Screenland (Oct 1923-Mar 1924)

The Girl Who Quit Hollywood (Continued from page 80) 82 EIGHT BEAUTIFUL Star Portraits for 25 cents! Many readers dislike tearing or marring their copies of SCREENLAND, and yet they would like to frame the eight handsome rotogravure portraits that appear each month. Two unbound copies of the complete gallery in this issue ■ — ready for framing — will be sent upon receipt of twenty-five cents in coin or stamps; or FREE with a five months' subscription to SCREENLAND for $i.oo. PRINT DEPARTMENT SCREENLAND MAGAZINE 119 West 40th St., New York City — I can't understand," I interposed. "No one understands — particularly the people here at the studio." She unconsciously lowered her voice. "I actually believe they dislike me. They think it sacrilege for me to feel this way about the pictures. But I can't help it. I have only one good camera angle — and how -can I act with this dreadful knowledge uppermost in my mind? In Hollywood when I should have been throwing myself into the part of Angela Whitaker, concentrating upon how to get the most out of every emotional scene — I found myself wondering, instead, if I was in the correct position for the camera man — if he was getting the slant of my head that Mr. Cruze wanted. And I want to act — not pose. "Do you know, it almost seems wrong for me to have had that part in Hollywood— think what it would have meant to some hard-working extra girl. "You're thinking that I don't know enough about either the screen or the Samaniegos is an excellent Spanish name. Back in Durango, Mexico, where he was born and reared, it served admirably. But as a screen name, it is not so good. It is too long ever to go up in electric lights .... and even a novice in pictures looks forward to that halycon time when his name will be featured over theatre entrances. Besides, few Americans can spell it. In fact, they can't even pronounce it. Mario is twenty-two years old, still young enough to resent being called young. Ramon once told in an interview how he and his little brother left the old home at Durango and journeyed to this new and strange land to seek their fortunes. He was at that time seventeen years old. The "little brother" was Mario, and he was all of two years younger than Ramon ! I think stage to really be sure what I want, but I've had enough stock experience to know that I love the stage. Besides the San Diego company, I was with the Thomas Wilkes Stock at the Alcazar in San Francisco; then I played the lead in The Rear Car at the Morosco here. And there's no training so good as stock. Compared with it, motion picture work seems recreation. All through Hollywood I never once felt I was acting — I felt like a marionette, with the director pulling the strings. "My father, Clarence Drown, has been a stage director all his life, so you see I was really raised in that atmosphere. I was born in Chicago, but we moved to Los Angeles while I was still a baby, when he came here to manage the Orpheum Theatre. All our friends are stage people — why it seems almost like treason for me to be in pictures ! . "I'm terribly thrilled at this offer from Frank Keenan. I feel it is the first step toward the success I've always ' dreamed of — Broadway !" »' ■ ■ • ■ Mario will never quite forget the indignity of that "little brother" ! They worked in the daytime, and in the evenings they went to night-school. Mario studied English. When he had the new tongue conquered he discovered he was forgetting his French. He-had attended a French school in Mexico and as a result spoke the language fluently until he came to California. So he went back to night school to brush up on his French. He took other courses, too, in lieu of college work. But most of all he studied dramatics. On the stage of the Polytechnique High School he rejoiced in the opportunity to show that he, too, was an actor. And meanwhile he saved his money. Ramon forged ahead in pictures and the rest of the Samaniegos family came to Los Angeles to join their young pioneers And finally Mario got his chance. The Famous Motion Picture Criticisms of FREDERICK JAMES SMITH Appear Only in SCREENLAND See Pages 42, 43 and 44 And the Boy Who Came to Conquer It (Continued from page 80)