Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1919)

From Plain Bill Smith to Franklin Farnum By DORIS DELVIGNE ANYBODY want to put up a bet? There's just one safe bet in this wide world, and that is that you cant keep a straight face while visiting with Franklin Farnum. He's done miles and miles of smiles on the celluloid. His creed of "Laugh and the world laughs with you" was the outcome ^ of early disappointments and depriva tions. He's a fatalist, if you will, but he says, grinfully, "It really doesn't matter!" Nothing has quenched the ardor, enthusiasm or faith of Franklin Farnum in the fatalistic doctrine that all things work together for good in the end. But dont imagine for a tick 0' th' clock that Franklin Farnum smiles because life has been a hand-out of posies to a successful actor ! Why, no ; he started off with a terrific handicap, for, being a posthumous infant, with a mother left penniless and a little sister just about big enough to pick up her own old rag doll, little William Smith wasn't even on speaking terms with the ordinary necessities of life. His mother worked mighty hard to keep the boy in school until his twelfth year. Little Billy Smith had been doing a lot of thinking and, after studying bill-boards in Beantown — yes, he's a little Boston bean — he firmly decided to be "a actor." No matter what discouragements arose, he built his air castles on that frothy foundation. You see, it was in the good old days when bacon wasn't weighed by apothecaries' scales and folks believed in Santa Claus and good fairies. The boy was singing one day as he shoveled snowy pavements, utilizing after-school hours to earn enough money for shoes and other things which were to make mother's life easier. The rector of a Protestant-Episcopal church heard him, asked his name, if he'd like to join a surpliced choir — and the upshot of it all was that Billy Smith began to take music lessons under a first-rate teacher and choirmaster. He sang at entertainments, at smokers, began to earn money at night to help out the meagre day-time salary which a clerkship afforded, and finally got his opportunity to enter the chorus of a musical-comedy. His rise was rapid, for producers were always on the qui vive to discover a promising male singer and, with Mr. Farnum's facility in dancing and his inborn histrionic talent, coupled with a voice that took a high C as easily as any other note in the tenor's register, he was soon "discovered" and made a leading man for the old NixonZimmerman combination, which sent out ---..._ road companies and had theaters in HH^to^. New York and Philadelphia. ""---.^ While traveling thru Pennsyl vania with a well-paying road show, Mr. William Smith, whose name appeared in heavy type on the programs, was accosted by an interviewing reporter of a small-town paper. With more good will than tact, the cub said, "Say, your name is enough to leave anybody cold. Why doncha change it? Looks perfectly awful on the boards and posters !" William Smith was quite young and hadn't thought anything about the earning capacity of a name. This was seventeen years ago, to be exact. Pondering a moment, he said, "What would you suggest, for instance?" The reporter smiled pityingly. "Got a middle name?" "Certainly I have. It's Franklin — what about it?" The small-town cub said, with a wink, "I christen thee Franklin Farnum, easy to remember, euphonious, and has some style to it." Since then, lots of folks have either believed Franklin Farnum to be a brother of the famous twain, Dustin and William, or that he had traded on their surname to gain fame for himself, once he entered pictures. But if you'll hunt up your old programs of the comic operas, you'll see that William Smith faded out of sight almost as soon as he'd gained a following on the stage. After that, Franklin Farnum had a call to St. Louis for the summer. He'd been told that audiences there were very discriminating, that you either "made good or 59 Seventeen years ago William Smith hadn't thought about the earning capacity of a name. A small-town cub christened him Franklin Farnum, a name "easy to remember and with some style" Ps PA£li