We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
PATIENT
is the word
HELEN MACK
It's easy to get a break, says Helen.
What's hard is waiting for the right one
Helen
M
,cW, w*1
o is
[ ,A in <"anY W31'5'
; roles
.sually
plavs >n
~*"£7» "*2ZZZ
is a
comedy
It is
The M^ Way' bet away
ability
,V>e AAeniou,
who
,tnout his
w,thou<. ..« , da mr alleged P'»~
Ve-e T.-W mess nVnVman ioto an •«;.,„„.«■
champ.on ** ^ aKer read, ...,trhing her w
ling sw
itching
By GRACE McKENZIE
WHAT does an ambitious young actress think about when all the breaks don't develop as they might and stardom still is in the distant future? . • . Movie Classic decided to ask Helen Mack — ambitious, talented sincere, and not yet a star, though recently voted the most popular of all the younger Hollywood actresses in a Classic reader poll.
"I'd rather play a tiny bit in a good picture than to be starred in just an ordinary program picture," says Helen, with an earnestness that could never be mistaken for irony.
"The best work I've ever done on the screen has been in pictures that failed to attract any attention. That's why I was thrilled to have the opportunity to play with Harold Lloyd in his new picture, The Milky Way. A Harold Lloyd picture is sure to be good — and popular. While my role is not particularly important, I'll probably be seen by people who have never seen me before. And perhaps," she added, holding up a pair of crossed fingers, "it may turn out to be a springboard to something bigger. If it doesn't — well, at least Hollywood has taught me to be patient."
And because patience is a sort of toi-glamorous virtue, which most girls are inclined to overlook, and because many a girl feels that if she could just get a "break," everything else would be easy, I am going to tell Helen Mack's unusual story.
Her career began, actually, before she was born — when her mother, sitting in a little movie theatre in Rock Island, Illinois, watched such stars as Norma Talmadge and Mary Pickford and Marguerite Clark, and offered up a daily prayer that she would one day have a daughter who would grow up to be a movie star. It was more than just an idle wish. Mrs. McDougall poured her heart and soul into that prayer. And when eventually she gave birth to a tiny dark-eyed, dark-haired daughter with a heart-shaped face, she was convinced that her prayer had been answered.
Long before Helen was old enough to understand her mother's words, she was told: "You are going to be an actress." When she was little more than a baby, she was taken to the movies several times a week. When they arrived home, she was put through a catechism that went something like this : "Tell Mother what Mary Pickford said . . . show me how she walked." Or if it was a Norma Talmadge picture, then Helen had to give an imitation of Norma.
Crude training perhaps, but it bore results. By the time Helen was six, Mrs. McDougall was convinced that her daughter had talent. Her problem was : What to do about it? Where to go to get the child a hearing?
Vera Gordon, that grand old actress of Humoresque fame, was playing in a local theatre. [Continued on page 84]