Film Fun (Jan - Dec 1916)

Confessions with Coffee Uy ELIZABETH 8EAHS r\ ***§M T MET three screen actresses the other afternoon, refreshing themselves in a modest little coffee room with coffee and waffles. They were of the type that has arrived, and can afford to be natural and indulge in their simple tastes for waffles. "Now, don't ask us about the uplift of the screen," said the one with the moleskin toque. "If I had the working over of Mr. Webster's book on words, I'd rout out 'uplift' the first shot out of the box. Why, do you know what we were just discussing when you came in? We were discussing . the greatest need of the successful screen actress." "What is the greatest need of the successful screen actress?" I inquired amiably, ordering waffles with plenty of syrup. The three glanced at each other sympathetically and despairingly. "Closet room," they recited in chorus. I buttered the waffles liberally, doused them with syrup, and waited. If you wait long enough, a woman will tell you everything and admire you with fierce envy for not questioning her. "We have been looking for apartments," said the girl in the moleskin toque. "I just must have more closet room. My wardrobe problem is getting to be serious. I have trunk after trunk filled with clothes, and no place to put them. I do not dare put the trunks in storage, for one never knows just when one is going to need the garments of a certain year, period or style. Just as sure as you dispose of a gown or hat, your director is going to demand a scene of you next day in which you will need that identical garment. And so you go on accumulating and accumulating, until every trunk and clothes press and closet in the house is full of old stuff that you do not dare get rid of. Sometimes a scene must be retaken, and you'll lose your job if you dare try to substitute a gown, hat or even a pair of shoes." "And then there's your street clothes," complained the girl in the nifty plumcolored velvet dress. "I'd greatly prefer wearing quiet street tailored suits of dark blue or brown; but, you see — well, it's like this. People judge you so in New York by your clothes. If you are not MUTUAL garbed right up to the min T , „ , .. ... 6 Lady Eglantine is a white ute, they mark you down as Christian. This was her first a failure. Lack of success picture camera. She is valued is the one crime they won't forgive you for in New York. If you simulate success, they'll believe it of you." "I'll never forget how hard it was for me to learn that," smiled the third girl, hurrying on her new and immaculate white kid gloves. "Mercy me! in my first days as a screen actress, I was careful of my white gloves. I only had two pairs — one on my hands and one at the cleaners— and I would not have dreamed of slinging them around carelessly like this. When I came to New York, I had a modest coat and skirt suit and two or three nondescript garments that I called, in my innocence, shirtwaists. I call them 'blooses' now. And I went wearily from office to office, trying to get a job, without results, until a successful friend lent me a dashing blue taffeta onepiece gown, with a smart hat, and after a few minutes before her dressing table turned me out as a cleverly hand-painted work of art. The first place I visited that day yielded a job that was my stepping-stone to success. I hate to admit it, but it is true that a lot of our success depends upon our wardrobes. " "That wasn't the worst of those dreary marches from office to office, either," admitted the girl with the moleskin toque. "Since this seems to be a clearinghouse for confessions, I'll own up that what used to rile me the most was the way they gave us an appraising glance — just the same manner in which a horse dealer examines a horse. They eye you impartially, ask you to get up and walk across the room, and measure up your feet and hands. You feel as if every slightest blemish had suddenly magnified into a mountain, and every wrinkle in your shoetop and every tiny break in a thread in your hose was wildly proclaiming itself to the world at large." "Oh, my dear, you speak true words!" sighed the girl with the white gloves. "I lost myself a good job once by suddenly whirling around on my tormentors and asking if they wouldn't like to examine my teeth." "I didn't know screen actresses ever had to look for jobs, ' ' I ventured. ' ' I always understood that the managers fairly forced them to accept salaries of a million dollars a week, with bungalows and limousines and brocadedraped dressing-rooms." The three young women looked at each other sadly and rose. T , , j u a r "Unconscious humor," Leghorn hen, owned by A. G. experience before the motion thev murmured. "Goodby, :t $100,000 by her owner, dear."