Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

What the Fans Think What Constitutes a Real Fan? NCE She Raved — Now She's Bored" headed the letter from "Diana" in a recent issue. Diana said that she used to read all available movie magazines, and attended the movies regularly. So she called herself a fan. Now, after three years of being that kind of fan, she has suddenly become bored. Why, I wonder? Does Diana choose her pictures wisely? Does she follow the reviews that are written for the very purpose of directing us to interesting entertainment? It seems to me no one could be bored if they took Picture Play in its entirety and profited by its contents. The question arises, was Diana a real fan before? Has she not been going through the vociferous-reading, idealistic stage, in the process of becoming a real fan? I think so. We all pass through it, but boredom should not be the result ! What is a real fan, you may ask. There are two stages in the development of a true fan. First, as I said, one goes through the idealistic period, during which the players seem like gods to us and we permit no word of criticism to be spoken of them — they are perfect, glorious. Then comes the broad-minded stage, and we begin to see the film people as human beings, subjected to temptations and liable to err even as the rest of us might err. We admire and adore them as much as before, only in a more reasonable way. Since coming to Los Angeles, I've found the movies far more "interesting than before for the very reason that I have come to re?lizc that the movie people are human. Diana objects to having the intimate details of the lives of the cinema people published, but these are really essential. They furnish a point of contact between the players and the fans. Our president is subjected to the same supposedly unhappy fate of being a public character who cannot be famous and at the same time be "shut in." Mrs. Olive Thompson. 724 West 47th Street, Los Angeles, California. Are the Stars as Bad as They're Painted? When a man is a banker or a lawyer or a writer, nobody thinks of him as a dissipated man. But just let him^ be an actor and every one has heard this or that scandal about him. We don't know what to believe. We've never seen the players, so we can't tell when a thing is true, and when it isn't. We hear such azvf ul things about them. Some one saw this or that star, and my heavens, how homely she was, and awkward ! We read about Charles Chaplin and the accusations his wife makes against him. Won't some one please speak up and give us a good argument in favor of the stars? Some one who knows them and has worked with them. Please ! We have to believe either the worst of them or the best — and we'd prefer the latter. Interested. 525 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, Hibbing, Minnesota. The Stars Are Hard-working People. I wonder where the idea originated that the movingpicture players lead a life of leisure, that the studios are houses of jazz, and that the stars are anything but humans. You soon lose any such idea if you go in for a picture career, and only too suddenly wake up to the fact that the actors are hard-working people — from the unknown extra to the prominent star. We hear a lot about how hard and discouraging the life of an extra is, but the stars themselves have a pretty hard struggle, too — to hold their places and, most of all, to please the fickle public. We hear tales of the fabulous salaries our brilliant stars receive, but have we ever taken into consideration that the}^ also have enorm.ous bills to pay? For instance, the stars are required to make a showing — they must entertain extensively. This costs mone}^ Then, there are their homes and cars to keep up, their personal wardrobes and servants — all requiring a lot of cold cash. Besides which, they have plenty of worries — yes, stars worry. They meet with a good deal of grief at the studios, for, after all, the studios are nothing but factories. The prominent players are constantly under the terrific glare of the Kleig lights, which often results in their being stricken with temporary blindness. And how the stars have to work, acting their scenes over and over again, struggling to please the director, working day and night in order to get the picture finished ! Then they must have fittings for their screen costume-, sittings for photographs, conferences with the executives— all this to please the public. [Continued on page 10]