Talking Screen (Sep-Oct 1930)

I Knew Them When one of his efficienq' schemes. I had a house for rent near the studio and Harry had been negotiating for it. I suspected that he figured it would not be a bad plan to marry one's landlady. Those were the good old days. Mrs. Eugenie Forde was playing sophisticated matron role's at Christies, at this time, and as Vicky was going to marry Tom Mix, she wanted to rent the house for the young couple. It was an ordinary six room bungalow but was conveniently located. Unfortunately, I had already accepted a deposit from a cameraman at the studio. Several years later, I was sent to interview the Mixes and write up a description of their new home. I could not find my way around the stately mansion without a guide and the number of servants confused and awed me. I ENJOYED working with the Christie gang but I made a faux pas which resulted in my taking my baggage over to the Sennett lot. It all came about over my inability to do a scene as the director wished It to be done. I was supposed to hold a basket of flowers in front of Betty's face and take it slowly away. It was at the end of a ragged day. Everything had gone wrong all day and everyone's nerves were on edge. I took the basket aw-ay too quickly and the director exploded. 'We afterward became good friends but at that instant we hated each other with such venom that our bite would have mean instant death. He said some pretty mean things. I was furious. I threw the basket down. "You can't talk to me like that for a three-dollar check," I informed him and marched off the set. I knew that I was committing lese majeste for you are not supposed to answer a director back, even if he curses you, but I meant what I said. Who was I, to take the lip of a comedy director, I wanted to know. Hadn't I turned down an offer to be the leading lady of Douglas Fairbanks? Which was true. When I landed in Hollywood, if anyone wanted to get in touch with a movie star all they needed to do was to call them on the phone. Private numbers were unknown. I had a bad fan crush on Douglas Fairbanks and when he learned that I had just come from Wyoming he invited me up to his home, which was two blocks from the Hotel Hollywood where I was stopping. I lost no time in calling upon him. Doug insisted that I had personality and offered to write a part into his picture and if I liked the work he promised me a lead in the next one. I had no illusions about my ability as an actress. I told him I couldn't act if my life depended upon it. Doug told me I didn't need to, that he really did all the acting. He insisted on taking me down to the studio for a test. A good-looking young fellow supervised the making of it. I will never forget how silly I felt when he told rhe to laugh, when there was really nothing to laugh at; to wave to someone when there was really nobody there and a dozen other absurd things. He insisted that I was a peach and I'll always love Victor Fleming for that, but the test was a dud. I never {Coniinned from page 38} even saw it. I'm kind of glad I didn't. I began working around the studios as an extra, just for fun. After my mistake at Christie's, I went over to Sennett's, but I had such a distaste for custard pie that I could not endure it long. I stayed through one picture only. I WENT over to Lasky's and worked in a number of Mary Pickford comedies. The extra girl I remember best on the Pickford set was Zasu Pitts. She had a touching part as a love-lorn girl in How Could You, Jean? Zasu had the longest hair I have ever seen and she wore it in one long Here's Miss Bebe Daniels again in the days when custard pies were the most important thing in her life. braid. Her hair was very straight and the wardrobe woman's biggest job on location was to follow Zasu around and keep making little corkscrew curls around Zasu's face and at the end of her braid. While she was working on this picture Zasu signed a contract to appear in Charlie Chaplin's pictures. Her contract called for fifty dollars a week and this seemed like a magnificent sum to Zasu. The day that she signed was the day that she was supposed to make a lot of crying sequences and it proved one time that Zasu was too happy to cry. She tried heroically to induce tears and failed. Finally, Director Taylor had the prop boy make some glycerine tears on Zasu's cheeks, probably the only time in her career that she has had to make use of this device. If she could have looked ahead, Zasu would not have been so hilarious over her luck. She received her money all right from the short contract, but she never appeared in a single scene with Charlie. Some insinuated that Charlie cut her out of the picture because she was funnier than he was. When she signed the contract, Zasu bought a lot of furniture and things upon the strength of her future prospects and moved into a larger house. Naturally, when nothing came of it, Zasu had to give up all of the grand things she had purchased. A BOUT this time, I started to work in a series of comedies that Harold Lloy/i was making for The Rolin Film Company, in which Bebe Daniels was playing The Girl. The comedies were made in an old mansion on top of Bunker Hill above the Court Flight in Los Angeles. These comedies were written so that only one interior set was needed and usually only three or four extras, in order to keep down the cost of the production. I remember one of those early masterpieces in which Harold played the part of a book-agent. There were two other girls and myself who were playing "atmosphere." It was a beastly hot day and we were wearing the heavy grease paint then in vogue. Sweat stood out on our faces and dribbled down our cheeks but we didn't dare to wipe it off or we would have had to make-up all over again. This would have irritated the director because it would have held up the production. Moreover, the dressing-room was up on the third floor — a tortuous dusty climb. We were dressed in the prevailing mode of heavy tweed suits, billowy underskirts, corsets and high lace shoes. We made the best of it, but my face still itches when I think of the mild tortures we went through that day. In one of the scenes, Harold was ejected as we were passing the entrance to the bu'lding and his books were flung into the street after him. We were bombarded with books so steadily that day that I longed never to see one again. Bebe sympathized with our lot and treated us to Coca-Colas during the waits between scenes. Upon the completion of the last comedy in the series, Bebe was asked by Cecil DeMille to take a test. She was so excited she could hardly speak when she brought the word down to the studio. None of us doubted the outcome. DeMille had already brought wealth and fame to Gloria Swanson, and all of us felt that Bebe would never come back to romp in Rolin Comedies. She didn't. Those funny old studios of yesterday are gone now, torn down and replaced by imposing structures. The gates are barred to visitors and the offices are carpeted with priceless Sarouks. Making pictures is a business now and not a game. The town, itself, is changed. No more speeding on the boulevard, with the sky the limit. No more dancing in the roped-ofF streets among confetti streamers on holidays. No more wild parties that last until dawn. Hollywood is a nine o'clock to\\ n now. You can throw a brick across the boulevard any night and hit nothing but a lamp post or a shop window. Sometimes I wonder if the stars remember those olden times. Do they ever sigh for those days when they were e ctras.' i 76