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Job Hunting in Hollywood
One Man With So Very Many Minds BY LOUISE GALLAGHER
ONE cannot meet and know even slightly actors who have gained recognition in the silent drama without being struck by their many-sided characters.
A simple little Jekyl and Hyde affair, you might be able to understand but don’t think a screen primary stops at just a dual personality. He is hit the temperament there in the world-there isn’t anymore! Like a snowball that many people have helped to roll, each wrapping is entirely different. Every role a motion picture actor portrays leaves its mark.
You blink your properly mascaried eyelashes when you favorite actor condescends to stop and say “hello,” to you on the lot and it must be confessed, if it is your first personal meeting with the admired one, you are in for a keen disappointment.
He is today just a frank, honest-to-goodness, matter of fact sort of chap like you have always known. There is nothing intriguing, mysterious or romantic about him. You got about your own business of being a chorus lady, a telephone operator or Jigg’s daughter without an extra heart beat.
But just wait until you next encounter your hero of a hundred dramas. He swaggers across the lot as a Spanish grandee. There is no recognition of you, unless you care to take note of the bold but inpersonal stare the lofty gentleman throws your way. The adequate of old Spain demands only that of him and he is letter perfect in his part.
A few weeks later you meet him in a Universal background. A husky lad driving a truck, and you just know he would pick you up on the corner if the doggone script man didn’t see to it that he got the tight girl. He makes a good faithful husband at Goldwyn’s until you see him drag Mae Busch around by the hair when he learns she is going to desert him and his child. You may not like Miss Busch and not be particularly sorry to see her get a buff or two, but you just can’t admire his taste in women. You next see him as dissipated, reckless sheik, bent upon squandering father’s fortune and dragging the family name down with him. No one but a Glyn or Dell would ever attempt to reform him.
It’s Useless.
The ex-wife of a famous star told me that she just gave up trying to adjust herself to the varying moods of a different type of man every six weeks or so. “I have always disliked Englishmen, they are so coolly superior, and I had only been married two months when husband played the part of an English nobleman; for weeks he ate marmalade for breakfast, wore spats and insisted that the tea be served every afternoon. It was almost unendurable, but his next starring vehicle was even worse. It was a story of the sea and a fishing fleet of which he was in charge. I listened to nautical terms until I mumbled them in my sleep, and the way he swore around the house was something terrible. The only thing . that made me forgive him slapping me one night was that he must do it twice to the heroine next day.
“Of course there were intervals when everything was lovely, and we led just a normal, every-day sort of life, but always there was that awful fear of what kind of a person he would be next. You may remember him pleasantly in a slouched hat, high boots, striped shirt, gay handkerchief, wide trousers, knife and loading riding whip, but when he was this sort of good bad man he must have many wild loves and adventures, so during all the time that picture was being made I seldom saw him. “Then came a Chinese character into my home, that shuffled around in heelless slippers and a slinky blouse. I got so nervous over having him slip up behind me that I had to go away for awhile. When 1 returned, I examined carefully all the long pipes 1 found scattered around, but they contained nothing more alarming than tobacco.
Frankly, I do not believe any actor is ever himself because he has long ago lost sight of the person he was. He takes on something from all the different characters he gives to the screen and the types he must enact grow more complicated each year. It used to be that an actor gained a reputation along a certain line and he was cast only in such parts. Lately, however, the producers have I decided that a blah sameness is not wanted by the public’ and a star is cast in widely different roles in order to give unlimited scope to his art. It may, but his family lives in a conflicting whirl of emotions.”
My conversation with the lady took place in one of the cafes in Hollywood where many of the film colony were having their noonday lunch. Just across from us sat a male star whose popularity is beginning to fade. He kept looking over at my companion until she spoke to him and then he came over and joined us for a moment as he was leaving. “He is drunk again, as usual,” she said a little sadly, “I really am sorry for him. You see he has had to play the noble, high-minded gentleman so many times that he actually grew to believe he was one himself. Occasionally it dawns upon him just what at bottom he really is and then he drinks to make himself forget.”
So the legends of Hollywood are told and retold to the newcomers.
Exciting, Not!
Have you ever wondered how they make under sea pictures? What a brave man it must take to brave the perils of deep sea diving? I hate to disillusion you, but it is all just aobut as exciting as watching little Willie climb into the bowl with the goldfish and just about as dangerous. “They are doing some deep sea stuff over on Stage three,” one of the cameramen told me yesterday, “want to go over and watch them.” I was off duty for an hour so we went. A large glass box, probably 10 by 12 feet was in the center of the stage, filled with sea weeds, different size fish and water. Directly across and shooting down was the camera. The actor came on, stepped into the box and went through with a few gestures. The camera photographs right through the glass and in such a way as to magnify all objects therein. Not a thrill to it unless he happened to object to rub Ding elbows with the poor fish who could not escape. The cameraman told me that they would go to Catalina for the scene showing the actor diving from a ship and that he would actually take the dive, but no rambling around the underground garden spots of the sea would be necessary as it was much more satisfactory to do so on the studio stage where the water wouldn’t be so cold or deep.
All this week I have been working in a picture where it is necessary that every scene be shot away from the studio. While this is only day location and we get back to the studio every afternoon about 5:30, it is much harder than working on the lot where we have dressing rooms and can rest when not needed. Also box lunches are not so appetizing as the food at the studio cafes.
In a scene we took yesterday, three children were used. One of them as only two, one four, and one about six. The children run out into the street just as four wild horses dash around the corner. Two men rush to the rescue and get them out of the way just in time. The two younger children, a brother and sister, where not a bit afraid and would run out promptly when their cue came, but the older little girl was badly frightened when she heard the noise of the horses running and the scene had to be taken over many times before she could do her part. Even then, the poor little darling was scared to death and it took the combined efforts of the director and her mother to make her go through with it. No, I don’t think it is fair to a child to make it work in pictures.
