IN ANSWER TO MANY FRIENDS
As I have stated in my foreword, this book is not intended to adhere
to any fixed plan. I am writing on subjects covering a wide latitude,
many of which have been suggested by questions out of letters written
to me by friendly spirits who like my picture plays. Although the facts
relating to my theatrical career have been published over and over
again, hardly a day goes by without receipt of letters on that subject.
The prevailing notion is that I come from a theatrical family and
that I was educated for the stage. Nothing is further from the truth.
My father was a lawyer with a knowledge of the drama such as few
professionals have had. From the time I was able to eat I was fed on
Shakespeare. When I was twelve years old I could recite the principal
speeches in most of that gentleman’s plays.
My article in _Photoplay_ some months ago gave the whole story in
fewest words and the same is herewith appended.
My dramatic education was augmented by frequent contact with great
actors. My father was a friend of Mansfield, Edwin Booth, Stuart
Robson, John Drew, Frederick Warde and other famous actors who were his
guests whenever they visited Denver.
I once asked Mr. Mansfield about the best way to prepare for the stage
and he told me that there was no such thing as preparation for the
stage; but that there were certain accomplishments that were essential
to _great success_. These included a knowledge of fencing, painting and
the French language. Modesty precludes a discussion of the result of
following that advice. Suffice to say, I can defend myself fairly well
with rapier or broadsword, I can tell a Corot from a Raphael without
the aid of artificial devices, and I have made my way through France
without being arrested or going hungry.
Writers who give advice to the ambitious usually cite experiences from
their own book of life, but if any young man were to follow in my
footsteps, he’d take a rather devious path to the stage and he’d have
to travel _some_.
My parents were far from convinced that I was cut out for the stage,
so I was sent to the Colorado School of Mines to become a mining
engineer. But there didn’t seem to be any room in my head for calculus,
trigonometry and such things. I could never master higher mathematics;
therefore I could never be a mining engineer, so I quit.
Now I’m not desirous of inflicting a recital of my deficiencies on
a magnanimous public; just trying to show that one may fail in many
things before finding one’s niche in life. Certainly I failed in many
ventures, even in my first attack on the American stage. The first
onslaught didn’t even make a dent on that historic institution.
Important results have often hinged on trivial things. Tiny causes have
had _titanic effects_. If a certain actor hadn’t been sent to jail in
Minnesota a dozen and a half years ago, I wouldn’t now be writing this.
If you are familiar with baseball--and the chances are nine in ten
that you are--you know the meaning of the expression, “the breaks of
the game.” Given two baseball teams of equal strength, victory will
invariably perch on the banner of the side which “gets the breaks.”
It’s much the same on the stage or in business. Many a good player
has been sedulously avoided by whatever fate it is that deals out
fame, because the “breaks” have been against him. Conversely, many a
mediocre--or even worse player, has tasted all the fruits of victory
because he “got the breaks,” as they say on the diamond. But don’t
think I’m going to classify myself, because I’m not. Give it any name
you like--_even modesty_.
Just where I would have wound up had it not been for a strange quirk
of fate, of course no one can tell, but it was the misfortune of a
fellow player that gave me the big chance I was looking for. Perhaps
it was an indiscretion rather than a misfortune. But whatever it was,
the victim of the circumstance found himself in jail on the day we were
scheduled to treat the natives of Duluth, Minn., to a rendition of
“Hamlet.”
Now I’m not going to tell you how the star couldn’t show up and I
stepped into the breach and soliloquoyed all over the stage to the
thunderous applause of the Northmen; that would be too conventional.
Strangely enough I hadn’t set my sights that high. But I _did_ want to
play Laertes and my colleague having run afoul of some offense which
was the subject of a chapter of the Minnesota Penal Code, I played it
that night.
Well, to make a long story short, I played the part so well (?) that
it only took about ten years more to become a star on Broadway, the
ultimate goal of all who choose the way of the footlights. Seriously,
however, that was my chance and I took full advantage of it.
Perhaps the greatest pleasure I get out of my work for the screen is
contained in the daily mail bag. Letters come from everywhere, not only
this country, but from such far-off places as Australia. By the way,
I believe they are more enthusiastic over the screen in the Antipodes
than they are in this country, proportionately speaking.
One of the most frequent questions I am asked to answer is that
relating to success in athletics.
It may sound strange to some of those who have been following my work
on the screen, but I was a failure as an athlete. In college at the
Colorado School of Mines I did not excel in any particular branch of
sports. I went in for nearly everything, but the student body never
wrote or sang any songs about me. I never came up in the ninth with the
score three to nothing against us, with three men on base, and put the
ball over the fence. I never even ran the length of the field with the
pigskin and scored the winning touchdown with only fifteen seconds of
play left.
When I went to Harvard later I still was active in athletics, but
while just about able to get by in most of the games, I never got _the
spotlight_ in any specific instances. It might have been different had
I remained, but the call of the footlights was too insistent.
There is one rule which every athlete must follow to be successful.
_Be clean in mind and body._ For a starter, I know of no better advice.
I am not much given to preaching, but if I ever took it up as a
vocation, I would preach cleanliness first and most.
The boy who wishes to get to the front in athletics must adopt a
program of mental and bodily cleanliness.
Perhaps the greatest foe to athletic success, among young college men
is _strong drink_. Personally I have never tasted liquor of any sort.
It was my mother’s influence that was responsible for that, as I
promised her when I was eight years old that I would never drink. I
might state, parenthetically and without violating a confidence, that
my family tree had several decorations consisting of ambitious men
who had sought valiantly, if futilely, to decrease the visible supply
of liquor. I do not wish to take a great amount of credit for my
abstention. Really, more credit is due to a person who has fallen under
its influence and fought his way out; but I know that the keeping of
my promise to my mother has had a powerful effect on my life and my
career.
[Illustration]