Film Fun (Jan - Dec 1916)

Virgina Getchell, who has a good part in "Civilization," selects her own pose. stage children at the Rehearsal Club, an organization of professional women. Here they pursue the ' same studies as the children in the public schools. They are given leave of absence for work only by permission of the Gerry Society. At Universal City there is a school for the children, which is conducted all the year round. The professional children are eager for education. From their constant association with adults, probably, as well as from their more comprehensive view of life than the average child which comes from their peculiar experiences, they seem to be endowed with unusual seriousness and ambition. They take their acting seriously. But when they are away from the camera, back of the footlights, away from their studies, they are only children, indeed. They all have their favorite playthings and their favorite pastimes. Clara Horton, a child whose success in amateur theatricals in Brooklyn, N. Y., led to a career as a juvenile professional, has a collection of wonderful dolls which have been sent her by admirers from every country. Virginia Myers has a batch of wonderful Angora kittens, and when she is not reading in a corner of the studio where her father works at his paintings and etchings, or drawing sketches of her own, she is playing with them. Bobby Connelly, the precocious child of the Vitagraph studios, has a magnificent dog, which accompanies his small master to the studio every morning. Katherine and Jane Lee, four and six years old, the two most famous motion picture children, perhaps, receive together a salary closely approximating $200 a week. They spent a good share of the winter in Bermuda, with Annette Kellermann, working in her picture, "A Daughter of the Gods," and are under long-time contracts with the Fox Company, as are Kittens Reichert and Miriam Battista. The children who are "played up" in film drama receive, on an average, from $30 to $60 a week. Those under contract, but playing smaller parts, are paid from $15 to $35 a week, while the "extras," hired from day to day, receive from $3 to $10 a day. Most of the children have definite ideas about the value of money, which are being inculcated into their minds, probably, by sensible parents and guardians, who feel that the game is an uncertain one, and it is best to gather the golden plums while the gathering is good. Most of the children are saving the contents of their weekly pay envelopes for particular purposes. Billy Jacobs, a curly-headed youngster of the Lasky cohorts, has purchased a motor car, and with his own earnings supports a chauffeur, while chubby little Peggy George, his playmate and co-player, is buying a bungalow covered with roses and with little bird houses built in the vines, so that "the birdies" will come to live with her. Ethelmary Oakland, so her mother says, has a perfect mania for helping the war orphans, and aside from appearing at countless "benefits"' for the European war victims, she has donated a good share of her salary every week to "the cause." There is Thelma Salter, a light, curly-headed child, who plays with many of the western companies; there is Dodo Newton, the pretty little girl who made a decided hit in a black velvet Lord Fauntleroy and a gun and a drum in "Soul Mates," with William Clifford; there is Francis Carpenter, who appeared in "Old Heidelberg;" and Betty Marsh, the niece of Mae Marsh; and George Stone, of the Triangle studio; and then there are Madeline Barrett, Ella Hall, Harry Depp, Georgia French and Antrim Short, of the juvenile company at Universal City. On their young shoulders falls much of the responsibility of success of the movies. The motion picture director was right. The magic touch of childhood is "what gets them" every time — the magic touch of childhood, which raises the laugh that is half weep and makes the members of the audience feel akin. Elegy Written in a Country Garage By J. P. ROBINSON THE CURFEW tolls the knell of parting day, The common herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The workman homeward wends his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Into the Little Car behind the barn, I pour some gasoline with all my might, Then light the lamps and crank the dev'lish thing, And disappear into the murky night. Let yokels snore along the country pike, Uncanny early to the arms of Morpheus go. My Little Car and I are on the hike For town — and then the nearest picture show.