Photoplay (Apr - Sep 1918)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




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.

22 Photoplay Magazine almost petrified, but presently a light dawned. '"I gelcha," said the great director, "the longer we take on these scenes, the longer you live." "That wasn't what you might call an especially encouraging remark to make, now was it?" remarked Bobby. Bobby Harron has been in the pictures since 1907, when he was fourteen years old. He started in with the old Biograph company in New York. "I was going to a parochial school," he said, "and one day, I asked the Brother to let me know the next time he heard of a place for a boy. A little later the Brother sent me around to the Biograph studio. The man in charge was named McCutcheon; his son, Wallie, is now a major in the English army. He asked the usual questions, and the upshot of it was that I went to work in the cutting room at a salary of five dollars a week. After I had been working in the cutting room about two months, he took me out and gave me a small part in a picture. It was a comedy named 'Dr. Skinnum.' Anthony O'Sullivan was in it, I remember, the same Tony O'Sullivan who is now in charge of the 'lot' over at Mack Sennett's. I remember thinking at the time that there was no future in that kind of work for a young fellow, and that as soon as I could I'd go and get another job. But I never did. I kept on when Mr. Griffith took charge; came with him to California, and have been with him ever since." His first leading part was in a picture called "Bobby's Kodak." "This picture gave me my first big joy in life, because it gave me the chance to be the kind of kid I had wanted to be in my dreams, but had never had the chance to be in real life. My oldest brother and I had always had it in us to be little devils, but we lacked the teamwork of the Katzenjammers. We always took it out in fighting to see which one was going to play the lead. For instance, I'd come to him and propose that I play hookey and fix up a nice little story for him to tell the Brother, but he'd say, 'Well, I don't see why / can't play hookey and you tell the story to the Brother,' and so it would end by neither of us playing hookey. It was that way with every bit of mischief we tried to do — we were great chums" — there was no pause but a hurrying on of speech — "he's dead, now — killed two years ago in an automobile accident." Bobby comes from a family of ten children and is the oldest of seven living; five sisters and one brother, all in Bobby has just left the Hollywood trenches to snatch a mug of coffee and a plate of beans. school but one sister. One brother, aged 14, has appeared in a picture with Louise Huff. "Oh, he's a comer, all right!" said Bobby. Speaking of his trip to Europe, one of the first things he mentioned, referring to it with an air of tremendous pride, was that they went over with General Pershing and his staff, "taking the same high place in French history that is given to Lafayette in American history." "Of course the fact that the general and his staff were to accompany us was supposed to be a deep and dark secret of state. It was quite some secret. The first I knew of it was two days before we sailed. I was walking down a New York street, when a fellow I knew stopped me, took me aside, and looking around to be sure there was. no one who could overhear him, whispered, 'I'll tell you something if you'll promise me not to tell any one.' Of course, I promised, and he said in a still lower whisper, 'You're going over with General Pershing and his staff.' "A little later I met a man who had booked with us for passage. 'Heard the news?' he asked. 'No,' I said. 'What is it?' 'General Pershing is to sail with us, but for goodness' sake don't tell anybody.' "After that, knowing that it would make mother feel easier to know that every care would be taken of General Pershing, I decided to tell her that he would be with us. I knew she wouldn't say anything about it, but nevertheless my conscience troubled me a little until, just as we were going aboard, with a lot of dock hands within easy hearing distance, some one yelled at the top of his voice to a friend at the foot of the gangplank, 'Hey, who do you Staee think 's on board — General Pershing!' "Yes, it was quite some secret!" For Bobby seasickness was not one of the horrors of war. "I didn't get really seasick at all," he said, "because every time I felt that there was any danger of it. I went to bed and stayed there until I felt right again. I didn't get up at all the first three days out — not because I was really sick, but because the roll of the ship bothered me a little and I wasn't taking any chances." Speaking of taking chances, he had only been back in Los Angeles about a week when he went with a party on a little two-hour trip to Catalina Island; a trip that is nearly always disagreeable and choppy. Everyone on board (Continued on page iJ5)