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32
Strange Roads to Stardom
George O'Brien was also a camera man when Tom Mix "discovered" him.
Photo by Fryer
Alice White was a studio worker, with never a thought of acting until some one suggested it.
"Let me be your manager," he said.
"Don't be silly," said Alice. "What would a script girl do with a manager?" | "Become a star," said the agent, "if you take off ten pounds."
: So she took off ten pounds, the agent took her to First National, and First National took her to a fountain pen and a contract.
June Collyer is the daughter of Clayton Heermance, a New York lawyer. With wealth, breeding, beauty, charm, June — who was christened Dorothea — had all the qualities for screen success. But so have thousands of other girls all over the country. June just happened to be fortunate.
At a dinner party one night she met a friend of Allan Dwan, the director. "The very girl!" he told her. "Mr. Dwan is looking for some one like you." He spoke of the scores of screen tests Mr. Dwan had been making at Fox's New York studio, in a futile search for some one to play the society girl in "East Side, West Side." "Why don't you try for it?" he asked.
So June tried. Without, of course, much hope of success. But it turned out to be June's lucky day ; she got not only that role, but many other roles.
Josephine Dunn was a chorus girl, but the stage was not her stepping-stone into the movies. She, too, found opportunity by accident.
The Paramount school was being assembled, and one day a girl friend asked Josephine to accompany her to Paramount 's studio at Astoria, Long Island. The friend wanted to try for the school but Josephine had never thought of it.
The school director looked at Jo's friend. "You won't do," he told her. And then he looked at Josephine — as one would! "Why don't you try for the school ?" he said.
"Me? I haven't got the money." Tuition was five hundred dollars. Jo had never even seen that much money all at once. But
that, it seemed, could be arranged by installments out of her future salary. And so Josephine became one of the class that introduced Buddy Rogers, Thelma Todd, and Roland Drew, then Walter Goss, to the movie public.
Many lucky accidents have befallen those who worked around the studio. A job inside a studio, even if it's only sweeping floors, is sometimes the humble first step on the golden ladder to fame.
George O'Brien was a camera man for Tom Mix pictures. Until, on George's lucky day, the star suddenly realized that the face behind the camera should be in front instead. So, on Tom's recommendation, George was given a screen test and the lead in "The Iron Horse."
Richard Walling was also a camera man for Fox. And then
an astute director woke up one day to his screen possibilities and he was given a lead in "The Midnight Kiss," opposite Janet Gaynor, in her first leading role.
Lawrence Gray worked in the business department of Paramount, until Bebe Daniels, seeing him, suggested that he was much too handsome to be leaning over a desk. Patricia Avery was a stenographer at the Metro-Goldwyn studio when her screen possibilities were noted. Continued on page 92
Virginia Cherrill's life and accidental entrance into pictures are strangely like Sue Carol's.