Shots, Intermediates and Close-ups</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">91</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">
+  X. About Atmosphere</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">101</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">
+  XI. Mr. Griffith</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">109</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">
+  XII. Home Life of the Star</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">121</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Illustrations">Illustrations</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="toc-container">
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+ <td class="tdl"></td>
+ <td class="tdr">Page</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Frontispiece">
+  The Author and Mary</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Frontispiece</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_27">
+  Lillian Gish and the late Robert Harron</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">27</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_37">
+  Charles Ray</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">37</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_47">
+  Mary Miles Minter</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">47</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_55">
+  Mary Pickford</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">55</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_65">
+  Madame Nazimova</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">65</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_77">
+  Blanche Sweet and Wallace Reid</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">77</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_85">
+  Norma Talmadge</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">85</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_95">
+  The Author and Some Beginners</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">95</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_105">
+  Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">105</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_113">
+  Mr. Griffith</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">113</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Page_125">
+  The Author at Home</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">125</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="MAE_MARSH_MOTION_PICTURE_ACTRESS">
+    MAE MARSH, MOTION PICTURE ACTRESS
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>I</i></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0"><i>The arts are old, old as the stones</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>From which man carved the sphinx austere.</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>Deep are the days the old arts bring:</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent4"><i>Ten thousand years of yesteryear.</i></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>II</i></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0"><i>She is madonna in an art</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>As wild and young as her sweet eyes:</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>A frail dew flower from this hot lamp</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent4"><i>That is today’s divine surprise.</i></div>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>Despite raw lights and gloating mobs</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent4"><i>She is not seared: a picture still:</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>Rare silk the fine director’s hand</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent4"><i>May weave for magic if he will.</i></div>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>When ancient films have crumbled like</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent4"><i>Papyrus rolls of Egypt’s day,</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>Let the dust speak: “Her pride was high,</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent4"><i>All but the artist hid away:</i></div>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>“Kin to the myriad artist clan</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent4"><i>Since time began, whose work is dear.”</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent2"><i>The deep new ages come with her,</i></div>
+      <div class="verse indent4"><i>Tomorrow’s years of yesteryear.</i></div>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse right">—<i>Nicholas Vachel Lindsay.</i></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse right"><i>From “THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE</i></div>
+      <div class="verse right"><i>and other Poems” by Vachel Lindsay.</i></div>
+      <div class="verse right"><i>Published by The MacMillan Company.</i></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">
+    CHAPTER I
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>The dilemma of a casting director—A flood of letters</i><br>
+<i>and their four objectives—What every-</i><br>
+<i>one wants to know.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>When Mr. Adolph Klauber, former dramatic
+critic of the New York Times, was casting
+director for a big picture corporation I
+chanced to meet him one day in the Fort Lee
+Studios.</p>
+
+<p>“Read this,” he said, tendering me a letter.</p>
+
+<p>It was from a young girl in Columbus, Ohio,
+as I remember, who wanted to know how she
+could get into motion pictures. It was not so
+much the letter as a small snap-shot photograph
+of herself which she had pinned to her
+missive that took my attention.</p>
+
+<p>The picture showed a girl in a sitting position,
+who was plump to the verge of fatness.
+She had thick legs and ankles, straight hair,
+probably brown, and dark eyes. So far as a
+front view divulged her features were fairly
+regular. It was not in any way a remarkable
+picture. Nor did it promise any particular
+animation in its subject.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p>
+
+<p>She had written to ascertain “what chance
+she would have in motion pictures.”</p>
+
+<p>“What are you going to answer?” I asked
+of Mr. Klauber.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s a poser,” he replied. “I was about
+to write her that she didn’t have any chance;
+that she probably would be happier if she remained
+home; certainly so until she obtained
+her parents’ consent for plans of a career.
+Looking at the picture I should say she had
+one chance in a million.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is probably true,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>“But do you know,” continued Mr. Klauber,
+“that the more I think of it the less I believe
+that I am endowed with authority to tell anyone
+that he or she has no chance in motion
+pictures. How can I know? We see about
+us every day celebrated stars who, perhaps,
+began their career with apparently no more
+chance than this little Columbus girl.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Klauber paused.</p>
+
+<p>“For that reason I have not sent the discouraging
+letter which it was on the tip of my
+pen to write,” he continued. “Instead I am
+going to send her a letter telling her that her
+chance of screen success is altogether problematical;
+that everything depends upon circumstance,
+hard work and the native talent that
+is developed before the camera.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should like to see a copy of that letter,”
+I said.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p>
+
+<p>I never happened to see Mr. Klauber’s reply
+to the girl in Columbus. But I am sure it was
+interesting.</p>
+
+<p>In the past eight years I have received hundreds
+of thousands of letters from motion picture
+fans in every part of the world. In answer
+now to a question I have often heard
+asked, “Does a motion picture star immediately
+read all her mail?” I can say for myself,
+“Bless you, no.”</p>
+
+<p>A single mail has brought as many as a thousand
+letters and I shall leave it to the reader
+to determine how one could possibly read one
+thousand letters and arrive at the studio at
+8:30 o’clock. Personally, my secretaries are
+instructed to attend to such fan letters as request
+a reply—which practically all of them do—and
+then preserve the letters that I may read
+them in leisure moments.</p>
+
+<p>In that way I have managed I think to peruse
+at one time or another the majority of the
+letters that come to me. I find the reading of
+them a great pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>It is nice to receive pleasant compliments on
+one’s hard and honest effort to do something
+worth while. I have on many occasions found
+helpful criticism in my mail. Almost anyone
+can dismiss a picture with a “I liked it” or “I
+didn’t like it.” There is the exceptional one
+in a thousand who will tell you he didn’t like
+it and why, placing his finger upon a real defect.
+Often that is a help.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p>
+
+<p>To get back to my point: The letters I receive
+seem to be written with one, and sometimes
+all of the following objectives—</p>
+
+<p>1. To request a photograph.</p>
+
+<p>2. To request an autographed photograph.</p>
+
+<p>3. To ask for “old clothes.”</p>
+
+<p>4. To find out how “I can learn to act for
+motion pictures.”</p>
+
+<p>As for Numbers 1 and 2, the many of you
+who are making a “collection” know that a picture,
+autographed if requested, is sent you in
+due time. Up to very recently the star has
+considered it a matter of good advertising to
+remember those friends who are kind enough
+to ask for photographs. But the demand for
+pictures has become so tremendous that some
+of the stars are now making a flat charge of
+twenty-five cents for their photographs. This
+barely covers the cost of production and postage.</p>
+
+<p>It was Miss Billie Burke, I believe, who was
+first to establish a cost charge on her photographs.
+She did this during the war and
+donated the receipts to charity.</p>
+
+<p>The most of us have feared to risk offending
+those picture fans who have been at the pains
+of writing us by asking them for a photographic
+fee. We have spent from $10,000 to
+$25,000 a year out of our own pockets—unless
+by our contracts our producers agreed to bear
+this expense—and have trusted that it was
+money well expended. In the amount of pleasure
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>brought to the little ones I, for one, am
+sure it has been.</p>
+
+<p>But, as the demand for pictures grows
+greater and letters pour in from all parts of
+the world, the cost of materials has been steadily
+climbing. In 1915 I could send out three
+photographs for what it now costs to send one.
+That means something when thousands of
+photo-mailers each month are being sent to a
+dozen different countries.</p>
+
+<p>Recently a well known star, a particular
+friend of mine, declared that it was but a matter
+of months before all the more popular stars
+would institute a photographic fee.</p>
+
+<p>As to Number 3, regarding old clothes, I am
+sure that while the requests emanate from
+worthy sources no star could possibly satisfy
+these many supplications.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with if the story calls for clothes
+that are actually old—old enough to be considered
+“costumes”—they are usually supplied by
+the producer and belong to him after production.
+In the case of modern clothes—meaning
+new ones—most stars are very pleased to wear
+them themselves when they have finished before
+the camera.</p>
+
+<p>Such is mine own case. Whenever there is
+any danger of my reaching a point of clothes
+saturation I have several growing sisters who,
+so far, have been able to handle the situation.
+After that our clothes go through certain pre-arranged
+channels of charity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p>
+
+<p>I make this point in the hope that many
+young ladies who have written me for my “old
+clothes” will understand that I have few or
+none, as much as I should like to accommodate
+each one of them.</p>
+
+<p>Which brings me to Number 4.</p>
+
+<p>“How can I learn to act for motion pictures?”
+Six years ago in “The Birth of a
+Nation” days my mail brought me many such
+inquiries. Since then, with the motion picture
+steadily gaining in favor, I have been
+swamped with this universal request.</p>
+
+<p>“Do brown eyes photograph better than
+blue?” “Is it necessary to have stage training
+to act before a camera?” “Can a girl with a
+big nose succeed in the movies?” “What is
+the accepted height for a motion picture star?”
+“Are the morals of motion pictures safe for
+the average girl?” “If I came to Hollywood
+and got work as an extra how long would it
+be before I am featured?” “Do you know any
+director who will star a small girl, of blond
+type, who has played parts in high school comedies?”
+“Are the star salaries we hear of the
+real thing?” “Does Charlie Chaplin make
+$1,000,000 a year?”</p>
+
+<p>I have picked at random these few questions.
+I think I could go on and on, farther than Mr.
+Tennyson’s charming brook, with others of the
+same kind. Sometimes I am given to the
+thought that every young girl in the United
+States wants to go into motion pictures.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p>
+
+<p>Possibly I am right. You know as well as I.
+Receiving so many of these letters I have begun
+to feel as Mr. Klauber felt. I don’t know
+exactly what to say.</p>
+
+<p>But since there are undoubtedly many thousands
+of boys and girls not only in the United
+States but in foreign countries—the Japanese
+boy, for instance, is particularly keen on knowing
+the how of motion picture acting—who
+would like to get into motion pictures, I feel
+that such information as I have acquired
+through a wide experience will interest many
+and perhaps prove of value to those others
+who are destined to be our cinema stars of
+tomorrow.</p>
+
+<p>As for my qualifications I was about to say
+that I am one of the motion picture pioneers.
+Yet when I say pioneer I think of Daniel
+Boone. And Mr. Boone, had he lived, would
+have been an old, old man.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a><a id="Page_23"></a>[Pg 23]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">
+    CHAPTER II
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>The myth of the “overnight” star—An instance of</i><br>
+<i>success after long sustained effort—</i><br>
+<i>What the beginner faces.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>To become an artistic success one must assuredly
+be in love with the art he has elected
+to follow. In business or finance a so-called
+lucky stroke may make of a man or a woman
+a success without there being those qualities
+of esteem and enthusiasm for the thing itself
+that are so essential to artistic endeavor.</p>
+
+<p>Such lucky strokes are rare in pictures. Appearances
+to the contrary, notwithstanding,
+motion picture stars are not made over-night.
+Every now and then some actor or actress begins
+to assert his or her right to cinema stardom.
+But if one will take the trouble to examine
+the records in such cases he will usually
+find that the privilege of stardom has come
+only after a slow climb.</p>
+
+<p>There have been cases where producers have
+tried to “manufacture” stars. But, in the
+main, it hasn’t worked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p>
+
+<p>To recall one example: One of the shrewdest
+of our producers not long ago signed a
+young, beautiful and talented vaudeville actress
+to a long time motion picture contract.
+Screen tests proved that she photographed
+beautifully. She had the grace of carriage to
+be expected of the professional dancer. Her
+face was expressive. That a capable director
+would find in her all the qualities necessary
+for stardom the producer never doubted.</p>
+
+<p>Thousands of dollars were spent in an ocean
+of advertising ink announcing the debut of this
+star. Her name was flashed from one end of
+the country to the other, indeed, around the
+world, in electric lights and on bill boards.
+Her photograph was published in the metropolitan
+dailies and small town papers. So far
+as the campaign was concerned it was an unqualified
+success. By the time the little star’s
+first picture was ready for release there had
+been built up about her a tremendous curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>I own I was as curious as the next. I think
+the majority of us, who had attained stardom
+only after years of rigorous training, self
+denial and hard work, were interested, even
+anxious, to know if motion picture stars could
+be developed after the formula of this producer.
+It meant something to us.</p>
+
+<p>If the magnitude of the motion picture actress
+was to be in proportion to the size of an
+introductory advertising campaign then our
+own position was none too secure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p>
+
+<p>As a star this little actress failed. Thanks
+to some natural talent her failure was not so
+disastrous as it might have been. But as a
+star, she was soon withdrawn. The fortune
+spent in exploiting her was gone, but not forgotten.
