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Job Hunting in Hollywood
BY LOUISE GALLAGHER
TOURISTS arriving in Los Angeles on the Santa Fe Limited Monday noon stepped right into the movies without the aid of agencies or the required studio pull.
We were shooting a train scene for a Century comedy and had been working since 9 on side-tracked Pullmans showing only our own party of travelers. When the limited came in we were let off on the closed side of a Pullman so that we could be photographed getting off the other end with the real arrivals. It was lots of fun, for we were the center of interest in our grease paint and queer make-ups.
A tall sister, with glasses and a rolled umbrella, took some time deciding whether I was respectable enough to speak to. After taking such a risk I knew she would be terribly disappointed if she failed to recognize the name, so I told her in a most unassuming manner that my name was Griffith-Corinne Griffith. She poked her companion, who looked like a country doctor and had a nice twinkle in his eye, “My, Henry, would you have thought it? How them movie magazines do fix you up.” I gave Henry a wink on the side and he rose nicely to the occasion, “Don’t half do you justice, I’d say. And who is the young man?”
“My name is Bill Hart, sir. The only way I can pay the big alimony the court allowed my wife is to go around and shoot up a couple dozen cowboys every day. Nice boys, too, most of ’em and I hate to do it.” This was too much for the good lady and she walked off with a sniff, holding on tight to husband for fear he’d get on the wrong road right.in the beginning. Our director had a man-size job on his hands keeping the crowd from following us back to our shooting Pullmans.
A Nice, Easy Job.
I have been having a hard week. When I was called for an interview at Century and offered a second lead at $75 a week in a comedy running two weeks or less, I thought it an unusually attractive offer and signed up, agreeing in the contract to furnish all clothes worn but dancing costumes. Now I know why they wrote in “or less” after the two weeks. At the rate they are rushing the work, we should complete it in 10 days at the longest.
Here is a sample of two days’ work: Monday call was for 7:30 for location at Santa Fe depot. After the usual delays, we got started working a little after 9. It was 2 before we were told we could have a half hour for lunch. When the prop boy gave me my box lunch, I gave it just one look and turned it over to a husky cameraman. The red and green plush of our hot railway car contrasted so disagreeably with the grease-covered faces around me that I lost all interest in food. At 4:30 the studio car took me to the costumers to select a dancing costume and headdress. Nothing that would fit me at the first shop. At the next one I found a lovely black and white spangled frock that had been imported for Mae Murray and worn by her in one picture. It was the right length but had to be taken in to fit, as she is about twice my size. A long half hour before it was ready.
While I was there Gertrude Olmstead came in for a fitting. She was both exacting and rude to the seamstresses and one of them said when she left that some day she was going to stick her full of pins if she went to jail for it. If the shopkeepers of Los Angeles and Hollywood were to write their impression of stars would any one believe that they know them as they are? There are three or four large custumers in Los Angeles who buy up gowns worn once by a star and sold because they are too expensive to be put in the studio wardrobe. The gown I wore must have cost hundreds of dollars and was rented by Century for me for $35 for one night.
Home at 6, a hot bath to get off the dried-on makeup, dinner, fresh make-up, back to the studio and on the set by 7:30.
“I was a Parisian dancer imported to teach a wealthy middle-western family how to do the latest steps. Father, son and lover, like all well-brought-up Westerners, start in to show me a good time but the women interfere. We had a good orchestra that pepped us up so we were really surprised when it was 12:30 and we were dismissed. Back to the studio next morning at 8 and down to the beach where we worked until 5. And tomorrow’s call is for 5:30 to Balboa for two days, which means up at 4. It just makes you know that some day you’ll strangle the alarm clock no matter what the consequences will be.
Buses And Limousines.
There is a great deal of difference in the amount of money spent by studios for the comfort and convenience of their players. Roach, Christie, Century and Fox send all players but the leads on location in a bus. These buses are rough-riding and most of them not closed in, and you arrive tired and with your make-up all dusty and smeared.
Sennett never sends his BB’s in other than closed limousines and my partiality to that lot is mainly due to the precautions taken to see that we meet the sea waves without a wrinkle in our suits or a crinkle out of our marcels.
In spite of what you may read in the magazines to the contrary, all players entering movies by the extra door have a hard road to travel for the first year. You are afraid to turn down any reasonable offer, for ladies must live and support their marcels and pet cats.
The $75 salary I am not getting is the best weekly salary I have received so far and I was very glad to sign at that price. How was I to know that the next day I would get a call from Lasky on a special dance at $100 a week for perhaps three weeks. Tough luck like that comes to all free lance players.
Against my $75 I have already to chalk up one blue street dress completely ruined that cost $50, and only worn twice. Two pairs of $3.50 hose. One pair I stuck a fingernail through trying to make a quick change and the other sprung a hole right where it will show, from some cause known only to chiffon.
You may ask how it is possible to run a dress in two days? If you are required to change from a costume where you are wearing thick whitening and must put your dress on over this mixture of white paint and grease, no dry cleaning will remove it. The strongest of chemicals are used to clean them and they come back a rag. I am not a mathematician, but $25 would, I am sure, be a fair estimate of my salary for the week. Weigh against a movie career then the salary of girls working at other professions where the work is regular and working hours not longer than eight. They seem to have very much the best of it, don’t they?
Stick Around Home Plate.
But if you would be happy and contented, stay in your native lair. Once you have been wound round a celluloid camera spool you are never the same. The fascination is so great that nothing else matters. Once caught in the silver-spun web of the screen spider you can never escape. You go on because it is impossible to go back. No matter how weary you get, no matter how many tears you weep over seeing stars as they are minus the glamour thrown around them by high-priced publicity writers, no matter that you find casting directors in some of the big studios only giving out parts to those who can pay for them, you grit your teeth over certain conditions but you love the work, and couldn’t give it up if you tried.
We are all regretting that Will Rogers has gone back to the legitimate stage. Everyone who has ever worked with Will Rogers is his friend and admirer. They gave him a banquet the day before he left, to which were invited only the big stars. The next day the rest of us, small part and extra players, called upon Will. Our spokesman told him that we were not at the banquet but we wanted to tell him good-bye because we all loved him. It is characteristic of Will Rogers to hide emotion by saying something funny. He replied, “Yes-they gave me a banquet-and everybody was there but my friends.”
