Motography (Jan-Jun 1915)

January 23, 1915. MOTOGRAPHY 133 Selig Player Enjoys Character Work BY CHARLES R. CONDON Lyllian Brown Leighton. THE editor is absolutely without a heart. A sputtered "Why — uh — go on ! I never wrote an int e r v i e w , ' ' only brought the reply, ''Don't keep her waiting any longer. It was an hour ago that I made the first appointment for you, and I've made three others since. Besides, it's press day and there isn't anyone else to go." Going back home on a vacation makes one feel as though he doesn't care whether or not he ever works again, and so I replied : "All right, Caward. I'll be glad to meet her anyway, but as for writing it up — remember (tensely dramatic and independent), you'll have to take what you get." Then I left to interview Lyllian Brown Leighton. After a few preliminary remarks had retired the weather and elevator service beyond resurrection, Miss Leighton confessed : "I'm an awful person to interview. All I ever say is 'Yes' or 'No,' and I never can think of anything to tell a person." With the two-fold intention of keeping my interview out of the course of a straight-jacket crossexamination and gratifying an inward curiosity as to why Lyllian was spelled with a 'y,' I asked and was told : "Oh, I don't spell my first name with a 'y' — others do it for me. But the reason for that digression is a long story in itself, and began with an incident hardly worth repeating — a mere nothing." And Miss Leighton dismissed the subject with a smile which, while it did not squelch my inward curiosity as to the presence of a "y" in "Lyllian," was cheerful and contagious, as any follower of Selig comedies will agree. "Do I like Chicago? Yes" — positive and unqualified— "it's my home town, but that is not the only reason. It has a large variety of weather. Of course, I just love the Selig western studio with its wonderful climate, nice people, roomy, comfortable dressing rooms, and then we are always working out of doors. But it was my one wish when I left Los Angeles that I get nipped by the cold just for the novelty of it, and the Chicago breezes have gratified my wish more than once since my arrival December 16. "One of the best compliments I ever received on my work was given me by the manager of the hotel in which I lived when I joined the western forces about a year and a half ago. One day, after I had been his guest for nine months, he said : 'Say, I've never seen any of your pictures. Don't they show them around here?' — and he had been seeing our comedies at one of the local theaters right along. Playing character leads, I considered this quite complimentary, but had I been playing in straight make-up I would probably have moved out of his hotel immediately. "My animal experiences have been few and lucky so far, and then only with leopards, though they have some beautiful trained Bengal tigers at the studio. The first animal picture I worked in, 'The Tonsorial Tiger Tamer,' was a comedy in name only. I was nearly scared to death, notwithstanding the animaltrainer's assurances that the leopards which ran about the caged-in set were shamefully tame. While I was standing behind the piano waiting for my cue to enter the set, one of the leopards leaped upon a pedestal beside me and sat there staring me in the face. The perspiration froze and melted alternately on my forehead, but I couldn't budge. It seemed ages before the animal ended our face-to-face pantomime by jumping down off of the pedestal and trotting back into the camera's scope. "Speaking of queer experiences reminds me of my meeting with John Bunny on State street the other day. We had never seen each other before, except on the screen, but our recognition was mutual as he stepped out of a taxi just as I was passing. He smiled, raised his hat, and after shaking hands and exchanging Christmas and New Year greetings, we talked for a few minutes, feeling as though we had been acquainted for years. Isn't it queer, the feeling of intimate acquaintanceship that the screen conveys to a spectator?" "You bet," I replied, surmising that Miss Leighton had received her share of "fan" letters, which, with all respect to their writers, could not be more intimate were they communications between a brother and sister. "Character parts," resumed Miss Leighton, "afford variety and offer a large and interesting field in which to work. In one of our late two-reel comedies I had eighteen changes of costume in one week. Lately we have been doing an average of two reels a week. Yes, it is strenuous, but I like it. We often go out to the sea shore in the morning, a seventeenmile auto ride through a beautiful section of the country, take a few scenes, and get back to the studio by noon. "One of the nicest things about working at the western studio," confided Miss Leighton as we waited for an elevator, "is that you can get such a cute little bungalow or apartment in Los Angeles, and it is no trouble at all to take care of it. Just now I am living at a hotel, but my mother is going to return with me New Year's, and we are going to keep house." Hearts-Selig Pictorial Secures Reporter The clever and versatile woman known to the literary world as Grace Darling has become the Hearst-Selig reporter and her visualized interviews will appear in the Thursday releases of the HearstSelig Twice-a-Week News Pictorial. One of the first assignments of Grace Darling was to attend the distribution of baskets at the Salvation Army headquar