+As a proof of the impossibility of
+“manufacturing” stars under the most favorable
+of circumstances it probably served a purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Why did she fail? Why would a baby, who
+had never walked, fail if she were told to run
+a foot race? She simply didn’t know how.</p>
+
+<p>All the little important things that one can
+learn by nothing save experience, things which
+mean everything to successful screen acting,
+were missing in her work. She was like one
+trying to paint without knowing color, to compose
+without a knowledge of counter-point, to
+write without having learned grammar school
+English. Contrary to a tradition which exists
+in some localities the best swimmers are not
+developed by throwing the child into the water
+and telling him to sink or float.</p>
+
+<p>There is another interesting point in the case
+which I have cited. When the plans to make
+this young lady an over-night star failed she
+became a featured player in a group. Surrounded
+by experienced, capable screen actors
+and relieved of the responsibility that stardom
+entails she has developed splendidly and is, in
+point of fact, a better actress today than she
+was when she was advertised as a star.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p>
+
+<p>It has been simply a matter of training. If
+sometime in the future she is again starred she
+will be prepared to make a better job of it.</p>
+
+<p>I have brought up this case because it has
+been my observation that there exists a feeling
+that in motion pictures anybody can be a star
+anytime. There is talk of influence, managerial
+favoritism, luck and, goodness knows,
+what not? There may be truth to some of
+these assertions.</p>
+
+<p>But the year in and year out stars—Mary
+Pickford, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, William
+Hart, Mme. Nazimova, Douglas Fairbanks,
+Charles Ray, etc.—are those who stand solidly
+on the ground of genuine merit.</p>
+
+<p>And the solidity of their stance is usually
+determined by the amount of their natural talent,
+plus the excellence and length of their
+training.</p>
+
+<p>I believe many people have the habit of falling
+in love with an idea. The idea of becoming
+a motion picture star is appealing. But
+like many other general conceptions the idea
+of the star’s life—as gathered from a smoothly
+displayed picture drama or a magazine article
+portraying the artist’s home, her automobile
+and her pets—is misleading.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Louis Stevenson wept in despair over
+the composition of many of his stories. A
+great many of us have had occasion to weep
+over our own more modest efforts. We have
+found, indeed, that the most beautiful roses
+are very often those with the cruelest thorns.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p027.jpg" alt="Lillian Gish and the late Robert Harron">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>Lillian Gish and the late Robert Harron in a love scene
+from “The Greatest Question.”</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p>
+
+<p>It has been proved that motion picture stars
+cannot be made over-night. It is equally true
+that many promising actresses do not become
+stars—in the accepted professional sense of the
+word—even after long years of work.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose if I said that nobody can succeed
+in motion pictures and that the star is the exception
+to the rule I should be accused of being
+a pessimist. Yet that is more nearly the truth
+than may appear on the surface.</p>
+
+<p>Consider, for instance, the thousands of actors
+and actresses who have appeared before a
+camera in the past decade. After you have
+done that count the number of genuine stars
+now before the public. You can name the majority
+of them on the fingers and thumbs of
+four hands.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in the heart of each of the thousands,
+who have stepped before the batteries of motion
+picture cameras, there was undoubtedly
+the hope that natural ability, circumstance or
+hard work would bring success.</p>
+
+<p>It is well to take this into consideration when
+one looks toward the screen for a career.</p>
+
+<p>But sometimes this law of average is defeated
+by that exceptional person whose faith
+is undiminished, whose confidence in one’s self
+is boundless and whose capacity for work
+never flags.</p>
+
+<p>Let me cite you the case of one of the best
+known young actresses on the screen who, as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>this is written, has never enjoyed the full privileges
+of stardom though she has shared most
+of its disadvantages.</p>
+
+<p>She began her screen career more than a
+half dozen years ago. She was frail, and slow
+to absorb the lessons of the screen. Even her
+dearest friends never imputed to her a great
+natural acting talent.</p>
+
+<p>But this young lady was dauntless. She
+kept everlastingly at it. By systematically exercising
+she gradually built up strength and
+endurance. When she was given a part she
+read everything she had access to which would
+help her in the development of her character
+portrayal.</p>
+
+<p>She over-came any tendency toward self-consciousness
+while before the camera. She
+became adept in the matter of thinking up business.
+The fact that she did not attain stardom,
+in its generally accepted sense, never deterred
+her. Year after year she gave to the
+screen and to her parts the best that was in
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Her courageousness has been rewarded. It
+is my opinion that in the past two years she
+has contributed to the photographic drama two
+of its most distinguished characterizations.
+She is a motion picture star in the true sense
+of the word. Her name is Lillian Gish.</p>
+
+<p>If I seem to be gazing on the darker side of
+a screen career I assure you that it is not because
+such is my habit. Quite the contrary.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>But it appears to me that since there seems to
+be such a universal impulse to gain fame
+through the medium of the moving picture
+drama that it is as well to consider some of its
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Trained actors and actresses from the
+spoken stage to their sorrow have found these
+difficulties. The established star finds sometimes
+that success has seemed merely to double
+her troubles.</p>
+
+<p>The beginner will discover, therefore, that
+when he or she sets his or her face toward a
+screen career there will come moments when
+it will seem much easier to give up than go on.
+Those who give up will be those who should
+never have started. They will have wasted
+time that could have been otherwise more
+profitably spent.</p>
+
+<p>Those who go on—well, there is always hope
+for such.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>I am always interested in and can sympathize
+with the young girl who yearns for a
+career. It seems but yesterday that I was in
+short skirts and Miss Marjorie Rambeau was
+the most talented and beautiful actress that
+was ever permitted upon the face of the earth.
+After a matinee at the old Burbank theater in
+Los Angeles a young girl friend and I often
+followed Miss Rambeau discreetly and at what
+might be called a worshipful distance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then there was Mr. Richard Bennett.
+What a masterful, handsome man was he!
+My goodness! he was one to occupy one’s
+dreams; to make one wonder if somehow it
+might not be possible to grow up and become
+his leading lady. I am sure that the very paragon
+of modern-day leading men could not
+come up to my childhood estimate of Mr. Richard
+Bennett.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">
+    CHAPTER III
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Seven qualities that indicate fitness for a screen career</i><br>
+<i>—Why they are important—An illus-</i><br>
+<i>tration of vitality.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>As I have said, I have been asked by thousands
+of correspondents for the formula for
+screen success. I have never felt able to answer.
+I don’t believe there is any such
+formula.</p>
+
+<p>Putting the proposition another way:</p>
+
+<p>If I were requested to choose from among
+ten beginners the one who would go the farthest
+in motion pictures I should unhesitatingly
+lay my finger upon the one who possessed the
+following qualifications:</p>
+
+<p>(1) Natural talent.</p>
+
+<p>(2) Ambition.</p>
+
+<p>(3) Personality.</p>
+
+<p>(4) Sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>(5) Agreeable appearance.</p>
+
+<p>(6) Vitality and strength.</p>
+
+<p>(7) Ability to learn quickly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p>
+
+<p>I am sure that I should not go far wrong if
+I were to place my trust in one endowed with
+these qualities.</p>
+
+<p>A natural talent for acting implies more
+than a mere desire to act. It is the art,
+usually discovered during childhood, of mimicry,
+and the joy in that art.</p>
+
+<p>How many of us have been convulsed in our
+earlier years at some school girl friend’s take-off
+of our teacher? How many of us, indeed,
+have played the mimics? I seem to remember
+that in my grammar school days I was called
+upon more or less to take-off one of our
+teachers.</p>
+
+<p>If not called upon I volunteered. None of
+my school chums got more enjoyment out of
+my “imitation of Miss Blank” than I did. I
+never dreamed at that time—or, if I did, they
+were vague dreams—that I was to become an
+actress. Since then I have come to the conclusion
+that I was actually taking my first steps
+toward what I chose as a career.</p>
+
+<p>Natural talent, as I have called it, is no more
+than a tendency toward, or an aptitude for,
+some form of endeavor. In youth my first
+artistic loves were for mimicry and painting—the
+latter of which took the form of sculpturing—and
+both of these loves have been enduring.</p>
+
+<p>For that reason unless my candidate for
+screen success had previously shown some love
+for acting or mimicry I should come to the conclusion
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>that he or she was intoxicated merely
+with the glamour of the profession, with no
+especial love for the fundamental thing itself.</p>
+
+<p>This is an important point. If its significance
+were duly impressed upon the thousands
+of girls and boys, who would like to choose the
+screen for a career, perhaps, some of them
+would abandon their dreams and turn to things
+for which they have displayed some natural
+aptitude.</p>
+
+<p>Ambition must, of course, go hand in hand
+with natural talent. In any form of vocational
+training it is assumed that the student has a
+feverish desire to succeed in the particular line
+that he has elected to follow. It is the same
+on the screen.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly I might have written down enthusiasm
+in the place of ambition. After one has
+attained stardom and thus, perhaps, achieved
+his or her ambition the ability to sustain enthusiasm
+in one’s work becomes more important
+than ambition. But ambition and enthusiasm
+are closely correlated.</p>
+
+<p>They mean that one has an ambition to gain
+the top, and that to reach that position one has
+the enthusiasm to practise all the forms of self-denial,
+discipline and study that are important
+to artistic success in any line.</p>
+
+<p>Personality is important for the reason that
+the camera has a way of registering it unerringly.
+It is keen in detecting the weak or
+vapid.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></p>
+
+<p>In my eight years before a motion picture
+camera I have never met a person of inferior
+fibre whose inferiority was not accentuated by
+the camera. For that reason to sustain success
+on the screen I believe there is nothing
+more important than clean thoughts and clean
+living. They do register.</p>
+
+<p>It is precisely the same with sincerity. In
+any line there is probably little hope for those
+who lack this salient quality. But a motion
+picture camera seems especially to delight in
+exposing insincerity.</p>
+
+<p>I think considerable of the success of Mary
+Pickford and Charles Ray—to name but two
+stars—is due to their absolute and abundant
+sincerity. The camera, finding so much that
+is clean and real, has joyously reproduced it.
+It is the love that Miss Pickford radiates from
+the screen and the obvious manliness of Mr.
+Ray that are among their biggest assets. This
+is sincere love and sincere manliness, or it
+would never be so emphasized by the camera.</p>
+
+<p>My candidate for screen honors, therefore,
+must have the God-given quality of sincerity.
+Only that kind can feel deeply, think cleanly
+and develop the sterling traits without which
+neither a camera or a public can be very long
+deceived.</p>
+
+<p>I now come to the matter of personal appearance.
+This is a topic in which every man
+under 65, and every woman under 100 years
+seem interested. I sometimes wonder if it is
+not the desire to see how they would look on
+the screen, rather than how they might act,
+that fills so many boys and girls and men and
+women with an ambition for a screen career.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p037.jpg" alt="Charles Ray">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>Charles Ray, plus his abundant sincerity, as reflected in “The Old Swimmin’ Hole.”</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p>
+
+<p>I have found the subject of such universal
+interest that I believe it deserves a chapter to
+itself. Therefore I shall dismiss this matter
+until the next. I may say, however, that in
+my candidate I should rank agreeable appearance
+and an expressive face as superior to mere
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>To paraphrase, nothing succeeds like good
+health. Of itself it is the most valuable thing
+that we should own. Good health can be
+translated into terms of capacity for work.
+Therefore since a screen career means both
+hard and trying work I should insist that my
+candidate possess or develop the qualities of
+strength and vitality.</p>
+
+<p>I am aware that in many forms of art such
+artists as Chopin, Stevenson and Milton, have
+become famous in spite of great physical handicaps.
+I do not believe the same can be done
+in pictures.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me that healthy persons like to
+see and be among well people. Motion picture
+audiences being invariably in first-class physical
+shape themselves, desire that those who
+appear before them on the screen be likewise
+fortunate. It is my belief that an audience
+is usually bored to tears by a convalescing hero
+or heroine. If I were in charge of all the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>scenarios played I should cut such episodes
+very short. They beget more impatience than
+sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not only because good health radiates
+from the screen that it is important. In
+point of nervous and muscular strain, and the
+often long studio hours that are necessary
+when production has begun, good health is
+essential.</p>
+
+<p>To illustrate: While we were filming “Polly
+of the Circus” in Fort Lee one morning I reported
+at the studio at nine o’clock. We were
+working on some interior scenes that were
+vital to the success of the story. My director
+at that time was Mr. Charles Horan. Mr.
+Vernon Steele was playing the male lead.</p>
+
+<p>That day we became so engrossed in playing
+some rather delicate scenes that before we
+knew it—or at least before I could realize it—it
+was six o’clock, and we weren’t half done.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you say to continuing?” asked
+Mr. Horan.</p>
+
+<p>“Good; we’re right in the spirit of it,” I
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>We had a bite to eat and worked on until
+midnight. In spite of our hard and earnest
+efforts there were several scenes with which
+we were dissatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said Mr. Horan ruefully. “Tomorrow
+will be another day.”</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke it dawned upon me how one of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>the scenes on which we felt we had failed could
+be done with probable success.</p>
+
+<p>“Why tomorrow?” I replied. “Let’s make
+a night of it if necessary. We simply have to
+get that scene.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Horan grinned. That had been his
+wish. But he had feared breaking the camel’s
+back.</p>
+
+<p>We worked until four o’clock that morning.
+Things went swimmingly. It was broad daylight
+when I ferried across the Hudson but if
+I was very tired I was equally happy.</p>
+
+<p>Several times during “Polly of the Circus”
+we had experiences which, in the number of
+hours put in, were similar to that which I have
+related. But in the end it was worth while.
