next day we engaged him at a salary of one hundred dollars a week, and
it was not until this first meeting that we discovered he had already
worked at pictures under Mr. Griffith’s direction. The untimely death
of this gifted and attractive young man, whose future held so much of
promise, brought to his profession an irreparable loss.
_Chapter Six_
THE MISCHIEVOUSNESS OF MAE MURRAY
In this same eventful year the Lasky Company engaged another actress
whose name is now familiar to the motion-picture population of the
world. The Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 contained for the first time a
screen episode introduced for the presentation of an auto race. From
the moment when I saw Mae Murray romp across this incidental screen
I saw her possibilities. When I got in touch with her, however, I
discovered that several other producers had been inspired by the same
belief.
That our organisation was the lucky competitor was due to a very
advantageous connection which the Lasky Company had formed some time
previously. The chief concern of both Mr. Zukor and our organisation
was to get big stories, big plays, and to this end Mr. Zukor and I
engaged in a memorable skirmish over Mr. David Belasco. It is apparent,
of course, at first glance why the production of this, the most eminent
producer of the spoken drama, should have assumed such importance in
our eyes. Both of us felt that if we could only have the screen rights
to the Belasco plays we should be placed in an invulnerable position.
In our rival efforts Mr. Zukor had the first advantage, for he had
earlier formed a connection with Mr. Daniel Frohman, and through this
alliance he was enabled to get into direct touch with Mr. Belasco.
I, on the contrary, made all overtures through the great producer’s
business manager. In spite of Mr. Zukor’s lead, the result hung in the
balance for many days.
At last, just when I was beginning to despair, Mr. Belasco announced
that he would see me. How well I remember that day when with beating
heart I sat in the producer’s private office awaiting the decision so
vital to my organisation! It seemed an eternity that I listened for the
opening of a door, and when at last I heard it Mr. Belasco’s entrance
was as dramatic as that of a hero in one of his own plays. The majestic
head with its mop of white hair sunk a trifle forward, the one hand
carried inside of his coat--I can see now this picture of him, as
slowly, without a word, he descended the stair to greet me.
After I had gathered together my courage I began to talk to him about
De Mille and Lasky and our organisation, and he seemed impressed from
the first by my enthusiasm. I think he liked the fact that we were
all such young men. Indeed, he said so. And it was this, I am sure,
which influenced his decision. He made it that very day, and when I
went out of his door my head was swimming with my triumph. Mr. Belasco
had promised the Lasky Company the screen rights to all his plays.
For these rights, I may mention, we promised him twenty-five thousand
dollars advance against fifty per cent. of the profits.
I saw my esteemed but defeated rival at lunch on this very same day,
and when I told him the news his face grew white. It was, indeed, a
terrific blow. But a reversed decision would have meant even more to
me. For such plays as “The Girl of the Golden West” and “Rose of the
Rancho” merely helped to offset our leading competitor’s tremendous
advantage in the possession of such stars as Mary Pickford and
Marguerite Clark.
The promise of the Belasco plays influenced favorably many a screen
actor of the time, and it was, in fact, my assurance to Mae Murray
that she should play “Sweet Kitty Bellairs” which weighed against more
dazzling offers from other studios.
Before Mae departed for California she came to me with trouble clouding
that fair young brow. “I can’t do it,” said she.
“Can’t do what?” I inquired apprehensively.
“Why, this contract you’ve made with me; it says that I get one hundred
a week and that the company buys my clothes. Now I can’t trust anybody
else to pick out what I wear. Clothes are part of my personality and
I’d much rather have more salary and have the privilege of buying my
own wardrobe.”
I yielded the point and allowed her an extra one hundred a week to
cover this expenditure. Incidentally, I may remark that Mae could not
have saved many nickels from her allowance. There is a tradition that
one evening at the Hollywood Hotel the charming little actress changed
her evening wrap four times. I can not verify this legend, but I can
say that Mae never changes from bad to worse. She is regarded as one of
the most beautifully dressed women of the screen.
The clothes-cloud was dispelled from Mae’s horizon. Unfortunately,
however, more severe storms awaited her in California. First of all,
she was rent by the commands of a director whose conception of her
talents had nothing in common with Mae’s own.
