Hollywood Studio Magazine (April 1970)

by Eddie Le Veque M y maternal grand uncle, Rito Armendariz, was one of the greatest clowns and patomimists in the Spanish world. He was also actor musician, puppetier and empresario of his different types of shows. As a stage actor, producer and director, he was against the artificiality of the traditional Spanish stage and, like EL GRAN NERON (the Great Nero), a Gypsy, who in the 1700’s, taught his band of Gypsy performers, to act naturally and with inner feeling, to imagine that they were the characters they were portraying. Since I was the only young male in the family, and my mother his favorite niece, I acted in some of his stage plays at the age of four if a child was needed, playing boy or girl. After I was seven, my parents permitted me to travel with him & his wife & his troop. In the United States, we traveled thru Texas, New Mexico & Arizona, with incursions into Mexico taking the main cities, as well as small towns. My uncle then, must have been in his sixties or seventies, but he was full of vim and activity, he died pushing 90. There was an old Gypsy, somewhere near 90 that I think was the son or grandson of EL GRAND NERON, and there was much talk from the actors about this great Gypsy who used to train his troop of players in some clearing in the woods completely naked, while fellow actors pelted them with rotten fruit & eggs if they performed badly. These actors staged their plays in patios and town squares where they were subject to all kinds of indignities by rowdies. But in spite of their tauntings they kept on acting. Because EL GRAN NERON’S theories were contrary to Spain’s Royal theater, he was charged with heresy & condemned to torture and death. When I read about “Method Acting,” I found its teachings quite familiar. It was what my uncle had been voicing and arguing with actors who still remained tied to the artificiality of the Spanish stage. Perhaps EL GRAN NERON was really the initiator of Method Acting, but he called it “Naturalism” with FEELING. One anecdote about Neron was that he told a young actor to react as if he had been sleeping with the wife of his master and was not afraid to face him since he loved her. The actor answered, I’m not afraid to face you. I have been sleeping with your wife and we love each other. About 1904 my uncle bought an Edison projector and combined live shows with movies. Since electricity was not always available in some places, he used gas light in which either was part of the formula. It gave a remarkable white light. He ran mostly French films, Pathe Freres, Gaumont, Eclair, etc. They were short films. Some of these were about French Gendarmes chasing a crook up and down hilly, narrow streets, overturning push carts, people and tables at outdoor cafes, and as the chase progressed more cops & civilians joined the chase until the thief was caught. These short Gendarme chases were the forerunners of the Keystone Kops. My uncle was a movie fan, and whenever I would go home from my run-away trips, we used to go together to movie houses in El Paso where we saw nothing but American pictures. I used to love to travel & would run away from home and beat my way on freight & passenger trains. I rode the SP, the GH., the Rock Island, the Texas & Pacific, the Santa Fe & other rails without paying a cent. We used to love to watch Biograph comedies and the early Keystones, and my uncle would point out to me the technique of actors like Chester Conklin, Fred Mace, Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, Mack Swain as well as other comics like John Bunny. In 1913 I worked for the American Film Company playing boy parts and in the lab in Chicago. This company was known as the Flying A Mutual. In June 1915 I went to work as a prop boy, bit actor and Keystone Kop. In those days everybody played Keystone Kop at one time or another, even the big star comics such as Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, who usually played the Chief, Harry McCoy, Bobby Dunn, & others. It was just as hard to get into pictures then, as it was later. I had 3 or 4 8 X 10 stills of myself in some of the American Film Co. pictures which, by the way, consisted of brief stories of about a half reel, the other half reel usually was about how sardines were canned, or bottles made, etc. I approached Harry Atkinson at the casting window, & showed him my stills. He was not impressed. It was about 8 A.M. and there must have been about 20 people, including children, standing on the sidewalk hoping for a call. Along with my stills, I had some postcards of the Mexican Revolution with me standing along side Pancho Villa and men of his band. That caught Harry Atkinson’s eye and interest. Charlie Avery, actor and director, was just going out on location. Charlie needed an extra prop boy to assist the cameraman, and whatever else might 2A