+We had a picture.</p>
+
+<p>At that time I was feeling in the best of
+health but, even so, the long hours had been a
+severe drain upon my none too great vitality.
+For anyone lacking strength and vitality such
+hours would have been impossible.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my intention to write a booklet on
+health. But all of us should be very careful
+of our most precious possession. I know of so
+many young girls in motion pictures who have
+let their health get away from them. And
+some of the cases are so pitiful....</p>
+
+<p>My candidate, then, will have strength and
+vitality and, equally important, he or she will
+cling to both, whatever social sacrifices may
+have to be made to preserve them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p>
+
+<p>The ability to learn quickly will save anyone
+going into screen work so much trouble and
+possible humiliation that it may well be listed
+as an essential qualification.</p>
+
+<p>The screen is no place for the mental laggard.
+The beginner, particularly, must be
+alive to learn the new lessons that each day
+will bring, and learning them he must remember.</p>
+
+<p>During the course of production in a studio
+things are at high tension. Time is money.
+Each of us constitutes a more or less important
+cog in a great machine. Those cogs that
+inexcusably forget to function are eliminated.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">
+    CHAPTER IV
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Beauty and the measure of looks upon the screen—</i><br>
+<i>Expression most important—Tragedies of</i><br>
+<i>doll-faces—Photographic “angles.”</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>What follows happened during the National
+Convention of Motion Picture Producers
+in 1917 at Chicago. The convention
+was held at the Coliseum. There were jazz
+bands, gay and costly decorations, and motion
+picture celebrities from both Coasts. The carnival
+spirit ran high and thousands of motion
+picture fans squeezed into that huge old building.</p>
+
+<p>The opening was called “Mae Marsh Day.”
+I shall not soon forget it. That night as our
+party entered the Coliseum through the manager’s
+private office I espied in the center of the
+building a newly erected platform draped with
+bunting and decorated with flowers.</p>
+
+<p>“You will make a little speech,” the manager
+said.</p>
+
+<p>I gasped. I think I almost fainted. I had
+never made a formal speech. The idea of it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>was as foreign to me as becoming Queen of
+the South Sea Islands.</p>
+
+<p>“All right,” I gurgled weakly.</p>
+
+<p>My voice has never been strong. As I
+walked to the platform the Coliseum was a
+bedlam of sound. I was introduced with difficulty.
+With sinking knees I stepped forward.</p>
+
+<p>“Ladies and gentlemen I am sure I am
+pleased to—”</p>
+
+<p>A jazz band, which seemed to be located
+somewhere immediately beneath my feet, began
+to loudly play. I didn’t know whether to dance
+or sing. It was a medley in which “The Star-Spangled
+Banner” was predominant. I blessed
+the band. I doubly blessed our national anthem.
+Looking about me I saw a small American
+flag. I grasped it and stood waving it to
+the strains of our national air. The convention
+was duly opened.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward, when I stood upon a small table
+giving away carnations until my wrist ached—smiling
+like a chorus girl meantime—a woman
+informed my mother that she wished to see
+me on an important matter. In the press of
+those thousands of children and grown-ups I
+was virtually trapped.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell her,” I suggested, “to call at the Blackstone
+Hotel tomorrow morning.”</p>
+
+<p>She came. She was a plain woman with an
+honest eye. She brought along two small
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>daughters aged, respectively, ten and twelve,
+I afterward ascertained.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Marsh,” she declared, leaning forward
+expectantly in her chair, “I think my two
+daughters should succeed in motion pictures.
+One of them is very beautiful, and the other
+looks like you.”</p>
+
+<p>I told this honest lady, with as straight a
+face as I could command, that while her
+daughters were still too young to think of playing
+in motion pictures that some day, perhaps,
+I could do something for them, particularly the
+one that looked like me.</p>
+
+<p>In approaching the matter of screen faces I
+am strongly reminded of that Chicago lady. I
+believe her logic was essentially sound. There
+is no measure of looks for the motion picture
+screen. If there is a yardstick it applies to expression,
+or animation, and not looks.</p>
+
+<p>No one admires a beautiful face upon the
+screen more than I. If it so happens that this
+beauty is allied with ability then I am often
+given to the thought that they are not a congenial
+combination. For beauty, ever a queenly
+quality, is diverting and manages in this way
+and that to steal some of the thunder that
+rightfully belongs to ability.</p>
+
+<p>If, as sometimes happens, I see mere beauty
+being exploited on the screen with no semblance
+of acting talent, I am ready to give up
+my seat to the next one along about the third
+reel. Nothing palls upon one more quickly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span></p>
+
+<p>Therefore, I am at odds with those who believe
+that beauty is necessary for the screen beginner.
+Say for beauty that it has the merit of
+more quickly attracting attention to the one
+who possesses it and you have done it full justice.
+But even then, if it is unaccompanied by
+ability, it is just another tragedy of a doll-face.</p>
+
+<p>Acting is primarily the ability to express
+something. If the face that conveys that feeling
+is not disagreeable then it becomes a matter
+of not how much beauty is in the face but how
+much expression. That was certainly the case
+with Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. All of us know
+plain appearing persons whose faces, when
+they have something to say, become interesting
+and expressive.</p>
+
+<p>They impress us as individuals whose beauty
+is inside or spiritual. That is a lovely quality
+for the screen. On the other hand we know,
+all of us, persons who are generally considered
+beautiful whose faces, under any circumstances,
+have no more animation than a mask.
+These people strike us as spiritually barren,
+lacking in humor, or something.</p>
+
+<p>If my candidate for screen honors has simply
+an agreeable appearance and good eyes—which
+I consider most important of all facial
+features—I shall be satisfied provided his or
+her face, and particularly the eyes, are expressive.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p047.jpg" alt="Mary Miles Minter and Chester Franklin">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>A beautiful young star and her director, Mary Miles
+Minter and Chester Franklin.</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span></p>
+
+<p>It has been my observation that while beauty
+or good looks is largely a matter of opinion—which
+has furnished many lively debates—the
+quality of expression or animation is seldom
+denied those who possess it. For that reason
+my candidate, if he or she has an expressive
+face, will have a more valuable and certain
+stock-in-trade than mere good looks.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this logic most of us stars go on
+wishing to be thought beautiful, or to have it
+thought that we could be beautiful if we
+wanted to be. I recollect that it took time and
+courage for some of us to brave our publics in
+other than our pet make-ups.</p>
+
+<p>There are, for instance, two stars who had
+always regarded their curls as indispensable.
+After many years of stardom one of them decided
+to take what she thought was a desperate
+chance. She skinned her hair back and played
+the part of a little English slavey. The result
+was that she turned out one of the most successful
+pictures in her career.</p>
+
+<p>Another, a dear friend of mine, we used to
+call “The Primper.” She never appeared upon
+the set without her curls just so. I think at
+that time she thought they were the most important
+part of her career.</p>
+
+<p>She has reformed. As her art developed she
+became less particular about her hair dress.
+One night in a little theater in Jamaica, Long
+Island, I dropped in to see one of her photoplays.
+It was an excellent picture. Her hair
+was drawn back tightly over her head into a
+knot. That night I wired her congratulations.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span></p>
+
+<p>No; curls, Grecian noses, up-tilted chins and
+rose-tinted cheeks are not the measure of success
+upon the screen. It is something that
+goes deeper than that.</p>
+
+<p>It is something that goes deep enough to
+over-ride facial defects. There is one excellent
+little star, for example, who, because of
+a nose unfortunately large, must always work
+full face when near the camera. I think she
+is charming. Another, for an odd reason, permits
+only a one-way profile to be taken. There
+are many such cases.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the majority of us have our “angles.”
+By “angles” I mean the full, three-quarters,
+one-quarter or profile views in which
+we think we appear at our best. Each star has
+studied that point out for his or herself. And,
+since we are taking largely our own opinion for
+it, it is possible we are mistaken. But our
+vanity upholds us.</p>
+
+<p>In my own case I was hauled into motion
+pictures while sitting rather forlornly on a
+soapbox waiting for my sister Marguerite.
+Since at that time I was without curls, having
+never had any before or since, and looked as I
+look, so to speak, it has never been necessary
+for me to expend any great amount of time in
+make-up. That has been satisfactory to me.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">
+    CHAPTER V
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>The story, make-up and costuming—Rouge riots and</i><br>
+<i>their disadvantages—The blond</i><br>
+<i>and the “back spot.”</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>In any art or profession the ability to seize
+opportunity when it presents itself is important.
+This is especially true in motion pictures.
+Things move very fast there. It is like a game
+where the knack of doing the right thing at the
+right time determines one’s value.</p>
+
+<p>After the beginner has done his extra work,
+or small bits, if he is of the right stuff, he will
+some day be given a part. He may be unaware
+of it, but that will be the biggest moment of his
+screen career.</p>
+
+<p>When doing extra work or small bits the
+critics, the public, and the profession have paid
+little attention to the beginner. But once the
+beginner secures a part he comes instantly into
+the eye of everyone interested in the screen.
+We are all diverted by new faces.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the impression that the beginner will
+make in his first part is one that will for a long
+time endure. It comes very near making or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>breaking him. This may seem hard. Often
+it is unjust—a beginner may have a part forced
+upon him for which he is unfitted. But it is
+true. And we have to deal with conditions on
+the screen as we find them.</p>
+
+<p>For that reason when the big moment comes,
+and the part is secured, the beginner must do
+everything within his or her power to be as
+well prepared as possible.</p>
+
+<p>There are in this respect three important
+mechanical details that must be looked after. I
+should list them as follows:</p>
+
+<p>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">(1) Studying the story.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">(2) Studying make-up.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">(3) Studying costuming.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>The beginner will be given the story—or
+script—typewritten in continuity form. Continuity
+means the scene by scene action
+through which the story is told. Ordinarily
+there will be some three hundred scenes or
+“shots” to the average photoplay.</p>
+
+<p>The beginner will first look to the plot and
+theme of the story. We want to know what
+the author is telling and how he is trying to tell
+it. We find the big situations and the action
+that precedes them. More important, we locate
+the why of it.</p>
+
+<p>When I have established the idea of the play
+I immediately go over the script again with an
+eye alert for business. By business I mean the
+tricks, mannerisms, and the apparent unexpected
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>or involuntary moves that help to sustain
+action.</p>
+
+<p>The value of good business cannot be over-rated.
+It goes a long way toward making up
+for the lack of voice. Without clever business
+any photoplay would drag. The two-reel comedy,
+which I have observed is popular with
+audiences of all ages, is usually but a sequence
+of business.</p>
+
+<p>If the business that is planned upon seems
+natural to the character—the wiggling of a
+foot when excited, the inability to control the
+hands, the apparent unconscious raising of an
+eyebrow, etc.—I am sure there can be no real
+objection to it. The audience, who are the final
+critics, love it.</p>
+
+<p>Just the other night I saw Mr. Douglas Fairbanks
+in a play the final scene of which depicted
+him in the act of making love to his intended.
+That there might be some privacy to
+the undertaking they were screening themselves
+from the view of the guests—and the
+audience!—with a large silken handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>The girl might have stood still. If she had
+there could have no criticism. Neither would
+there have been much of anything else, as her
+face was hidden from view. She laid her hands
+over a balustrade and wiggled her fingers. The
+audience roared.</p>
+
+<p>These are the things which keep a photoplay
+from dragging. They give the action a piquancy
+and charm.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now while the audience may believe that
+these things are done on the spur of the moment
+the facts are very contrary. These bits
+of business must be planned in advance and it
+is only an evidence that they have been well
+planned when they appear to be done unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p>While it is true that we have all discovered
+very telling bits of business during the actual
+photographing of a scene, we can count this as
+nothing but good fortune. To leave the matter
+of business until the director called “Camera!”
+would be fatal.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in going over a script I look for business.
+I think of all the business I can, knowing
+that much of it will prove impracticable and
+will have to be discarded. Nor is that all.
+When the scenic sets upon which we are to
+work are erected at the studio or on location,
+I look them over very carefully in the hope that
+some article of furniture, etc., will suggest
+some attractive piece of business. An odd fan,
+a pillow, a door, in fact, anything may prove
+valuable.</p>
+
+<p>I should suggest to my candidate that he
+or she be just as alert for good business as the
+star is. The good director is always open to
+suggestion. Business may make all the difference
+between a colorless and a vivid portrayal
+of a part. Thus for the beginner who, in obtaining
+a part, has reached the most vital moment
+of his career, the value of keeping an eye
+open to the possibilities of business is apparent.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p055.jpg" alt="Mary Pickford">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>Mary Pickford’s love radiates from the screen. A scene from “Pollyanna.”</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p>
+
+<p>Make-up, like much of everything else on the
+screen, is a personal matter. There are, however,
+some general rules that can be followed
+to advantage.</p>
+
+<p>I should instruct my candidate not to make
+up too much. It seems to me that I have observed
+a tendency in this direction recently.</p>
+
+<p>Some actresses have laid on lip rouge so
+thickly that their lips seem to run liquid. Rouge
+photographs black. The result has been that
+this riot of lip paint has given them the appearance
+of having no teeth. Others have used too
+much and too dark make-up about the eyes.
