Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1919 - Feb 1920)

"Don't Do It, Marjorie" 13 I got to New York that evening, and for just a moment before I landed, I was sort of staggered at the bigness of it ; it loomed up in front of me so appallingly. But then I saw the tower of the Woolworth Building, lifting itself toward the sky like a huge beacon tower, and I took it for a symbol for myself; hope and the willingness to work could be just as substantial and strong as it was, I knew. And I was willing to work, and wait, and be patient no matter how hard things were at first. Jeanne had sent me to a friend of hers for that night, and the friend very obligingly rented me a tiny little hall bedroom for five dollars a week; it wasn't much larger than our clothes closets back home, but I soon learned that I probably couldn't have found a room for that price in a boarding house without going way out to the edge of town. As it was,. I lived in a huge apartment house near Washington Square ; from my window I could look out over miles and miles of roofs — thousands and thousands of homes. And I couldn't help wondering, as I looked out over them early in the morning of my first day in New York, how many girls there were in those homes who wanted to go into the movies, just as I did, and how many of them could be sure even of getting in to see a casting director, as I was going to do that day. I started early for the studio where Jeanne had told me I'd find Mr. Rowe. It was on a cross street uptown, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, and I went up on top of a Fifth Avenue bus. And as the bus joggled along, and I watched all the people who were going to work, I wanted to lean down and shout at them — "Some day before long maybe you'll see me on the screen !" That shows how foolishly happy and enthusiastic I was. The studio was a great, gray building, with a door opening directly from the street into a little sort of office. Directly behind the gate in the little fence that separated the office part from the hall was a big door ; as I stood waiting for somebody to come to see what I wanted several people came along and went into that door, and from the blue, sputtering light that came through it and a voice that called "Camera !" I knew that the studio itself — "the floor," Jeanne had said they called it, lay just beyond. I -could see myself, the center of wonderful pictures of wealth and lavish display. I wanted to shout to the passersby that they'd soon see me on the screen. Once when the door opened I got a glimpse of what was going on within ; it seemed to be a big scene, for there were lots of people in it ; I could see girls with flowers and bright-colored balloons, dancing on a flowertrimmed table, and people sitting around applauding them. There was music, too — gay, lilting music, that made me long more than ever for a place of my own in this brilliant profession. Near me, on the wall, was a big sign that said "No Casting To-day," and for a minute my heart stood still when l saw that. But of course that didn't apply to me — I had a letter to Mr. Rowe. I gave it to the man in charge, who finally appeared, and sat down on one of the benches to wait till Mr. Rowe would send out for me. There were other people waiting, too. I heard one girl say that she'd been told that the way to get a job was to hang around the studios, and that she'd been doing it now for two months, and never had seen anybody but the doortenders. I felt so sorry for her. I felt sorry for another girl, too. She was perfectly stunning — tall and dark, and beautifully dressed. She gave the doorman her name, and a young woman who seemed to know her came out from one of the inner offices and talked with her. "I'm sorry — but there isn't a thing for you," the woman told her. "They've decided that you aren't the type for that part; it must be a younger girl, and one not quite so tall. And we aren't casting anything else at present." "But Mr. Rowe said — I worked with him at Balboa, you know, for seven months, and he knows I've had all sorts of experience — and he said he'd give me the first possible chance." The girl's voice trembled a little. "I haven't had an engagement since last summer and I'll take anything. I wonder — couldn't I see Mr. Rowe a moment? He could cast some of the other parts a little differently perhaps— so that the ages of the other people would be changed and they wouldn't need a girl younger than I for that part." "We thought of doing that." The woman's voice was so kind that I knew she felt sorry for the girl, too. "But it would change the