“Be more dignified. Remember that you are a lady, not a hoyden”; this
was the spirit if not the substance of guidance.
At some such suggestion Mae would protest angrily. “But I’m a
dancer--that’s the reason I was engaged. And now you want to turn me
into something different. I tell you I’ll be an utter failure if you go
on like this.”
Mae’s anger, was, of course, perfectly justifiable. Her subsequent
successes have verified this fact. Without the infectious mad-cap
gaiety which she herself appraised so correctly from the first we
should never have had George Fitzmaurice’s great success, “On with the
Dance,” or “Peacock Alley.”
Miss Murray found another obstacle to overcome during those first
days. Fresh from a different medium she knew nothing of the workings
of the camera. This knowledge, so important in assuming the pose most
beneficial to oneself, was gradually imparted by a young chap in the
cast of her play.
“Say,” said he, “that guy’s giving you a raw deal. He’s trying to get
his friend on the set right and you can take what’s left of the camera.”
“But what shall I do?” asked she helplessly, “I don’t know how to stand
or look.”
“You watch me,” rejoined the good Samaritan. “I’ll put you wise.”
Right then and there he arranged a code by which to defeat the
operations of a cameraman who, according to report, did not administer
his lens with impartial fervour. If he put his finger to his left cheek
it meant, “Turn to the left”; to the right, and the gesture was equally
logical. From this point onward the system progressed to all the most
minute provisions for securing some of the coveted attention.
How to engross the most of the camera! I regret to say that here on
the roof of this ambition has been wrecked many a lofty nature. The
public does not realise as it watches the beautiful feminine star look
up at the handsome male star over the moonlit stile the warfare that
may possibly have occurred as to which should get the more advantageous
focussing. Nor does it interpret the moving subtitle, “Promise me
you’ll leave me,” which may accompany this scene, in its correct spirit
of “Promise me you’ll leave me--a little of the camera.” I have known
sweethearts strangely impervious to the higher point of view when
it came to this test. And I shall tell presently of a husband who
skirmished fiercely with his famous wife on this particular point.
Mae’s case was far from indicative of such unappeasable appetite. Her
struggle was only for a just share of the camera. Indeed, she has
too much respect for a good story ever to offend by insistence on an
individual prominence, which often destroys the story.
She did insist on another director and on claiming my promise of “Sweet
Kitty Bellairs.” Both wishes were gratified. But perhaps, in spite of
her avowed admiration for the workmanship of Jimmie Young, no director
ever really took with her until she met Bobby Leonard.
“Girls, girls,” she cried on the evening of the day after she had
first worked under Bobby, “I’ve got a great director at last!”
She was radiant. As she tripped across the lot to her dressing-room
her blue eyes danced exactly like those of the little girl who has
finally drawn the gold ring at the merry-go-round. Nor did her
gratification stop at the studio. For, as all motion-picture fans know,
she subsequently married Viking Leonard, and they have been engaged in
living happily ever since.
Again I realise that I seem to be piping the honeyed lay of the
press-agent. And once more I protest my innocence. Bobby Leonard and
Mae Murray have, like Doug and Mary, one of those marriages based on
an intense common interest. They are both absorbed in pictures and
together they work out direction, business, costuming, and all the
minor chores of creating a picture. It is undoubtedly due to this
co-operation that Mae’s achievements have broadened so notably in the
past few years.
I have told of Mae’s early struggles with objective light-heartedness.
She herself recounts them to-day with a full appreciation of their
humour. But there is another more vital approach to the subject. You
must consider that every picture is tremendously significant to the
screen actor involved. If it succeeds, well and good. If it is a “flop”
the proportionate damage to the actor’s reputation is infinitely
greater. I think I am safe in saying that if even such emphatic
successes as Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, or Griffith were to
make two or three successive failures they would find the coming back
somewhat difficult. In fact, I have often heard Mr. Griffith remark, “I
simply can not afford to make a failure.”