+Nothing more quickly ruins expression. Such
+eyes have the look of holes burned in a blanket
+and for dramatic purposes are only slightly
+more useful.</p>
+
+<p>Since my candidate will have youth, good
+health and vitality he or she will not have to
+resort to tricks of make-up. There are many
+such. I recall the case of one actress who is
+considered a beauty on the spoken stage. On
+the screen she discovered that the motion picture
+camera is not very kind to some people.
+The lines and flabbiness which were in her face
+were accurately reproduced. She thought, of
+course, they were exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>She was in despair until she found that by
+laying heavy strips of adhesive tape over her
+ears and behind her neck—she wore a wig—these
+lines and flabbiness were overcome. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>tape pulled her face into shape! But, I am
+sure it must have been painful.</p>
+
+<p>Another actress, it is an open secret, undergoes
+periodic operations for the removal of the
+flabby flesh underneath her chin. Others afflicted
+with the hated “double chin” rouge the
+guilty member heavily with more or less success.
+Still others wear collars and necklaces to
+thwart flabbiness.</p>
+
+<p>None of us need laugh; that is if we are in
+motion pictures. If we stay there long enough
+we may be driven to similar measures.</p>
+
+<p>In make-up, to begin at the top, is to consider
+the hair. Let me say, first of all, that this
+should always be kept very clean. The camera
+has a way of treating us unpleasantly if it
+isn’t.</p>
+
+<p>Some actresses have set styles of hair dress
+which they seldom vary. I think of Madge
+Kennedy’s “band of hair,” Dorothy Gish’s
+black wig and the Pickford Curls.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy Gish had tried many styles of hair
+dress and found none of them to her liking.
+She experimented with a black wig and was
+delighted with the result. It contributed something
+to her expression—brought it out, as it
+were—which she felt had been lacking. Since
+“Hearts of the World” she has never stepped
+before a camera without her trusty B. W.</p>
+
+<p>But while most of us have a favorite style
+of wearing our hair most of us are forced often
+to lay aside that style to suit the character we
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>are playing. Playing a child we let our hair
+hang. The length or abundance doesn’t seem
+to particularly matter.</p>
+
+<p>If enacting the daughter of a well-to-do
+business man then we may have our hair plain
+or marceled to suit our fancy. Plain hair
+seems to suggest sweetness. If playing a saucy
+character we must contrive some dress that
+will convey the desired effect.</p>
+
+<p>Blonds, in motion pictures, are traditionally
+fluffy-haired. There is a very good reason for
+this, by the way. Some years ago Mr. Griffith—who
+usually does everything first—discovered
+that by leveling a back spotlight on
+Blanche Sweet’s fluffy, blond hair it gave the
+appearance of sunlight showing through.</p>
+
+<p>On the screen it was beautiful. Since that
+time the “back spot” has been worked to death.
+In spite of the fact that it is an old trick it is
+one that is still very much respected by the
+actress—or us blond actresses, as it were.</p>
+
+<p>The back light shining through the hair has
+a tendency to take away all the hard lines of
+the face. It leaves it smooth and free from
+worry. How often in a motion picture have I
+heard the involuntary expression, “How beautiful!”
+when such a shot—usually a close-up—is
+shown.</p>
+
+<p>Many of you may have wondered why a
+blond seems to have dark hair in many interior
+scenes and blond hair out of doors. Here is
+one fault, at least, that we can shift to other
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>shoulders. If a blond’s hair is dark indoors it
+is because the cameraman has failed in his
+lighting arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>But even with the most expert manipulation
+of lights there is no rival in motion pictures for
+the sun. For blonds and brunettes alike he is
+Allah.</p>
+
+<p>And now since this matter of make-up requires
+more space and this chapter is growing
+long we shall skip to the next.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">
+    CHAPTER VI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>More about noses and chins—Costumes as important</i><br>
+<i>to the star as a story to the director—</i><br>
+<i>Rags and riches.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>In the matter of face and make-up we seldom
+think of the forehead. Yet I personally
+admire a pretty forehead very much and think
+it is as important as a good mouth or nose, if
+secondary to the eyes. Comprising as it does—or
+should—one-third of the face it is nothing
+if not conspicuous.</p>
+
+<p>If to be deep and learned is to have an extremely
+high forehead then to be deep and
+learned on the screen is to labor under one definite
+handicap. For the girl with a too high
+forehead cannot skin her hair back without appearing
+ugly.</p>
+
+<p>Those of us with medium foreheads are
+more fortunate. Whatever may be said for
+our mental capacity we can, at any rate, skin
+our hair back and thereby add very much to
+our expression.</p>
+
+<p>The girl with the high forehead compromises
+by trying to keep some of it covered but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>it never gives quite the effect of hair drawn
+tightly back.</p>
+
+<p>I should particularly admonish my screen
+beginner against too much make-up about the
+eyes. For blue or gray eyes, a light gray make-up
+is used; for brown or black eyes, a light
+brown make-up.</p>
+
+<p>We frequently hear it said that brown eyes
+photograph best for the screen, but I have
+never heard anyone whom I would accept as
+an authority say that. I believe that all colors
+are equally good. It is far more important
+that a screen actress’s eyes be expressive than
+it is that they be either brown or blue.</p>
+
+<p>Thus if we have expressive eyes and evade
+the error of making them up so heavily as to
+create the “burnt hole” aspect we shall have
+nothing to worry about. Generally speaking
+the more prominent the eyes and eyebrows the
+less of make-up should be used. There are exceptions.</p>
+
+<p>A nose is something we can do nothing
+about. We either have or haven’t a good nose.
+If the nose is so badly out of symmetry with
+the face as to be unsightly its possessor will
+probably have to confine himself, or herself,
+to character parts. There are some who have
+attained stardom, even with ill-shaped noses,
+but I think of very few. These by devious
+practices conceal the defect as well as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Make-up for the nose is usually for character
+and not star parts. A spot of rouge at the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>tip of the nose will give it a turned up or pug
+appearance. When playing a mulatto in “The
+Birth of a Nation” Miss Mary Alden inserted
+within her nostrils two plugs that permitted
+her to breathe and yet had the effect of greatly
+widening her nostrils. The late and beloved
+“Bobby” Harron broadened his nose with
+putty in the same play in one of the scenes in
+which he doubled as a negro. The screen lost
+one of its sweetest and most lovable characters
+when “Bobby” Harron died.</p>
+
+<p>But these cases were characterizations. For
+star purposes a nose is a nose. The pity is
+that sometimes even well-shaped noses seem to
+lose something or gain too much when they are
+reproduced on the screen.</p>
+
+<p>The lips and chin require a light make-up
+for the very good reason, again, that to overdo
+in this respect is to stifle expression. It is my
+opinion that those who are becoming addicted
+to an extremely heavy make-up of lips are making
+a mistake. It is unreal. It is not art. Such
+thick, sensuous, liquid lips as I have beheld on
+the screen during the past year have never
+been seen on land or sea.</p>
+
+<p>The chin is a good deal like the nose. Very
+little can be done about it. If it protrudes too
+much, or is abruptly receding, its possessor
+will probably find himself chosen for character
+parts. Here what are otherwise considered
+facial defects will be no handicap at all. On
+the contrary they may be a decided help.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p>
+
+<p>As in the case of the ill-shaped nose there
+are stars who have succeeded in spite of an
+absence, or too great presence, of chin. They
+have learned the photographic angles at which
+they appear to the best advantage. In one way
+or another, when working close to the camera,
+they keep always within these angles. Thus
+they prove that there can be an exception to
+any rule.</p>
+
+<p>If in the matter of make-up I can convince
+my candidate that he or she will be better off
+by using as little as possible of it, I shall be
+willing to pass on to the next topic.</p>
+
+<p>Hands, too, must be kept clean and are
+usually made up with white chalk.</p>
+
+<p>I often think that costumes are to the star
+as important as the story is to the director.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be the case in everyday life
+clothes do make the man, or the woman, in
+motion pictures. They establish character even
+more swiftly than action or expression. No
+where so much as in motion pictures does the
+general public accept people at their clothes
+value. There are the over-dress of vulgarity,
+the shoddiness of poverty, the conservatism of
+decency and so on, each of them speaking as
+plainly as words of the person so attired.</p>
+
+<p>Now if mere over-dress, shoddiness, conservatism,
+and so on, were all that were necessary
+the process would be quite simple. But
+the art of costuming is more subtle than that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p065.jpg" alt="Madame Nazimova">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>Madame Nazimova, one of the few dramatic stars who quickly
+mastered the art of the screen.</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p>
+
+<p>In each costume there must be something
+original and personal. In other words, something
+that is peculiarly suited to the precise
+character that is being portrayed. There must
+be also a color contrast or harmony that will be
+favorable to good motion picture photography.</p>
+
+<p>In addition, the costume in a broader sense
+should harmonize with the scenic setting. The
+costume, more than anything else, will establish
+the fiction of age. To appear very young
+or middle-aged is to dress young or middle-aged.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to its value in suggesting character
+the costume has attained a new importance
+in that the screen has become a sort of
+fashion magazine. The thousands of young
+ladies who live outside of New York, London
+or Paris have come to look more and more to
+the screen for the latest fashions, and are accordingly
+influenced.</p>
+
+<p>With this phase of costuming my candidate
+need not particularly interest herself beyond
+remembering that women love to see pretty
+clothes and that those who give them the opportunity
+occupy an especial niche in their affections.</p>
+
+<p>The beginner who learns the knack of dressing
+for the screen in a manner that is sharply
+expressive of the character being played, and,
+in a way to bring out what the actress herself
+has come to regard as her strong point, will
+find her pains rewarded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Griffith has always been extremely
+painstaking about screen clothes. Even in the
+early days of the old Biograph two-reelers we
+had screen tests for costumes. It was no unusual
+thing to hear him say, after one of us
+had been at much pains to select a costume
+which we thought did justice to both our part
+and ourselves, “No, that won’t do!” Possibly
+we were trying to do too much justice to ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Anyhow we often had as many as four costumes
+made before Mr. Griffith was suited.
+Then he invariably suggested a ribbon, a fan,
+a bit of old lace, etc., the effect of which upon
+the screen was always pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>I have been told that one of the sweetest and,
+at the same time, most pathetic scenes done in
+motion pictures occurred in “The Birth of a
+Nation” where I, as Flora Cameron, the little
+sister of the Confederate soldier, trimmed my
+cheap, home-made dress in preparing to welcome
+home my big brother.</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Henry Walthall, himself a southerner
+by birth, who suggested this bit of business.</p>
+
+<p>You will remember the situation. The Camerons,
+an old and distinguished Southern family,
+had been impoverished by the war. They
+were preparing for the return of the big
+brother—played capitally by Mr. Walthall—with
+the mixture of emotion to be expected
+under the circumstances. I, as the youngest
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>member of the family, was least affected by
+our cruel poverty. The joy of being about to
+see my big brother again overcame any other
+feeling.</p>
+
+<p>I begin to dress. The sadness of my stricken
+family cannot affect my holiday spirit. I have
+but one dress. It is of sack cloth. I find that
+its pitiful plainness is not in keeping with my
+happiness or the importance of the event.
+Looking about for something with which to
+trim that dress I find some strips of cotton—“southern
+ermine,” as it was called. With these
+I trim that homely old dress, spotting the “ermine”
+with soot from the fireplace, in a manner
+that I think will be pleasing to my big
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Walthall suggested the “southern ermine”
+and it was Mr. Griffith, always kindly
+in the matter of accepting a suggestion, who
+built the drama about it. I have had many
+women, from the North as well as the South,
+tell me that to them this scene is the most affecting
+they ever have seen in the picture
+drama. I know I have played few, if any, in
+which I have felt more deeply the spirit of
+the action.</p>
+
+<p>In “The Birth of a Nation,” by the way, all
+of us were forced to do a great deal of research
+work upon our costumes. This is a good thing.
+It gets one quickly into the spirit of the drama
+that is to be played.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p>
+
+<p>As I say, I have always appreciated the advantages
+of modish dress upon the screen even
+though I have had in my eight years of acting
+only one “clothes” part. By clothes part I
+mean one in which the star dresses in modern
+garments in every scene. I began my career
+as a screen waif with the result that the literary
+men who have to do with the stories picked
+for me, have kept me at this style of part.</p>
+
+<p>There is never a story written in which a
+poor, little heroine conquers against great odds—usually
+after much suffering and not a few
+beatings—but that many friends rush to tell
+me that so and so is “a regular Mae Marsh
+part.” Such is the power of association.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I very much enjoyed my one dressed-up
+part. That was “The Cinderella Man.” I understand
+that there was great doubt expressed
+by the scenario department that I should be
+able to play such a role for, since the heroine
+was the daughter of a wealthy man, there was
+no occasion for her appearing in rags.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Margaret Mayo, the well-known dramatist,
+who wrote “Polly of the Circus,”
+“Baby Mine,” etc., was here my stanch advocate.
