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56 IT TOOK NINE TAILORS
that Shakespeare had erred when he said, "The play's the thing." For, after the novelty of movies wore off, it was the stars that the fans came to see and not the plays. This simplified the whole plan of movie manufacturing. The producers at first had tried to keep the identities of their stars secret, but now they did an about-face and began to exploit the stars in preference to the product. If that was what brought the money to the box office, they were willing to ride with the tide.
The producers not only publicized the recognized stars, but also spent thousands of dollars creating stars out of unknown talent. The Essanay Company, in search of a new male star, landed the winner of a "Most Handsome Man" contest staged for them by The Ladies World Magazine. The prize man was Francis X. Bushman, who set feminine hearts aflutter like a combination of Frankie Sinatra and Errol Flynn. He was costarred with Beverly Bayne, and when their marriage was announced, a million female hearts were broken.
This publicizing of stars created competition for their services. Naturally their salaries skyrocketed. When Adolph Zukor announced that he had signed Mary Pickford to a new contract that called for the staggering salary of $2,000 a week, it started a panic. Everybody wanted to be in pictures. Stage stars suddenly realized that, although their art might suffer in the "flickers," it would not suffer on an empty stomach. At the Lambs Club it was no longer a disgrace to be caught working in a moving picture.
But we journeymen movie actors got no part of the golden bonanza that was poured into the laps of the name actors from the stage. Although I had had one taste of affluence in A Parisian Romance, it was a long time before I ever again earned a salary of $100 a week. I'd work one day as an extra at five dollars, the next as a bit player at ten dollars, and occasionally I'd land a "big" part at seventy-five a week for a week and three days.
I worked in two-reelers and four-reelers, good ones and bad ones. My method for judging the good ones was infallible. They