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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 ***