+Both she and Mr. George Loane Tucker,
+one of our greatest directors, insisted that I
+could do the part. It was decided to make the
+trial.</p>
+
+<p>“Go to Lucille,” suggested Miss Mayo, “explain
+the story to the designer and let her show
+you the kind of costumes she would suggest.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p>
+
+<p>Expense was to be no object. Mr. Tucker
+and I met one afternoon on Fifty-seventh
+street and, entering Lucille’s, we went into a
+clothes conference with a designer. The result
+was a mild orgy of beautiful gowns.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided that Lucille should make two
+dresses of a particular design, one green and
+one gray, as the gown which I was to wear in
+a great many of the scenes.</p>
+
+<p>Showing that cost does not indicate fitness
+I remember that the gray dress—which was
+$100 cheaper than the green—was the one
+which we decided to use. My costume bill for
+“The Cinderella Man” exceeded $2,000. There
+are many actresses who spend far more than
+that for clothes on every picture. But compared
+with the amount that I had been spending
+in my “poor girl” roles that $2,000 was as
+a mountain to a sand dune.</p>
+
+<p>“The Cinderella Man” was a great success
+and we were happy; particularly Miss Mayo
+and Mr. Tucker, who had never doubted that
+I could do a dressed-up part.</p>
+
+<p>The matter of costumes, then, is one of the
+important things that the beginner must consider.
+On the screen clothes may be said to
+talk; even to act. The male artists, I am sure,
+also realize this. But the actress, particularly,
+must always dress in a manner to get the maximum
+of benefit from her clothes whether they
+be cheap or expensive.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p>
+
+<p>In “The Birth of a Nation” during the famous
+cliff scene I experimented with a half
+dozen dresses until I hit upon one whose plainness
+was a guarantee that it would not divert
+from my expression in that which was a very
+vital moment.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">
+    CHAPTER VII
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Camera-consciousness and a way to cure it—Why it is</i><br>
+<i>fatal to imitate—Some scenes</i><br>
+<i>in “Intolerance.”</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>The several qualities most likely to succeed
+upon the screen having been discussed, and the
+importance of knowing the story, make-up and
+costuming having been established, my candidate
+is now ready to go before the camera.</p>
+
+<p>All that has been done before is but to build
+up to this vital moment. The camera tells at
+once and usually in no uncertain terms whether
+one is possessed of star possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>It is a sort of court from which there is no
+appeal. For that reason every expression,
+every movement, every feeling and, I verily believe,
+every thought are important once the
+camera has begun to turn.</p>
+
+<p>Now the actress or actor is standing entirely
+upon her or his own feet. Previously they
+have had the benefit of all the advice and help
+that the many departments of a studio could
+proffer. In a word they have been able to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>lean upon someone else and to correct mistakes
+at leisure.</p>
+
+<p>It is different before the camera. The beginner
+will at once feel very much alone and
+terribly conspicuous. This tends toward self-consciousness,
+or camera-consciousness, which
+must be immediately overcome or success is
+impossible. Camera-consciousness is the bane
+of the beginner. I think most of us have suffered
+more or less from it. I have known
+actresses who possessed it to such a degree
+that, finding they could not rid themselves of
+it, they left the screen. By extreme good fortune
+this never happened to be one of my troubles.</p>
+
+<p>Self-consciousness on the screen is much the
+same thing as stage fright in the spoken drama
+and proceeds, I suppose, from the same source,
+which is the inability to forget one’s self.</p>
+
+<p>When a dear friend of mine first began playing
+small parts she found that she suffered
+from it. She also saw that it would certainly
+be fatal if she didn’t cure it.</p>
+
+<p>“For that reason,” she said to herself, “the
+best thing to do is to think so hard about the
+part that I am playing that I won’t have time
+to think of anything else.”</p>
+
+<p>She gave herself good advice. Anyhow it
+worked and I am sure it will be successful in
+the case of the average beginner. If so, then
+camera-consciousness will really be a blessing
+in disguise, for it will have taught the actress
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>concentration upon her part and concentration,
+in every fiber of one’s being, I believe, is the big
+secret of screen success.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the case of one young actress
+who came to me in tears saying that when she
+rehearsed her part in the privacy of her own
+home, or dressing room, she felt every inch of
+it, but once under the gaze of the director, the
+assistant director, the cameraman, possibly the
+author and perhaps a number of privileged
+persons about the studio, she seemed to wilt.</p>
+
+<p>“Look at it this way,” I advised. “When
+you are acting the director has his work to do
+and is doing it. So has the assistant director.
+Likewise the cameraman and the assistant cameraman
+have their work to do and are doing it.
+So are the other actors. As for the lookers-on,
+request that they leave. Then imagine you are
+in a big schoolroom where everyone is busy at
+his or her lessons. You have your lesson to
+get which is concentrating upon your part. Go
+ahead with it.”</p>
+
+<p>It helped the girl in question. She has become
+a very excellent and charming star and
+while she still prefers to work upon a secluded
+stage she does not find it positively necessary,
+as do some actresses. In any event there is no
+trace of camera-consciousness in her acting.</p>
+
+<p>Camera-consciousness having been eliminated
+the beginner can now throw himself or
+herself entirely into the part being played. By
+throwing one’s self into the part I do not mean
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>forcing it. Nothing is quite so bad as that. I
+mean feeling it. If you do not feel the particular
+action being played then the result will certainly
+be a lack of sincerity. We have already
+decided that that is fatal.</p>
+
+<p>Let me illustrate:</p>
+
+<p>While we were playing “Intolerance,” one
+cycle of which is still being released as “The
+Mother and the Law,” I had to do a scene
+where, in the big city’s slums, my father dies.</p>
+
+<p>The night before I did this scene I went to
+the theater—something, by the way, I seldom
+do when working—to see Marjorie Rambeau
+in “Kindling.”</p>
+
+<p>To my surprise and gratification she had to
+do a scene in this play that was somewhat similar
+to the one that I was scheduled to play in
+“Intolerance.” It made a deep impression
+upon me.</p>
+
+<p>As a consequence, the next day before the
+camera in the scene depicting my sorrow and
+misery at the death of my father, I began to
+cry with the memory of Marjorie Rambeau’s
+part uppermost in my mind. I thought, however,
+that it had been done quite well and was
+anxious to see it on the screen.</p>
+
+<p>I was in for very much of a surprise. A
+few of us gathered in the projection room and
+the camera began humming. I saw myself
+enter with a fair semblance of misery. But
+there was something about it that was not convincing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p077.jpg" alt="Blanche Sweet and Wallace Reid">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>Back to the old Mutual days with Blanche Sweet and Wallace Reid.</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Griffith, who was closely studying the
+action, finally turned in his seat and said:</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what you were thinking about
+when you did that, but it is evident that it was
+not about the death of your father.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is true,” I said. I did not admit what
+I was thinking about.</p>
+
+<p>We began immediately upon the scene again.
+This time I thought of the death of my own
+father and the big tragedy to our little home,
+then in Texas. I could recall the deep sorrow
+of my mother, my sisters, my brother and myself.</p>
+
+<p>This scene is said to be one of the most effective
+in “The Mother and the Law.”</p>
+
+<p>The beginner may learn from that that it
+never pays to imitate anyone else’s interpretation
+of any emotion. Each of us when we
+are pleased, injured, or affected in any way
+have our own way of showing our feelings.
+This is one thing that is our very own.</p>
+
+<p>When before the camera, therefore, we
+must remember that when we feel great sorrow
+the audience wants to see our own sorrow and
+not an imitation of Miss Blanche Sweet’s or
+Mme. Nazimova’s. We must feel our own
+part and take heed of my favorite screen
+maxim, which is that thoughts do register.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that we have good and bad days
+before the camera. There are times when to
+feel and to act are the easiest things imaginable
+and other occasions when it seems impossible
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>to catch the spirit that we know is necessary.
+In this we are more fortunate than our brothers
+upon the spoken stage, for we can do it
+over again.</p>
+
+<p>It is also very often true that even when we
+are entirely in the spirit of our part, and believe
+we have done a good day’s work, that
+there will be some mechanical defect in the
+scenes taken which makes it necessary to do
+them over, possibly when we feel least like
+so doing.</p>
+
+<p>In this event it is a good thing to remember
+that it doesn’t pay to cry over spilt milk.
+We must learn to take the bitter with the
+sweet. Fortunately the mechanics of picture
+taking are constantly improving.</p>
+
+<p>The hardest dramatic work I ever did was
+in the courtroom scenes in “Intolerance.” We
+retook these scenes on four different occasions.
+Each time I gave to the limit of my
+vitality and ability. I put everything into my
+portrayal that was in me. It certainly paid.
+Parts of each of the four takes—some of them
+done at two weeks’ intervals—were assembled
+to make up those scenes which you, as the audience,
+finally beheld upon the screen.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, when first going before a camera
+it is well to resolve to put as much into one’s
+performance as possible. We cannot too
+greatly concentrate upon our parts. If we do
+not feel them we can be very sure they will not
+convince our audiences.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">
+    CHAPTER VIII
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Over-acting and a horrible example—the value of</i><br>
+<i>repression and emphasis—How we</i><br>
+<i>act with the body.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>Good screen acting consists of the ability to
+accurately portray a state of mind.</p>
+
+<p>That sounds simple, yet how often upon the
+screen have you seen an important part played
+in a manner that made you, yourself, feel that
+you were passing through the experiences being
+unfolded in the plot. I imagine not often.</p>
+
+<p>If a part is under-played or, worse, over-played—for
+there is nothing so depressing as
+a screen actress run amuck in a flood of sundry
+emotions—it exerts a definite influence upon
+you, the audience.</p>
+
+<p>You begin to lose sympathy with the character
+itself. You are interested or irritated by
+the mannerisms—often hardly less than gymnastics—of
+the actor or actress. You never
+identify such an actor or actress with the part
+they are playing for the very good reason that
+they are not playing the part. They are playing
+their idea of acting <i>at</i> a part.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span></p>
+
+<p>In any event your interest in the story crumbles.
+What the author intended as a subtle
+character development flattens out. An ingenious
+plot is ruined by its treatment. You index
+that particular evening as among those
+wasted. I know. I have done the same.</p>
+
+<p>For those who would like to take up the
+screen as a career, however, such an evening
+may prove very profitable. For it is the learning
+what not to do that is important. There
+never was a character portrayal done upon the
+screen that could not have been spoiled without
+this knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>I have in mind a photodrama of 1920 that
+because of the excellence of its plot gained
+quite a success. But for me it was ruined by
+the ridiculous overacting of the heroine.</p>
+
+<p>She had beautiful dark eyes and seemed to
+think—it was a melodrama—that the proper
+way to display screen talent was to dilate and
+roll those eyes as though she were constantly
+in terror.</p>
+
+<p>She had added to that trick one of dropping
+her jaw which I understood to be her idea of
+the way to register astonishment. I cannot
+begin to describe the effect upon me of those
+horrified eyes and open mouth. At the end of
+six reels I felt like screaming. There was no
+time when I should have been surprised had
+she wiggled her ears.</p>
+
+<p>Either she was unfortunate in her choice of
+a director or he, poor fellow, was powerless to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>stop her once she had decided upon her program
+of mouth and eyes.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first things that a screen actress
+must learn is the value of emphasis. In the
+case that I have cited above the actress threw
+herself emotionally (?) so far beyond the
+mark in little moments that when a big situation
+in the development of the plot occurred
+she had nothing left. The impression consequently
+was one of a strained sameness. Than
+that there is no quicker way to wear out one’s
+audience. It is like shouting at one who has
+sat down for a quiet chat. The shout should
+be used at no distance less than a city block.</p>
+
+<p>No screen actress makes a shrewder use of
+emphasis than Norma Talmadge. She seems
+invariably to hold much in reserve with the result
+that when she does let go in a big emotional
+scene the effect is brought home to the
+audience with telling force. There are other
+actresses who play with reserve. But it is important
+that with Miss Talmadge her repression
+seems ever illuminated by the fires of potential
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>The student of the screen will do well to
+study these matters of emphasis and repression.
+They are all important. Our manner
+of life itself is an accepted repression, outlined
+by laws for the streets and conventions for the
+drawing room. From the screen viewpoint repression
+is a vital thing, if for no other reason
+than the fact that it gives the audience a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>breathing spell. After a breathing spell it is
+the better disposed to appreciate emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever I study a scenario or story it is
+with an eye for the contrast of moods and the
+situations that call for emotional emphasis. I
+plan in advance of the actual camera work the
+pace at which I will play various stages in the
+development of the story. By shutting my eyes
+I can almost <i>see</i> how the part will look upon
+the screen. If there is a sufficient contrast of
+moods and opportunity for emphasis I feel that
+I shall, at least, be able to do all within my
+power to make the story a success.</p>
+
+<p>The physical strain before a camera is a peculiar
+thing. At no time is the motion picture
+actress or actor called upon for a sustained
+performance such as is true on the spoken
+stage. For that reason we should theoretically
+be in condition to put forth our very best
+efforts on each of the short scenes or “shots”—averaging
+not over two minutes in photographing—that
+we are called upon to do. The
+ordinary director is well satisfied if he averages
+twenty “shots” a day during production.</p>
+
+<p>But here, I should say, appearances are deceiving.
