Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1928)

■■^>^T' m I? i^ s? Si P »r w m m 4.iN"ri^rj III 1 1 n 1 1.1 i^i 1 4 4 : hey Also Starve The Hardships of Extras' Lives Boost the California Suicide Rate Editor's Note: Mr. CriUkshank, second rozv, extreme left, was one of a group of newspaper writers wJio acted for eight days as extras in "The Bellamy Trial." He gathered these_ strange talcs from the real movie extras idth whom he zcorked. They comtitute the sung sagas of the Little People of the movies. By HERBERT CRUIKSHANK un SOMETIMES figures lie. But various sets of statistics seem to agree that during the past ten years approximately twenty-eight of every hundred thousand persons in California "did the Dutch"— more elegantly — committed suicide. This is more than twice the amount of seff-destruction chalked up against the entire nation over the same weary stretch of time. And even Chicago, that Mecca of casual labor, must yield to Los Angeles— City of the Angelsfirst place as a winter harborer of down-and-outers. What percentage of catastrophe may be ascribed to that odd mass of humanity grouped under the studio term atmosphere is problematical. But if an endless routine of sheer discouragement wearies one of life, it is safe to say that the names of countless extras are inscribed on the one-way door. Inquiry at the Central Casting Office regarding the number of extra people registered met the ruling that an O. K. from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America— the Sunday name of the Hays organization—is a prerequisite to the divulging of any information. Even in the dolce far niente of sin-kissed Hollywood, time flies too fast for flapdoodle. Hence the following figures are without benefit of clergy. With more or less inaccuracy, there are some fifteen thousand so-called souls who have left names, addresses, phone numbers and photographs with these arbiters of destiny. Of this number an average of under a thousand work each day. The rest wait. And the waiting is attended by macabre circumstances which would delight the morbid mind of Poe or mad De Maupassant. They tell the tale of the fat woman who lived for weeks on the promise of a character bit and the churlish charitv of a landlady who hoped to collect an overdue board bill. 26 In desperation the wheezy creature dragged her elephantine weight to the producer's office, and as a gentle leader toward the request for an advance of salary asked when she would be needed to add her touch of comedy to the fun-making film. Then she learned that it had been decided that a skinny woman would get more laughs from the great god Movie Fan. And a human skeleton had been called for -the role promised to xMarie the Human Mountain. So our Bonle de Suif, brave, heart broken, insured her life in favor of her creditors, and took her final funny fall through the portals of Eternity. French Leave, Indeed TThev tell the tale of the little French couple who had drifted to Hollywood from Normandy via Montreal. Both were "extra talent." Some days they earned as much as fifteen dollars. Some days. Some weeks. Some months. But whether fifteen for a bit, or five in a mob scene, a Httle went for cabbage soup and sour, nourishing loaves disowned by the Jews and now called "Russian" rye. The rest went into the proverbial stocking against the time when there should be sufficient to pay passage back to la belle France. And one day there was enough. The tickets were purchased. And the day before the departure, the French boy, who had won a Croix de Guerre in Flanders, was killed in a war picture. But the travel agent was very nice. He returned most of the passage moneys Enough to pay for the funeral. And the little widow still answers extra calls. They tell the tale of the one-time star who hurtled downward as falling stars do. She couldn't bring herself to mingle with the hoi-polloi that sweat and swear for bread at casting-office windows. She had a little money, and invested in a project which boasted big film names.' Then set out to make poverty genteel. But there was a scandal. and an investigation. Of course, this didn't help her any. Investigations butter no parsnips. But she found a way to live. And now she answers fan mail in a fine, legible hand. And the name she signs is that of an (Continued on page 82)