In the light of such knowledge, the heartache of Mae’s first weeks on
the Lasky lot are instantly apparent. Here she was, fully conscious of
what that first picture meant in her career. And here at every step she
was met by circumstances pointing to failure. And such heartaches, such
beating of wings against barriers of prejudice and misunderstanding and
actual hostility--those palpitate through many of the disputes recorded
in this volume.
_Chapter Seven_
GERALDINE THE GREAT
In the early Winter of 1915 I went to the stage production of “Maria
Rosa.” Who that witnessed the same performance can ever forget the
creation of Mr. Lou Tellegen? That Latin lover whose ferocity showed
in every silken accent, in every gesture of panther-like, slim
body--to-day this lingers with me as among the most telling of dramatic
brush-strokes.
How distinctly I remember the first day that the young foreign actor,
who, previous to his triumph in “Maria Rosa” had been hailed as
“Bernhardt’s beautiful leading man,” came to my office! We were talking
about salary when suddenly Tellegen jumped up from his chair and walked
over to look at a photograph on the wall.
“Who is that?” he asked, peering at the face in the frame.
“Oh,” answered I, “don’t you know her? That’s Geraldine Farrar.”
“Oh, yes, the famous singer,” he responded, never taking his eyes from
the dazzling victorious face. “H’m--very, very beautiful, is she not?”
he mused.
I had hoped that he was perhaps permanently swept away from the theme
which he had relinquished so abruptly. I had, however, underrated Mr.
Tellegen’s powers of recuperation. A moment more and he was standing
before me with a light in his eyes very different from that evoked by
the abstract consideration of Beauty.
“Let us say a thousand dollars a week,” said he. “Certainly after all
my experience I ought to be worth that.”
Mention of Mr. Tellegen brings me logically to one achievement of my
life which I always survey with pride. The year and a half that had
elapsed since the production of “The Squaw Man” had brought almost
incredible improvements in both the manufacture and presentation of
photo-plays. The modern system of lighting had replaced our former
reliance upon the rays of the sun. More and more we had substituted
the carpenter for the scene-painter. As to the motion-picture theatre
itself, this of course presented an aspect very different from the
peanut-strewn area which in 1913 had suggested my great enterprise.
However, in spite of orchestral accompaniments and high-priced seats,
in spite of the growing ascendancy of such screen stars as Mary
Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, the motion-pictures were merely popular.
They were not fashionable. How to make them so, how to intrigue
that shy marginal group known as “the carriage trade”--here was the
challenge offered to the producer of 1915.
It was about this time that Morris Gest came to me and said: “I think
I’ve about got Geraldine Farrar to the point where she’s willing to
go into motion-pictures. What’s more, I believe she’ll come with you
instead of with Zukor, for the idea of California is attractive to her,
especially if she can go and come in a private car.”
After a smile at this approach to the situation on the part of Miss
Farrar I asked him, “But how does the famous prima donna look these
days?”
“Wonderful? More beautiful than ever,” retorted Gest.
On the first evening when Lasky and I called at Miss Farrar’s home we
found that Gest’s enthusiasm was not misplaced. As she swept into the
drawing-room to greet us we both thought we had never in our lives seen
any one so beautiful.
It did not take long to arrange matters between us. Miss Farrar agreed
to go to California for eight weeks to make three pictures--“Maria
Rosa,” “Carmen,” and “Temptation.” For these services she was to
receive twenty thousand dollars and, in consideration of the modesty
of the sum--she would have realised more for a concert tour of the
same length--we agreed to supply her with a special car to and from Los
Angeles, together with a furnished house, servants, and food during the
period of her stay.
On all such minor points Miss Farrar was immediately reasonable. Only
in one subject did she display any vital curiosity.
“Whom are you going to engage for my leading man,” she asked.
“Never mind. It will be somebody that you’ll like,” we assured her.
“But,” she urged, “you know it’s very important that my Don José should
be right. Otherwise the performance would be ruined.”
Again we assured her that she was sure to be satisfied with our
provision for this part.
“But who is he?” she insisted. “I want to know his name.”
We evaded this request. And we kept on evading it throughout our
subsequent interviews. This was not easy, for in every spare moment
the prima donna would plead with me, “Why won’t you tell me his name?”