+Genius has been described as the
+ability to resume a mood. In the case of motion
+pictures it is necessary that a mood be resumed
+not once or twice, but possibly twenty
+times during a day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p085.jpg" alt="Norma Talmadge">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>Norma Talmadge whose acting is notable for its
+admirable repression.</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p>
+
+<p>This is no less important than it is at first
+difficult. There may be an hour or two hours’
+interval between scenes—often longer than
+that—and picking up the thread of the story
+where it was dropped, the actress must resume
+the mood of her characterization.</p>
+
+<p>I can suggest no better aid to this undertaking
+than retiring to one’s dressing room and remaining
+quiet. Absolute quiet is an excellent
+thing for the actress during the working day.
+It gives her a rest from the turmoil of the
+studio set. It provides her a chance to do a
+little mental bookkeeping on the part she is
+playing. I have found it a great help.</p>
+
+<p>This ability to resume a mood, however,
+soon becomes something that is subconsciously
+accomplished and for that reason need not be
+too much worried over by the beginner.</p>
+
+<p>There is one quality on the screen that the
+audience always likes. That is vivacity, and
+by vivacity I mean both of the face and the
+body.</p>
+
+<p>Vivacity in this respect is a lively and likable
+sort of animation which goes a long way
+toward establishing that mercurial quality
+which is known as “screen personality.”</p>
+
+<p>I have never heard anyone give a very good
+definition of “screen personality.” The most
+that can be said is that some seem to have it
+and some don’t. Certain it is that it is valuable
+quality, for it will not stay hidden.</p>
+
+<p>In the news weeklies that are so popular on
+the screen I can, in a group of men or women,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>almost instantly pick those persons who have
+screen personality. It makes them stand out
+sharply in contrast to their companions. Ex-President
+Wilson, for instance, has screen personality
+while President Harding, I am certain,
+will make a better President than he
+would an actor.</p>
+
+<p>The movement of the body contributes to
+this sought after animation. The body is almost
+the equal of the face in expression and
+the way to talk and use the hands and feet are
+things that must be sedulously studied.</p>
+
+<p>Many stage directors have advised famous
+actresses to “learn how to walk” and before a
+camera one not only has to learn how to walk
+but how to walk in many different ways.</p>
+
+<p>We would not, for example, expect a little
+girl on New York’s East Side to employ the
+same body carriage as a society girl walking
+down Fifth avenue. There seem to be so many
+schools of walking!</p>
+
+<p>Thus in going over a part it is of the utmost
+importance that we decide upon the way our
+heroine is going to carry herself and then
+throw our body, as well as our thoughts and
+expression, into our role. I have often used
+this matter of walking—I was about to say art
+of walking—to very good effect. I should advise
+the beginner to observe the many different
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>ways in which various persons accomplish expression
+through the movement of the body.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was in the early days. It was in Yonkers.
+We were making “The Escape.” It was a
+street scene and we were working with a concealed
+camera. Mr. Donald Crisp was playing
+the brutal husband. He drew back his fist to
+strike me. I was the forlorn wife.</p>
+
+<p>“If yu’ touch that lady I’ll knock yer block
+off,” said a threatening voice.</p>
+
+<p>It was a young Yonkers bravo. Absorbed
+in the scene he had forgotten that it was acting,
+particularly with the camera concealed.</p>
+
+<p>I often think of that incident when at a picture
+play I hear someone say: “People don’t
+act like that in real life.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>If I were a director there is nothing I should
+rank as more important than rehearsals. I do
+not mean merely running over the scene before
+it is filmed. All directors do that. The ideal
+rehearsal is one which calls together the leading
+parts perhaps a week before production
+and meticulously works out every vital scene
+in the story.</p>
+
+<p>No director of the spoken stage would
+think of producing a play without doing this.
+Yet in motion pictures a production that may
+cost twenty times as much as the average
+spoken drama is often put on with twenty
+times less of care in rehearsal. It is illogical
+and costly.</p>
+
+<p>Working with the director of the type who
+leaves everything until the last minute the
+actor or actress feels a strain that takes away
+from the performance rendered. On the other
+hand where painstaking rehearsal is practiced
+the actor acquires a poise and deftness of
+touch that justify the preliminary preparation,
+say nothing of the labor spared in editing.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">
+    CHAPTER IX
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Long shots, intermediates and close-ups—“Hogging</i><br>
+<i>the camera” and ingenious leading men—</i><br>
+<i>Keeping one’s poise under fire.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>While the actress will exert herself in
+every “shot” or “take”—as the separate exposures
+of a scene are called—she comes to
+know that the result of her acting upon the
+screen is greatly influenced by the distance
+from the camera that she has worked.</p>
+
+<p>There are, for our present purposes, three
+different distances which we work from the
+camera. There is the long shot, the intermediate
+and the close-up or insert. With the gradations
+of these we need not now concern ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The long shot is usually taken to establish
+the atmosphere and setting of a scene. In this
+the actress finds herself ordinarily so far from
+the camera that her facial expression registers
+indifferently. For that reason the body movement,
+with which she is playing a character,
+substitutes for facial expression. She is known
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>to the audience by her costume and carriage
+and makes her appeal largely through these.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the dramatic action is now played
+at three-quarters length; that is from the face
+to the knees. As we weave in and out of a
+scene, very often the entire body is shown and
+the feet have their opportunity for expression—they
+assuredly act!—but the majority of the
+intermediate shots through which the dramatic
+action is conducted cut off the lower part of
+the body.</p>
+
+<p>Here, in brief, is the combination of facial
+expression and bodily movement that establishes
+the actress. It will be through the intermediate
+shots that my candidate will make or
+break. All our preparation for a part and our
+fitness for it are here brought to the test.</p>
+
+<p>An important item in this phase of screen
+acting is the effect that those playing opposite
+will exert upon one. The good actor or actress
+helps one. Things seem to swim along. Work
+becomes a pleasure!</p>
+
+<p>But very often the actress will find that she
+is forced to work opposite other actresses or
+actors whose style is disagreeable. If they are
+too loud or too full of antics it has the effect
+of taking your mind off your work—if you let
+it! In such a case very often the director
+will observe the difficulty and a word of caution
+spoken in private to the offending actor or
+actress will improve conditions.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span></p>
+
+<p>But sometimes the director is not observing
+and you are forced to make the best of conditions.
+I recall one rather well-known actor
+who, to use a frank expression, “spits as he
+talks.” If I should ever be compelled to play
+opposite him again I should prepare myself
+either with an umbrella or a bathing suit. I
+think it was only his total unconsciousness of
+this habit that made it possible for me to continue.</p>
+
+<p>We women are told that we are very vain.
+Perhaps we are. But if my experience with
+male actors may be taken as a criterion I should
+say that vanity has been pretty well distributed
+throughout the world.</p>
+
+<p>With a few notable exceptions, I make bold
+to affirm that the leading man counts that day
+lost when he has not stolen the camera from
+the star (poor girl!) not once but several times.
+In the profession we call this “hogging the
+camera.”</p>
+
+<p>The tricks that some of these amiable gentlemen
+will play to keep themselves in the immediate
+center of the foreground deserve
+nothing less than a volume. This leads to many
+amusing experiences.</p>
+
+<p>I remember one leading man who had a habit
+of falling back from the camera during the
+progress of a scene. The result of this, of
+course, was to turn me toward him, leaving
+my back exposed to the camera. He was very
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>ingenuous. I thought, at first, the habit was
+unintentional.</p>
+
+<p>But as work upon our play progressed he
+repeated this maneuver often enough to convince
+me that I was dealing with a rather
+clever artist in his way. I began to anticipate
+him. When he started to drop away from the
+camera, instead of turning toward him, as I
+had previously done, I stood still and practiced
+talking over my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>This had the value, at least, of showing my
+face and not my back to the audience. In addition
+it gave me an unequal prominence in the
+picture, since he was standing three or four
+feet behind me. Realizing his disadvantage he
+quickly resumed a position beside me and
+thereafter abandoned his little trick.</p>
+
+<p>Since that time, however, I have seen him
+in other plays and he is quite as original as
+ever.</p>
+
+<p>I might go on indefinitely with such instances.
+Enough that the artist must be on
+her guard for it seems to be acting-nature to
+want to “hog the camera.” But as the stars
+and directors are aware of this tendency its
+accomplishment has become more difficult.</p>
+
+<p>It is particularly trying, too, to play opposite
+one of your own sex who insists upon over-acting.
+This is a common case. This kind of
+actress generally realizes that she has but a
+few important moments before the camera and
+is determined to make the best of them even if
+she has to “act the star off the set.” I have
+actually felt sometimes as though I were being
+pushed from the stage by some actress, who,
+without any particular reason, has come in like
+a whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p095.jpg" alt="A long shot">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>A long shot, the author, and some screen beginners in the days of “Hoodoo Ann.”</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p>
+
+<p>The beginner will find himself best off if he
+does not let the style of those playing opposite
+him affect him too much. If the style is good
+take advantage of it. It will be real help. If
+it is bad one should the more concentrate upon
+his part and thus maintain his own poise under
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>If in these important intermediate shots
+where the most of the dramatic action is sustained
+we remember the various points that we
+have discussed we should come off acceptably.</p>
+
+<p>The silent drama is silent only in its completed
+product. Before the camera lines are
+spoken and it is of utmost importance that
+they be pronounced clearly and with feeling.</p>
+
+<p>In spoken sub-titles that are expressively
+mouthed and well-timed in the cutting, the sub-title
+seems to blend in with the voice—though
+it be unheard—of the speaker, particularly so
+to the spectator who is clever at lip-reading.</p>
+
+<p>While it is not necessary to memorize a great
+number of lines, as on the spoken stage, it is
+necessary that those lines which are read be
+given with the correct shade of feeling, just as
+they should be on the dramatic stage.</p>
+
+<p>Lines are particularly important to many
+persons who show a maximum of expression
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>while speaking. Here the silent voice is a genuine
+asset.</p>
+
+<p>Most close-ups, or inserts, as we call them,
+are of the face alone. Sometimes there may
+be a close-up of a hand, a foot, etc., but the
+most acceptable style of direction these days
+seems to be not to overdo in this respect.</p>
+
+<p>In the close-up the face of the actress is
+usually about 24 inches from the camera.
+Every line of her face, every thought, indeed,
+her very soul, will now be more or less registered.
+Nothing, in the whole range of screen
+acting, is more effective than the close-up.</p>
+
+<p>The insert is always to depict a particular
+emotion. In a single scene, in the intermediate
+shots, we have perhaps expressed several degrees
+of feeling but in the insert it is a matter
+of one emotion at a time.</p>
+
+<p>Here we are not aided by the action or expression
+of any brother artist. It is entirely
+a matter of imagination or feeling. The lens
+of the camera, like the eye of a Cyclops, is
+staring sheerly at us and it is not necessary to
+feel its breath to believe that it is a living thing.</p>
+
+<p>When called upon for an insert we know
+precisely the emotion that we are supposed to
+express and will bend every effort to concentrate
+upon it.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with there are two important
+things to remember in the insert. One is that
+the make up should be very much lighter than
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>in the long or intermediate shots; the other,
+that the action will be slower.</p>
+
+<p>The reasons are fairly obvious. If the same
+make up that is used in the dramatic action is
+continued it becomes immediately too conspicuous.
+Slower action is necessary because
+at the distance of two feet the camera is limited
+in the speed of movement that it can faithfully
+record.</p>
+
+<p>In the insert we are ever reminded of the
+value of repression. The mere expression of
+the eyes may be all that is necessary to convey
+to the audience the emotion of the player. The
+truth is that the effectiveness of the close-up
+seems to be in inverse proportion to the amount
+of facial action in it.</p>
+
+<p>When we behold an insert in which there is
+much grimacing and contortion of the face we
+realize that there is no real depth of feeling.
+It is playing at feeling.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand I have seen vital emotion
+so delicately expressed in the insert that its
+effect was haunting and beautiful. Observe
+in “Broken Blossoms” and “Way Down East”
+the close-ups of Lillian Gish.</p>
+
+<p>Much as the good old “back spot” is popular
+among the fluffy blonds, so is the insert welcomed
+by all screen actresses. We believe that
+it shows us off at our best and brings us nearer,
+as it were, to our audiences.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there are some actresses favored over
+others by the insert. One whose features are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>naturally coarse, or hard, loses something
+when in close contact with the camera. Others,
+like myself, who have small features, and believe,
+therefore, that we are often at a disadvantage
+in the long and intermediate shots, are
+only too glad of the opportunity to prepare for
+an insert.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, our directors sometimes make a jest
+of saying that we seem to want a drama of
+inserts. But it is never quite so bad as that.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">
+    CHAPTER X
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Atmosphere and studio morale—Where best work is</i><br>
+<i>done—Importance of story—Value of</i><br>
+<i>“Observation Tours.”</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>The beginner has learned that he or she
+must at all times stand solidly before the camera
+upon his or her own feet. I mean this in
+a metaphorical sense. So much depends upon
+courage and self-reliance.</p>
+
+<p>If it is well not to let the style of supporting
+artists affect one, it is equally well to steel one’s
+self against the conditions under which one
+must sometimes work.</p>
+
+<p>The motion picture, after all, is a commercial
+proposition. It is very much so to the producer.
