Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1916)

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58 One Extra Girl onds or with one of the stars. Last week, I had a scene with Harry Meyers in which I was supposed to be a lady barber in a shop into which he strolled to be shaved. It was a comedy, and was awfully funny. He told me afterward he wondered how I ever kept from laughing; he doesn't know that, no matter whether the scene is funny or tragic, I take it very seriously. You see, I look upon it as an art which I must learn, and which I am willing to admit to myself I have much to learn about. I always study the other actresses when they are working in scenes in the studio, and when I see them in pictures on the screen. If I had chosen stenography as my work, I would take pains to learn how to increase my speed in taking dictation, and now that I have determined to make good in the movie game, I am going to study just so much harder to learn all that I can about acting before the camera, because I realize that while a stenographer has only her employer to please, a motion-picture actress has the whole world." She paused a moment, and looked across the studio, very interested. I followed her gaze, and saw Miss Mary Fuller going through the rehearsal of a scene with Mr. Henderson, her director. When they had finished, I turned to Miss Cloak with another question. "You ought to be in a position," I said, "to tell the ambitious young girls all over the country whether or not they ought to try to work in pictures." "I'd rather not answer that question directly/' she replied, smiling, "because I can't agree with you that I am in position to judge their chances of success. I didn't come over here because I was stage-struck, but rather because I wanted to take up some kind of work which would enable me at once to take care of my mother, and which would offer me a future. I thought over all the different things I could do, and de cided motion-picture acting was the thing that looked most favorable. If I didn't think now that I could be a success I would give it up at once, but so far I have been greatly encouraged by the results of my efforts. "I can assure you of this much, though, the stories one hears about the great dangers that threaten a young girl in the motion-picture studios are greatly exaggerated, and many of them are absolute falsehoods. The gentlemen I have met have been real men, whom any one could admire. Most of them are married, and have families, and their families are about two-thirds of their lives. They do their work at the studio and do it well, and at night they go home, the same as any other man of the business or professional world does. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but one finds undesirable people in any walk of life. All a girl has to do is to avoid them, and, once they are given to understand she has no use for them, they do not try to force themselves upon her. ''The stage-struck girl is really in more danger than the girl who comes to the studio to earn her living by her work. I am not subject to flattery, and neither are the majority of the other girls who depend on this work for their income, but when a girl comes here who is 'just crazy' about some person or other, and who doesn't leave when she learns that there is no work for the day, I always can see the possibilities for such stories as one hears about the studios." She paused a moment, and I took the opportunity to secure more information. "I suppose," I ventured, "that to become a real star is your greatest ambition?" "Yes, indeed, it is," she said, her face lighting up with enthusiasm at the thought of the goal before her. "That is really the thought that is buzzing in