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of poverty ^ow
The Extra's Life Is Lowly But Lively
extras. In the outer rooms of casting offices, in next-door barber shops, lunchrooms, candy stores. But nowhere will you find them so abundantly as in their native haunt — -along Poverty Row. For the row is the hub of the extra's irregular universe. It has half a dozen eating places and hangouts which are frequented for every one that you will discover elsewhere. It is here that their biggest social club for men extras is located — here that many of their parties are arranged— here that one of their two newspapers is published — here that the largest group of independent studios is to be found.
The row stretches from somewhere in the vicinity of Dad Kelly's Corned Beef Parlor on down the street to Christie's Studio — the oldest in Hollywood — then across to Raphael's Drug Store, with its flagrant "Mourners' Bench" out front for weary-footed extras — past the "Poverty Row Bugle" — on past Al Marsh's poolroom, presided over not so long ago by the genial Al. He was so popular with extra people during his lifetime that they flocked by the hundreds to his funeral services.
THE SLUMS OF PRODUCTION
THE row ends as vaguely as it begins. Its symbol is cheapness. Cheap yellow stucco studios thrown hastily together — flat, monotonous, uninspired edifices erected for the making of flat, monotonous, uninspired pictures mostly. Cheap food. Cheap cars parked along its curbs. Cheap screen labor straggling up and down, or gathered on corners keeping alert ears open for sign of activity in the buildings across the street or around the corner.
It is a section which is colorful in spite of its exterior, because it swarms with men and women who are striving. In other parts of town men have achieved things. Here everything lies in the future — a hazardous, perhaps even nefarious tomorrow. It is colorful because its people, even the has-beens, dream impossible dreams along its streets, and occasionally realize them.
Halfway down Gower Street off Sunset Boulevard, the Struggler's Club meets in an ambling, quite comfortable, if not very decorative house, donated to its several hundred men members by Mr. Chadwick, a proven friend of the extra. Like everything else on the row, the club was begun on a shoestring. It was started last February by two former extra boys, Jimmy True and Roy Caylor. There was considerable doubt felt as to whether or not it would survive even a mild California winter, but apparently it did. And grew. In addition to having a clubhouse where men engaged in picture work can congregate to talk shop when not employed, and where they can be reached or located by the different studios at any hour, the club (Continued on page 118)
Above, in the corner: Leona Leigh, with and not with her bathing outfit. Standing by the Mourners' Bench is Morris Raphael, the Mayor of Poverty Row. The girl at the right can play any part that this costume, her only one, calls for; and the same holds good for the debonair insolvent at the left
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