+For that reason the beginner will find
+that different studios create and maintain their
+own atmosphere. Here one will discover a
+wide range. But since we may consider ourselves
+called upon to work now in New York,
+again in California, and sometimes in Florida,
+passing from studio to studio, we shall win a
+big battle if at the outset we will determine to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>let conditions and studio atmosphere affect us
+as little as possible.</p>
+
+<p>It is here, again, a case of taking advantage
+of conditions if they are good, and trying to
+ignore them if they are distasteful.</p>
+
+<p>I know from experience that this will be a
+hard thing to do. If the actress finds, in the
+very air of which she breathes, unpleasantness
+and intrigue, she will be normally inclined to
+resent it hotly. Yet such resentment only
+takes away from her acting, for it diverts her
+mind, and she will be the greater loser as between
+herself and her producer.</p>
+
+<p>I have worked under such profound systems
+as considered studio spies and time charts upon
+make up, etc., as necessary to production. I
+will leave it to the reader to decide how much
+morale one will find in this sort of studio.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately such a studio and such a morale
+are the exception. But, if encountered in the
+many vicissitudes that an actress will face, it
+will be well to make the best of it; to steel one’s
+nervous system against odds. Self-reliance in
+such a case is no less than golden.</p>
+
+<p>But in the majority of studios the manufacture
+of motion pictures is not put upon the
+same level as the making of gloves or brooms,
+and the beginner will find a kindly and friendly
+atmosphere both charming and helpful.</p>
+
+<p>In those studios that glow with a warm,
+friendly atmosphere there is always a good-natured
+rivalry and spirit of fellowship which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>is certain to reflect itself in the finished picture.
+For that reason it is a genuine asset.
+Here hours are buoyant minutes and the actors
+and directors find their reward in the excellence
+of their endeavor, as well as somewhere
+in Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Another point that the beginner must remember
+is that it is much harder to make good
+in pictures now than it was when I started.
+That, of course, is because of the greater competition.</p>
+
+<p>Where ten years ago there was one boy or
+girl ambitious for a screen career there are
+now a thousand. I often think that the screen
+has been very kind to those who had faith in
+it in its babyhood. It has brought to so many
+of these fame and fortune.</p>
+
+<p>And sometimes, when I observe some fairly
+competent actress or actor thwarted in an attempt
+to reach stardom, I wonder if the screen,
+after its own fashion, is not asserting itself for
+this lack of faith in those early days.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate those who got in first secured a
+big advantage over those who wondered if a
+multiple-reel picture could be a success and
+doubted it for, as some said, “It would be too
+great a strain upon the eye.”</p>
+
+<p>But if there are more aspirants now there
+are assuredly more opportunities and my candidate
+need have no fear. Sooner or later
+merit may be counted upon to assert itself. All
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>about us in motion pictures we every day perceive
+the truth of this.</p>
+
+<p>It is also true that the screen is in a state of
+constant change. The methods of acting
+change; the methods of direction; the methods
+of presentation; the methods of story selection—all
+is continually in flux.</p>
+
+<p>No one knows what another five years will
+bring. But we do know that some of our
+prized pictures of five or more years ago would
+be instantly pointed out as old-fashioned by
+the average theater-goer. That is because
+there is no fundamental point about them that
+has not been somehow affected by time.</p>
+
+<p>Yet no pictures I ever will make will be
+dearer to me than my “The Sands of Dee,”
+“Apple Pie Mary,” “The Little Liar,” “The
+Escape,” “Hoodoo Ann,” “The Wharf Rat,”
+etc.</p>
+
+<p>This constant evolution is a matter to be
+reckoned with. To stand still is to be lost. We
+must always be pushing ahead. For that reason
+the beginner and the star will find it greatly to
+their advantage to follow everything that is
+done on the screen.</p>
+
+<p>In unexpected places we discover new development.
+Some unheard-of player in a boisterous
+two-reel comedy may disclose some little
+trick, or expression, or bit of business, that
+can be easily interpolated in the more serious
+drama with good effect. And so on.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p105.jpg" alt="Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>A pair excellent in its screenic balance—Gloria Swanson
+and Thomas Meighan.</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p>
+
+<p>We must read widely. Try as they may,
+we can be mortally certain that no scenario
+editors can always supply the vehicle which we
+feel is suitable for us to play. There will come
+a time when the actress will be thrown upon
+her own resources, either in the matter of rejection
+or selection of a story. She must be
+able to put her finger on what she considers a
+vital defect in some narrative that appeals to
+the editor, or discover for him good points in
+some other story against which he is prejudiced.</p>
+
+<p>In any event it will be extremely hazardous
+not to participate as much as possible in the
+business of deciding upon the play.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is so vital as a good story. Even
+when poorly acted it will be of greater appeal
+than a well played scenario of no merit. Motion
+picture actresses prosper almost in exact
+ratio to the inherent worth of their scenarios.</p>
+
+<p>At first this story matter will not greatly
+concern the tyro. But as the beginner finds
+himself or herself slowly crawling up the ladder
+to stardom he or she will do well to think
+often upon the type of story to be preferred if
+given a chance to star.</p>
+
+<p>By this process the beginner will be visualizing
+himself in a role. Of a certain his most
+pleasant visualization will be the role in which
+he feels that he would be at his best. In such
+a way, when the chance comes, the star may
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>know exactly the story he or she will fit perfectly.</p>
+
+<p>Once the story is decided upon there are
+many ways to bring to it genuine color. In
+several of my early plays Mr. Griffith sent me
+down into the New York slums on an “observation
+tour.” We all made such tours. In “Intolerance”
+I visited sick and stricken mothers
+in baby hospitals. We spent a half-day once
+in a jail observing the characters therein.</p>
+
+<p>It is always important in acting to show a
+thing as it is, not as we think it ought to be,
+and for that reason these “observation tours”
+are of great benefit.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">
+    CHAPTER XI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Mr. Griffith and some of his methods of direction—</i><br>
+<i>What everyone associated with the screen</i><br>
+<i>owes to him—About patience.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>I have planned all along to dedicate this
+chapter to Mr. David Wark Griffith, and now
+that I have arrived at it, I find that my pen is
+unequal to the task. No mere chapter, nor
+book, could undertake to tell Mr. Griffith’s importance
+to motion pictures. The things that
+he has accomplished in the past ten years, invariably
+in the face of great odds, almost pass
+belief.</p>
+
+<p>For Mr. Griffith I have the strong and mixed
+feeling that the child has for its benefactor, or
+the student for a beloved preceptor. At an
+age now where I can more appreciate the many
+trials that he endured I look back fondly to
+those days when Mary Pickford, Blanche
+Sweet, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron,
+and myself were beginning our careers
+and at the same time founding what has come
+to be known as the Griffith school.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span></p>
+
+<p>Nor were we all. If the list of actresses,
+actors and directors who spent the formulative
+days of their screen careers with Mr. Griffith
+were compiled I believe it would be found to
+include many of those who have reached the
+heights. Mr. George Loane Tucker, Mr.
+Thomas Ince, Mr. Marshall Neilan and Mr.
+Raoul Walsh, to name but four, were directors
+that he started on the road to success.</p>
+
+<p>Those were the days of the old Biograph. I
+am sure they were of the happiest that any of
+us ever have spent. We made two-reelers then.
+But we made good two-reelers. And the guiding
+genius of the organization was Mr. Griffith,
+tireless in his quest for something new, something
+big, something that would expand and
+elevate this new art to which he had pledged
+his very soul.</p>
+
+<p>His energy in those days, just as it is now,
+was astounding. Traveling from New York
+to Los Angeles not long ago, I happened to
+meet aboard the train Mr. Griffith’s private
+secretary.</p>
+
+<p>“He seems never so unhappy,” she said, “as
+when he is taking a day off. He mopes around
+the studio, hands in his pockets, with an air
+almost comical. It is as though he were
+silently resenting such foolishness as days off.”</p>
+
+<p>With this energy I remember those early
+days best for Mr. Griffith’s infinite patience.
+I can truly say that he had the patience to make
+us succeed. He never despaired no matter how
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>backward we might be. He kept at us constantly
+to bring out the best that was in us.
+And even on those extraordinary occasions
+when he seemed to lose patience—usually when
+we had worn his nerves to a frazzle—we always
+had that wonderful feeling that he was
+intensely loyal to all of us.</p>
+
+<p>Those were the days when in addition to
+schooling us to pictures Mr. Griffith was constantly
+experimenting with such things as
+close-ups, fade-outs, etc., that were to revolutionize
+the entire picture drama and lift it
+above the atmosphere of the nickelodeon.</p>
+
+<p>For he did lift it. And he is still lifting it.</p>
+
+<p>Not only those privileged few of us who consider
+ourselves of the Griffith school are indebted
+to his genius. Every actress, or actor,
+or director, on the screen today, who has a
+weekly salary that runs into three figures, can
+thank Mr. Griffith for making motion pictures
+big and prosperous enough to so recompense
+them.</p>
+
+<p>It is not the money that Mr. Griffith has
+made possible, but the dignity that he put into
+this new art for which we are most beholden
+to him. Motion pictures were lightly held until
+“The Birth of a Nation” shook an entire continent
+and showed the deep significance and
+possibilities of the screen art.</p>
+
+<p>It took the courage of the born fighter and
+worlds of confidence to put on such a picture as
+“The Birth of a Nation.” For here at one step
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>he was doing the unheard of thing, the thing
+almost everyone in the profession said was impossible.
+But it wasn’t impossible to Mr.
+Griffith. He did it.</p>
+
+<p>He has continued to do things just as fine.
+And if there is one fault to which the most of
+us are addicted it is that we have come to expect
+more than is humanly possible of this
+patient, humble genius.</p>
+
+<p>In my correspondence I am often asked
+many questions regarding Mr. Griffith’s manner
+of directing. Wherein is it different from
+other directors? Wherein does it excel? How
+is it possible to become associated with him?
+Can he make anyone a star? And so on.</p>
+
+<p>These questions are, in a way, difficult to
+answer. So far as I know Mr. Griffith possesses
+no magic lamp by which he makes a star
+out of anyone. It is not any one quality—unless
+it be patience—but a combination of
+many that make him the foremost of our
+directors.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Griffith is extremely human. There is
+no unnecessary flourish, or blowing of trumpets,
+about his manner of direction. That has
+the simplicity of true greatness. He never
+lords it over his players as I have seen some
+directors do. He is kindly, sympathetic and
+understanding.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p113.jpg" alt="Mr. Griffith">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>Mr. Griffith, at the left, directing a scene in
+“Intolerance.”</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps we are about to do a very vital
+scene. Mr. Griffith tilts back in his chair—he
+has a manner of directing while seated—and
+may say to the actress:</p>
+
+<p>“You understand this situation. Now let us
+see what you would do with it.”</p>
+
+<p>Here is a direct challenge. The actress is
+put upon her metal. After giving the matter
+careful consideration she plays the scene after
+her own idea. If she does it well no one is
+quicker in his praise than Mr. Griffith. If
+otherwise, no one is more kindly in pointing
+out the flaws.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, Mr. Griffith gives the actress
+a chance. How different from other directors
+I have seen. They might say under the same
+circumstances:</p>
+
+<p>“You understand this situation. Now here
+is the way to do it. Follow me closely.”</p>
+
+<p>With that the director will proceed to act
+out a scene according to his notion of how a
+woman would conduct herself under given circumstances.
+The flaw in this is obviously that
+a man and woman have a way of acting differently
+in the same situation and Mr. Griffith, by
+letting the actress show what she would do, is
+shrewd enough to profit by Nature. Our self-sufficient
+director, on the other hand, wants us
+to act only as a man would think a woman
+<i>ought</i> to act in a given situation.</p>
+
+<p>In this way Mr. Griffith draws out the best
+that is in his players, and, by seeming to depend
+upon them to stand upon their own feet,
+maintains an enthusiasm among his players—a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>sort of big family spirit—that I never have
+seen equalled in any other studio.</p>
+
+<p>I hope no one understands me to say that the
+actress, under Mr. Griffith, has the say of how
+she shall act. Quite the contrary! No one has
+a way of bringing a player more abruptly to
+his or her senses when he or she is unqualifiedly
+in the wrong.</p>
+
+<p>And no matter how well we think we have
+outlined a scene Mr. Griffith may entirely
+change it. When he does change it we know
+it is for a reason other than a fondness for
+showing authority. In other words, he has
+built up among his artists a great and abiding
+faith in his ability to do the right thing at the
+right time, or, as importantly, have it done.</p>
+
+<p>For another thing, Mr. Griffith is big enough
+not to be small about receiving suggestions.