It was almost the first question she asked after she stepped from the
special train bearing her into California.
So many people have asked me for my first impression of Geraldine
Farrar that I should like to interpolate here my response to that
frequent inquiry. If you can picture a flowering arbour and then
picture the subsequent surprise of finding inside of it a perfectly
good dynamo you will have conceived the full force of Miss Farrar’s
personality. At the time when I met her she was in her early thirties
and that beauty of lucent grey eyes and curving lips--the flowering
vigour of look which she doubtless inherited from some ancestress of
the Irish seas--was then at its height. Under this screen of physical
allure I felt from the very first moment the pulse of a mind restless,
eager, alert to every possibility of learning.
Indeed, the figure with which I started falls short of conveying
the full effect of Miss Farrar’s presence. Not only does she charge
the atmosphere with that mental vitality of hers, she creates the
impression always of cutting--cutting straight through any given
subject. If I had said, therefore, that the arbour concealed one of
those marvellous implements that cut, thrash, and sack the grain,
all in a single operation, I should have come nearer the ideal of
description.
Miss Farrar is, like Mary Pickford, a captain of industry. She has
the same masculine grasp of business, the same masculine approach
to work. The difference between them is construed not alone by the
immeasurably greater cultural equipment of Miss Farrar but by many
temperamental divergences. Whereas Mary Pickford’s manner and voice are
always marked by the feminine, almost childlike appeal to which I have
referred, the prima donna’s speech has a man’s directness of import.
She picks her words for strength, as might a Jack London sea-captain or
an Elizabethan soldier. And her utterance of these words reveals the
same strange compound of qualities I have noted elsewhere. It is an
enunciation both flowering and incisive.
The cantatrice’s entrance into Hollywood was an unprecedented one.
The Mayor of Los Angeles was there to welcome her to California.
So were five thousand school children. Cowboys in their chaps and
sombreros added their customary picturesqueness to the scene. Flowers
were everywhere. All Los Angeles reminded you of a festa day in some
Italian city. Nowadays we are so accustomed to spectacular personages
in the motion-pictures that it is hard to recapture for you the thrill
that shook the entire country when Geraldine Farrar, the queen of the
Metropolitan Opera House, came to California.
The night following Miss Farrar’s arrival we gave her a dinner at the
Hollywood Hotel. This dinner included among its two hundred guests, not
only the leading representatives of the screen colony, but a number of
distinguished sojourners. Among the latter may be mentioned Mr. John
Drew and Miss Blanche Ring.
At this dinner-party Miss Farrar turned to me almost at once with her
habitual question. “And now surely,” she pleaded, “you’re going to tell
me who is to be my Don José?”
De Mille and I exchanged a haggard glance. Many, many times had we
shuddered together over the thought, “What if she doesn’t like him?”
Our previous experience with stars had taught us not to minimise that
possible calamity.
“Tell me,” repeated our great planet. “Not another minute will I wait!”
I was just about to reply when I looked up. A tall young man
had entered the door and was now walking toward us. He was only
twenty-three. His evening clothes were by no means faultless, but the
face above them was flushed with excitement. The blue eyes shone. I had
never seen Wallace Reid look more like the beautiful and romantic young
man of the daguerreotype collection.
“There,” I whispered, watching her tensely, “there is your leading man.”
She had already noticed him and as he moved slowly toward us she never
took her eyes from his face. At last, just before he reached us, she
began slowly nodding her head. “Very good,” she whispered, and the
smile with which she said it lingered as she repeated the encomium.
“Very, very good.”
I do not need to dwell upon the relief afforded to us by that smile.
I venture to suggest, however, that it may have brought corresponding
heart’s ease to Wallace himself. For he was then young and
inexperienced and I have no doubt that for many days previous he, too,
had been quailing before that grim possibility, “What if she doesn’t
like me!”
A number of the screen people were inspired with awe of Miss Farrar’s
reputation. “I bet anything she’s up-stage,” several of them predicted
before meeting her. That evening disarmed all such fears. So simple
and friendly, so gay and unaffected, was the Metropolitan star that
everybody went away singing her praises. I soon found, indeed, that
the ancestry of the Irish seas had dowered her with more than that
flowering vigour of look and manner. She has the warmth of personal
approach, the ability to get along with folks of all descriptions, that
characterise the Irish race.
