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Job Hunting in Hollywood
BY LOUISE GALLAGHER
GOD may love motion picture players but I am sure nobody else does. Every sensible citizen looks upon them with a sort of unspoken aversion; the police keep a watchful and suspicious eye on all their doings and fine them for speeding twice the amount levied on others; real estate and automobile salesmen stalk them day and night; the most pointed and interesting sermons of the clergy are directed towards them; even doctors, who make it a habit of being sympathetic and kind, make light of their aches and pains-let you see very cleary that they take note of just about half of what you say and credit the rest to acting. In plain words you are expected to act up on all occasions and you might as well go ahead and do it for you will never get any consideration for being yourself. All of the above I thought out after a visit from one of Los Angeles’ leading physicians.
I had been leading a bizarre existence for three days in the strange, exotic home of an Oriental where red peony lanterns threw a soft glow over the low ceiling room and the tinkle of my ankle bracelet was the only disturbing sound. Fortunately since my very first picture, I have been able to shut out the unreality that lies just beyond the stage setting, and live for the time being wholly in my character and surroundings. Never has the clicking of the camera made me feel I was doing mechanical work. I enjoy more than anything in the world the quick transition from one station in life to another that comes to you in the movie world. I had very little to do on this set but watch the love scene of the leads through my slaft eyes and dance for their amusement when they wearied of each other. Then too we had all kinds of sweets on cunning gold trays and ‘any dessert for luncheon. There was plenty of wine also but it was not the peppy kind. William Jennings himself would not have found fault with this brand. Have you ever noticed how little actors seem to relish drinking on the screen? Well, if you ever tasted the lukewarm soda pop that is served even by the best studios, you would know the reason. You could not blame them if they lost their taste permanently for the real article after having to handle so much counterfeit. It takes a first class actor to drink movie wine and register enjoyment.
I had promised to go back to Fox on a recall no matter where I was working to finish up, “The Last Man On Earth,” and I considered it specially lucky that the call did not come until the last afternoon on the Chinese set. The director obliging run the one other scene I had to be in ahead of the regular sequence so that I got off by 5 o’clock to have my costume for the Fox set fitted. We started work the next morning at 9. It was a big set, 30 or more, and it was my first time to work before the big Kleig lights without plate glass protectors being used to dim the glare. The dazzle was blinding and especially so for me as 1 was working first in the foreground.”
By afternoon we all felt utterly fagged out and spent the few intermissions in complaining of the strong lights. The director insisted that it was the only way he could get the effect he wished and vetoed the electricians suggesting of putting a thin screen in front of them. I was standing near the head electrician when part of the argument was going on and as he walked away with the screen which he was not permitted to use, he muttered, “I bet you get in bad for this.”
We worked until 8 o’clock that night and by that time I had grown accustomed to the glare, but when I got home 1 was so tired 1 just longed to drop into bed as I was, but no such luxury can be enjoyed by a movie actress if she is working the next day. Unless you have worked in a coal mine or flour mill you won’t appreciate what labor is involved. No shower or quick dip goes. Your neck, shoulders and arms, and your legs if you have been dancing, have a thick coating of liquid whitening that requires a thorough scrubbing with warm water and soap to get off. It was 10 o’clock before I was ready to turn off the lights, and when I did, the funniest thing happened. I could only close one eye. The other just refused to go abut no matter how much I insisted. I got up and turned on the lights and couldn’t see a thing. Was I scared? I just dropped on a chair and howled. It was an hour before the doctor came, and then he just looked at me in the most indifferent way, “Kleig eyes! That’s all. Were you on that set at Fox?” I told him I was, and he said I was the seventh he had visited that evening and all having the same trouble. “Moving pictures players never use any common sense,” he flatteringly continued. “Here you say you have been working on an interior where the lights were all dim, and you switch over under the strongest electries without screens of any kind, and you expect your eyes to stand the strain.”
I wanted to ask him what choice he thought we had in designating the numbers of lights to be used on a set, but the bad hour before his arrival had left my mind a blank. The oil that he put in my eyes relieved them instantly and I was able to go to work next day. The big lights were not dimmed, but the director cut frequently, and every player was provided with dark glasses to wear during rest periods. Two of the girls were totally blind for three days and it was a week before they could work. Kleig eyes are the most dreaded malady of the studios, but it is usually those who require special lighting that suffer from them. Mary Pickford and Constance Talmadge both have to have strong lights, and for that reason keep their eyes well oiled while at work.
When you see “Feet of Clay” maybe you will get a thrill from watching 20 daring young goddesses of the sea riding propeller-churned waves, on surf boats behind fast speed boats. The girls themselves not only got a thrill, but a bad fright. One girl told me that every moment she thought she would certainly be thrown off, and while they had motor boats as near as possible to come to the rescue, she wouldn’t do it again for any amount of money. I had a call from Lasky Studio on this, but when I found it was for location at Catalina . Island I refused. The first girls sent down all came back inside of a week, even after the week’s instruction given · them by an expert surf rider. Others were sent down, but half of them were back in five days, as they refused to take the risk.
At First National the other day I strolled over on the Buster Keaton set to watch him fall from a two-story window. The director of the comedy caught my attention by the way he waved his megaphone with a twirly motion that somewhere I had seen before. “Who is directing?” I asked one of the prop boys. “Mr. Goodrich.” The name meant nothing and not ’till he gave another wave of the tin horn did I know of whom he reminded me-Fatty Arbuckle throwing cakes. I called the prop boy’s attention to it, “You knew it was Fatty all the time, don’t try to make me believe you are so smart. Everybody knows he changed his name to Goodrich. “
