Moving Picture World (Oct 1915)

948 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD October 30a, 1915 Anna Held. Anna Held Conies to the Screen Famous Queen of Musical Comedy Enters into Contract with Oliver Morosco Company. WE are to have Anna Held on the screen. The internationally famous queen of musical comedy will leave New York on November 3 for Los Angeles, where for three weeks she will be at the studio of the Oliver Morosco company. Mr. Morosco secured the signature of Miss Held to a contract a few hours after her arrival from France last week. It was her first visit to the United States i n nearly two years. She was in France at the breaking out of the war and has remained there, contributing her utmost to alleviate the sufferi n g s of the wounded. Miss Held has lived much in this country. She has played in all the larger cities. Among the more prominent pieces i n which she has been seen are "A Parlor Match," "La Poupee," "Papa's Wife," "The Parisian Model," "Miss Innocence" and "The College Widower." Perhaps n o actress has been more written about i n the press o f the country than has Miss Held. Who does not remember that famous story about the milk baths she was wont to take? The instantaneous and continuing success of that weird creation has been the envy and likewise despair of every man and woman who may have since drawn salary as a press agent. Then there was the song that set forth "I just can't make my eyes behave." When a World man called on Miss Held at the Plaza this week he found the star in consultation with Captain Leslie Peacocke, who is preparing the script for the production in which she will be seen. The petite singer is full of the subject which is engrossing so much of the attention of the world — the war. Her interest, however, was on the side of the wounded, of the hospitals and ambulances. In entertaining these she had very soon discovered that what these men wanted was something to make them laugh — to forget. The blind men, especially, were slow to mirth; nothing apparently could break the grip of their affliction. So the singer composed a laughing song. It brought smiles to the faces of the sightless. Replying to a question Miss Held said she had long been interested in motion pictures. "I love them," she said. "The picture is a great entertainment. Do I go to see photoplays? Indeed, yes, three times a week, wherever I am. You know in France during the war the picture theaters are the only places where the people rush, they are the only establishments in an amusement way where money can be made. The stage is handicapped because every one is in a serious mood — you can't show joy. Every one is in mourning, money is not circulating, there is no employment for good actors. The players who are working are paid very little. Every one is waiting for victory. "When the first wounded men came to us early in the war every one was very patriotic — put up flags, sang patriotic songs. I thought those poor men had seen enough of war, they wanted joy. I composed a very sweet song, where the soldiers could follow me in the chorus. I gave out five or six thousand copies of the chorus. When I saw how much they enjoyed it I composed a laughing song. No fortune, no necklace of pearls, could give me the deep pleasure I felt as I saw the laughter in the faces of those pathetic figures — and they would continue laughing for five minutes. Sad experiences? Yes. One man just from the operating room, broken to pieces and dying, insisted that he be carried in where he could hear the singing. And I had to keep on with the laughing song." Miss Held is at the Palace this week. She will travel west by way of Chicago, where she said she would stay one day. The newcomer to the screen inquired as to the length of the trip from Chicago, and when told it might be nearly three days, there was a simulation of terror in the great eyes so well known to theatergoers. "I shall have a special train, anyway," she said. Miss Held's contract calls for her presence at the studio for three weeks. "And it will be a thousand dollars for each day beyond that," explained the player. Lubin Stars to Give Show It Will Be for the Aid of the Beneficial Association — Hitchcock and Reeves Head the Bill. THE Lubin Annual Beneficial Association will give its second entertainment, which will consist of a Halloween dance preceded by a nine-act all-star vaudeville show, on the evening of Monday, November 1. Lulu Temple, Philadelphia, is the place. The talent will comprise the best in Lubinville. It will include, among others, Raymond Hitchcock (and Ferdinand Singhi has promised or threatened to accompany the "inimitable" on the piano), Billy Reeves, Richard Buhler, Edward McKim, Carrie Reynolds, Octavia Handworth, Peter Lang, Walter Law, Kempton Greene, Bartley McCullom and Earl Metcalfe. Donald Clifford Scott, secretary of the association, has been in New York in the interest of the souvenir program, which will be published for the occasion. He said every effort was being made to equal if not eclipse the first entertainment, which consisted of a presentation of "Fifty Miles from Boston," and which was described by the critics as the equal of the Broadway production. The association, for membership in which all Lubin employes are eligible, began business on March 25 last. The term will close on December 9, at which time the funds in ,-the treasury will be divided pro rata. The dues are 25 cents a week. Sick benefits are paid at the rate of $7 a week for seven weeks and there is a death insurance of $50. In spite of the fact that $500 has been disbursed in benefits the dividends to members will exceed the sums they have paid in in dues. This somewhat unusual situation is owing to the hearty manner in which Philadelphians support the association's entertainments. ROCK ISLAND GETS BEAUTIFUL THEATER. When the Spencer Square theater of Rock Island, 111., throws open its doors for formal dedication, the latter part of October, Rock Island, 111., will boast of one of the most elaborate and costly motion picture play houses in Illinois. Mrs. Fiske will open the house in "Vanity Fair." The owners, H. H. Treffer and Carl Miller, are preparing in their theater a magnificent setting for the forthcoming seven-reel Kleine-Edison production. Something like $100,000 is being expended on the Spencer Square theater, the site being that of the old Family theater, once used as a vaudeville house. The interior design of the Spencer Square theater is to be in Italian Renaissance with pilasters and frieze, highly ornamented. The stage will have a colonnaded pavilion on each side of the screen, surrounded by groups of fountains and statuary. The two rear exits will be approached by balustraded stairs and two of the boxes will be reached from these stairs. The orchestra will be put in a pit, thus being out of vision of the audience. There will be a gradual slope in the balcony and it will have in front four boxes, each seating ten persons. The front of the building will be in matt glaze terra cotta and polychrome in a Venetian palace design, while a marquise of ornamental iron will extent across the sidewalk. The Spencer Square theater is to have the most modern system of ventilation, supplying 25 cubic feet of fresh air to each person per minute. The . theater Will seat about 1,000 persons. WILL RISING'S MOTHER DIES. Will S. Rising, the noted actor-singer and dean of moving picture producers, mourns the loss of his mother, Mrs. Carrie E. Rising, who passed away on the 19th at Lancaster, Ohio, aged 90 years. She was the daughter of Lucretia Troth and niece of Rev. James Finley, a Wesleyan missionary, who spent his life among the Indians, the early part of the last century. She survived her husband, Philip Rising, a Mexican war veteran, six years, who passed away at the age of 85. The Rising homestead stands between General Sherman's and his father-in-law's, Thomas Ewing, first Secretary of Interior.