This element in her character was brought out particularly in the
studio. It was not long before everybody there, including “Grips”
and “Props”--the local terms by which are designated respectively
the electricians and the property men--were calling her “Jerry.”
This intimacy of reference was a token of real affection and it was
deserved, for she seldom passed the most humble worker in the studio
without a smile or a friendly word.
[Illustration: LOU TELLEGEN AND GERALDINE FARRAR
This photograph, it should be said, was taken some time ago.]
[Illustration: THEDA BARA
Original screen vampire, now retired as the wife of Charles Brabin]
When she arrived in Hollywood she didn’t know, of course, a single
thing about making a film. “What,” she exclaimed on her first day,
“why, I didn’t realize you had to make a single scene over four times.”
This freshness of view-point placed her in a situation ideal for
observation of the mental eagerness of which I have spoken. She asked
questions of everybody in the studio from De Mille to “Grips.” It was
wonderful to see the zest of her application to this new task, to
watch that perfect implement of a brain cut and thresh and assort its
selected subject.
There is no doubt about it. Geraldine Farrar enjoyed every minute of
those first eight weeks spent in the movies. She loved the atmosphere
of the motion-pictures. She liked the people in the cast. She told me
she thought De Mille was great. I can hardly express what this wide
area of satisfaction meant to me after eighteen months that had been
instructive chiefly in the hardship of pleasing any star, at any given
point.
So eager was Miss Farrar for her film day to begin that she used to
arrive at the studio every morning at eight o’clock. She was then all
made up for the set, and as this process is so much more exacting than
the average woman’s dab of powder and rouge, one knew she had risen not
later than six.
“H’m, where’s Mr. de Mille? Where’s everybody?” she used to ask.
Her manner was exactly that of a war-horse sniffing, “Here am I.
Where’s the war?”
And when she began to work nothing seemed to tire her. At four o’clock
in the afternoon, that hour when the average screen performer begins
to wonder if she’ll melt before she takes root or take root before she
melts, the great prima donna was as radiant with energy as she was
at eight o’clock in the morning. The explanation of this sustained
vitality lay deeper than her undoubted physical strength. She herself
voiced it one day during her second engagement with the Lasky Company.
She was then making “Joan the Woman.” It was during the most intense
heat of the California Summer. During this particular set she wore a
suit of armor which must have been about as soothing to her feelings
as wrist-warmers to a resident of Bombay. The set, which had been
called for one hour, was not actually taken until more than four
hours’ later. This wait, so characteristic of a studio day, was
rendered more oppressive by the thud of adjacent carpentry work and by
experimentation with the glaring electric lights.
While all this was going on a lady of the court of Charles VII. sat
with her make-up box on her knee and from time to time dabbed with
powder beads of perspiration rising above the surface of grease-paint.
This manifestation of warmth was not unprovoked. For the lady wore
a velvet dress with heavy trimming of fur and her head was engulfed
in one of those gigantic coiffures prescribed for mediæval times. No
wonder that as she administered her powder she made sweet moan about
the hardships of life on “the lot.”
“People that think this life’s easy,” she muttered at last, “let them
try it on a July day--let them wait around for hours all tucked up in
these hot-water bottles of clothes. Whew! Say, are they ever going to
start shooting?”
“Cut out your grouching,” retorted a more stoical fellow sufferer,
“look how Jerry’s taking it.”
“Jerry” presented, as a matter of fact, anything but a wilted
appearance. She was talking, now to this person, now to that. Her eyes
were sparkling, her white teeth flashed in a frequent smile. Piqued by
such revelations of fortitude, the first lady of the court walked over
to her.
“Won’t you tell me how you do it, Miss Farrar?” she asked. “Don’t you
ever mind anything; the heat or the long waits or anything?”
“Jerry” threw back her head and laughed heartily. “Not a bit of it,”
she answered, “I’m too much interested all the time to know what’s
happening on the outside of me.”