+His people know that, with the result that they
+are always thinking up something to put into
+a scene that has not been written there. He
+listens attentively to these suggestions, even
+though he knows in advance that he probably
+cannot use one in a hundred of them. Yet that
+one may be important enough to balance the
+patience expended in listening to the other
+ninety-nine.</p>
+
+<p>To illustrate:</p>
+
+<p>In “The Birth of a Nation,” when the Cameron
+house was being mobbed by frenzied
+negroes and the family had barricaded itself
+in the cellar it was a matter of some moment
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>how the little sister, which part I was fortunate
+enough to play, would be affected.</p>
+
+<p>I can hear your average director:</p>
+
+<p>“Roll your eyes,” he would say. “Cry! Drop
+to your knees in terror.”</p>
+
+<p>In other words, it would be the same old
+stuff. It is this same old stuff that makes so
+many pictures positively deadly. The least
+that can be said about this conventional style
+of doing things is that, if it cannot be criticized,
+neither can it be applauded.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Griffith, when we came to the cellar
+scene, asked me if there had ever been a time
+in my life when I had been filled with terror.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do?” he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>“I laughed,” I answered.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the point immediately.</p>
+
+<p>“Good,” he said. “Let’s try it.”</p>
+
+<p>It was the hysterical laugh of the little girl
+in the cellar, with the drunken mob raging
+above, that was, I am sure, far more effective
+than rolling the eyes or weeping would have
+been.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Griffith is quick to appreciate the involuntary
+action of one of his actresses while a
+scene is being played or rehearsed. As for
+instance, in the court room scene in “Intolerance”
+(“The Mother and the Law”) when I
+began unconsciously to wring my handkerchief
+and press it to my face.</p>
+
+<p>“Good,” he said, “keep it up!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span></p>
+
+<p>We are gratified when Mr. Griffith accepts
+any suggestion for business, etc., for we know
+he has a fine sense of distinction and, for every
+idea we give him, he returns a hundred.</p>
+
+<p>This system of suggestion extends beyond
+the players to the mechanical department with
+the result that camera men and assistants, as
+well as assistant directors, are always on the
+alert for something new. They know their
+suggestion will be given due consideration.
+And for that reason to Mr. Griffith and his
+staff we owe credit for most of the new inventions
+of telling a story by pictures. This director
+is as expert in the mechanics of his art
+as he is bold in story conception.</p>
+
+<p>We are familiar with that smoky, hazy,
+beautiful close-up that Mr. “Billy” Bitzer invented
+by using gauze or placing the camera
+slightly out of focus. In some recent pictures
+bearing the “D. G.” stamp I have seen some
+beautiful blue values that I have not elsewhere
+observed.</p>
+
+<p>I find the space allotted to this chapter beginning
+to dwindle with a sense of having left
+unsaid so many important and interesting
+things about this wonderful director and his
+methods. But someday someone will set down
+the true estimate of the man who has done so
+much for the picture drama. And Time will
+write it even larger.</p>
+
+<p>Many of us are deeply indebted to Mr.
+Griffith and none of us owe that which can be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>repaid. For he gave us of his genius and personality
+and for these there is no return coin.</p>
+
+<p>Other directors I have had of many experiences
+and varied training. Sometimes we have
+succeeded and sometimes we have failed, and
+success is made only the more sweet by taste of
+failure. But whether we failed or succeeded
+we know, all of us, that we did our level best.
+That is something.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>In the matter of public acknowledgement
+the stage has never been so kind to its directors
+as the screen. We think of Belasco, Hopkins,
+Cohan, not forgetting Mr. Oliver Morosco,
+and are almost done.</p>
+
+<p>But on the screen, to name a few of many,
+there are the De Milles, with their uncanniness
+in seeming to make the screen talk; Tucker,
+with his painstaking thoroughness and ability
+to limn the separate values of a story; Neilan,
+with his quality of gay, unexpectedness; Tourneur,
+with his grand manner of picturization;
+Dwan, with his workman-like comprehension;
+Fitzmaurice, with his ability to make every
+scene beautiful as a painting; Walsh, with his
+all-around cleverness—all these are famous,
+and there are more.</p>
+
+<p>No medium has equalled the screen in its
+kindness to those who do creditable work.
+Witness, for instance, our camera aristocracy.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>While I have ridden faster than seventy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>miles an hour in an automobile, have been
+“ducked” in lakes, rivers, and oceans—two of
+them—have braved the wintry blasts of New
+England until I thought I was frozen, and
+done scenes with tigers, bears and lions, I have
+never feared greatly for my personal safety
+nor need the beginner.</p>
+
+<p>In really dangerous scenes “doubles”—acrobats,
+trick jumpers, bareback riders, animal
+trainers, etc.—dress in feminine garb to resemble
+the star, assume the role being played
+and risk death or danger for so many dollars
+a day. The star’s services are too valuable to
+the producer for him to allow her to take any
+unnecessary chances.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">
+    CHAPTER XII
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Opportunity for home life of motion picture actress—</i><br>
+<i>Los Angeles and New York as production</i><br>
+<i>centers—Screen morals and such.</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<p>In this final chapter I shall try to say something
+about the home life of the motion picture
+actress. In general actresses are of two
+classes: those who act both on and off the
+screen, and those who confine their efforts
+merely to the studio.</p>
+
+<p>The first class is not particularly open to
+censure. For, unless I am mistaken, the public
+desires to see its actresses act on an average of
+sixteen out of twenty-four hours. One friend
+of mine, a star, stoutly maintains that she
+would not go to the theater in anything except
+the most up-to-date garb and a conspicuous
+car! Why? Because otherwise there would
+be sure to be many who would be disappointed
+in her! If there is anything funny about this
+it is that it is somewhat true.</p>
+
+<p>Actresses, as public favorites, maintain a
+peculiar position, as Gil Blas points out, somewhere
+between royalty and the citizen without
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>being of either. The public seems to feel something
+of pride when it points out some glittering
+dreadnaught of an automobile, conspicuous
+for color or equipment, and says, “There goes
+Dolly Twinkletoes!”</p>
+
+<p>Personally I have never had this inclination
+to act both “off and on.” I am afraid, having
+been of a large family, I should have found it
+extremely difficult even had I the inclination.
+A number of sisters, and a brother or two, are
+a fine cure for any tendency to undue importance.</p>
+
+<p>And now that I have an especially charming
+daughter, and am happily married, I must
+really be set down as a conservative. That
+baby of mine! Being detained beyond hours
+at the studio one night I hurried home to see
+her before she was tucked in bed, having no
+time to take off my make up. She gazed at
+me as though she were beholding a ghost or a
+total stranger!</p>
+
+<p>A Chicago picture critic once gave me such
+advice as I think fit to pass on to those who
+think of the screen as a career. “Save the pennies,”
+she said, “they can always be spent if
+you have them.”</p>
+
+<p>Yet how many, with a splendid opportunity,
+do not save! Then some day they wake up and
+find their golden chance gone. As an old
+philosopher has pointed out, we, who find
+money so easy at times, must guard against intemperance
+and folly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span></p>
+
+<p>But this is not a sermon. We live up in the
+beautiful California mountains. There, in a
+colonial house on a small acreage, with flower
+and vegetable gardens, Airedales, chickens, a
+car, a cow, and a cat, I have a feeling of substantial
+worth-while happiness and that is the
+kind that counts.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, one of the best things about motion
+pictures is that it permits of a home life. The
+actress in vaudeville or on tour, or even on
+Broadway with the uncertainty of the length
+of runs, never has any surety where she will
+be on the morrow. We, in motion pictures,
+are fortunate enough to sign contracts that
+usually call for a year or more work in one city
+and that New York or Los Angeles. This, I
+should say, is one of the most advantageous
+things about the screen as contrasted with the
+spoken drama. There are many others.</p>
+
+<p>Since Los Angeles and New York are the
+two centers of the motion picture industry each
+has its staunch advocates as to suitability, etc.
+In any group of actresses and actors this will
+usually be the topic of a lively discussion. Personally
+I like Los Angeles. At a dinner that I
+attended some time ago the head of a big distributing
+company, who is interesting for his
+shrewd observations, said there had never been
+a really great picture done in New York City.
+“For the entire atmosphere of life there,” he
+continued, “is too superficial.”</p>
+
+<p>I agree with him. Los Angeles is friendly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>and natural. Its climate is only one of its
+many virtues.</p>
+
+<p>The screen actress will be called upon to
+meet the people of the press. Interviews are
+important. She will find that the number of
+them will usually be determined by the degree
+of success of her newest screen play. As for
+screen writers, one will discover them, in the
+majority, keen, sympathetic and altogether delightful.
+No one need have the dread of coming
+in contact with them that I originally had;
+nor resort to the subterfuges to evade them.
+I was very young then.</p>
+
+<p>Public appearance is another factor the
+screen has to deal with and sometimes I think
+this is rather overdone. During the separate
+campaigns for the sale of Liberty Bonds all of
+us tried to do our share. While I never hope
+to be able to make a speech, I find that the
+anticipation of being expected to do so fills me
+with greater terror than actually being called
+upon.</p>
+
+<p>I believe it is a good idea for the actress to
+cultivate some companion art. In between
+productions, or during an enforced vacation,
+she will have something then as an off-set to
+mere indolence. I have been interested in
+sculpture for many years, and I have an ambition
+to do something in it that will be of real
+value. If I don’t, the ambition will have been
+of real value, for it has assisted in providing
+me with many happy and instructive hours.
+That is the main thing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/p125.jpg" alt="The author">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p><i>The author at home and happy.</i></p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p>
+
+<p>The study of another art is interesting, too,
+because we immediately perceive in its form
+and substance the truth of the saying that all
+arts are one. Sculpture is a matter of repression
+and emphasis just as acting is. And when
+I am doing the figure of my baby, or modeling
+from life, I am startled to find that my errors,
+in their way, are akin to the errors of the beginning
+actress.</p>
+
+<p>There may have existed at one time a silly
+idea that actresses shouldn’t marry; that it
+hurt their box-office value, destroyed an illusion,
+etc. As though actresses were not
+women! Most of my actress friends are married
+and glad of it. Almost without exception
+those who have gone highest in the profession
+are married. The public has invariably been
+pleased about it.</p>
+
+<p>I should recommend any young actress to a
+suitable husband. It will give her a better and
+deeper insight into life and broaden her sympathy.
+There is something a little pitiable,
+something that doesn’t ring quite true, about
+the actress too ready to boast of her star-spangled
+freedom.</p>
+
+<p>I have often been asked about the morals of
+motion pictures. Will someone tell me why
+we, all of us, are so deeply concerned with our
+neighbor’s morals? And when we find them
+not all that could be desired are we filled with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>sorrow and the wish to effect an honest reform,
+or with a sort of unholy joy and a desire to
+spread scandal?</p>
+
+<p>It has been my observation that in motion
+pictures a girl can be as good as she wants to
+be. In that way our profession is identical
+with others. It is true that the glamour of the
+screen has attracted people who would be undesirable
+in any business or profession. But we
+should recognize them as such and never mistake
+them as representing the entire profession.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of those who succeed in motion
+pictures do so by honest work. That means
+long hours and application. I doubt if the average
+successful business man puts in as much
+time or as high-tension effort as the picture
+actress, actor or director who gets somewhere.
+My friends are of that kind. They are too
+busy to worry unnecessarily over what the public
+may think of motion picture morals. They
+assume only to regulate their own conduct.</p>
+
+<p>I have enjoyed doing this book. From time
+to time I have been forced to drop my work
+upon the urgent appeal of my eighteen-months’
+old daughter. She has gorgeous blue eyes with
+lashes long as twilight shadows. Her cheeks
+are exquisitely pink and her little mouth is like
+a rose-bud in spring. Her name is Mary. She
+has brought me worlds of undreamed of happiness.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p>
+
+<p>Someday Mary may want to go upon the
+screen. Even now she acts before the long
+mirror. If she can, in any way, secure her
+mother’s hat she gives a complete performance.
+My blessed baby!</p>
+
+<p>When the time has arrived for her to start
+upon her career I shall place my little book in
+her hands and say:</p>
+
+<p>“There is the most and the best that I knew
+about the screen back in those old-fashioned
+days of 1921.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">
+    Transcriber’s Notes
+  </h2>
+<p>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">p. 30 changed “had” to “has” in “she has contributed”.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">p. 40 changed “The” to “the” in “Polly of the Circus”.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">p. 46 added a period in “mask. These people”.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">Removed excess whitespace at bottom of p. 89 and top of p. 90.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">p. 97 changed “diffculties” to “difficulties”.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">p. 99 changed “bonds” to “blonds”.</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">p. 115 changed “closelly” to “closely”.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77829 ***</div>
+</body>
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+
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77829
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77829)