Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1924-Jan 1925)

My Story {Continued from page 28) All the extra girls did that, in New York. I posed for a Prudential Life Insurance calendar, among other things, suit and millinery ads for department stores, magazine covers and whatever came my way. The life of an extra girl is a hard one, particularly, if she is sensitive. Sometimes, today, when I drive up to the studio and see those lines of beautiful younggirls, waiting patiently for a day's work, I could go to my dressing-room and cry, for them. It is so hard, so discouraging ! Those inside seem to have so little sympathy for the strugglers, the beginners. I remember, one day, I was doing extra work in an Alice Brady picture. A reception was supposedly going on. I stood on a stairway, and at the director's word, I descended the stairs and joined a group around the piano. I thought I was obeying the director's orders, but just as I reached the piano he shouted at me. "Hey, you, where were you raised? In a barn?" I had passed between two of the principals, quite innocently, not knowing that they were supposed to be engaged in conversation. I suffered for weeks from the humiliation of his words. It was thru an odd twist of Fate that I became the leading woman of the Paramount Black Diamond comedy company that winter. I was finding extra work very hard, and thought I might like vaudeville. An acquaintance directed me to the United Booking Offices. Thru some mistake I entered the Palace Theatre building, instead, and found myself in the offices of this film-comedy company. They wanted a leading woman who would go to Jacksonville, Florida, and I more than rejoiced at the opportunity. So I became a slap-stick comedienne ! We worked at the old Kalem studios in Jacksonville for six months — how I rejoiced to get away from the sleet and snow, now that it was no longer a novelty to me — and then went to Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, where we continued to turn out a comedy every other week.' Here father visited mother and me. He seemed but a shadow of himself, but he was the same sweet, kindly spirit that he had always been. Not long after that he passed away. It seems that troubles, indeed, never come singly. My brother at this time was desperately ill in an army hospital in Washington, D. C. Mother felt that she must be near him. I faced the problem of struggling along with an obscure comedy company, going back to New York to engage in extra work again, or coming to Hollywood. This last seemed the most practical The darkest hour of my life was when Doris May, under contract with them, finished another picture in time to get the role opposite Charles Ray which I had been selected for. It would have been my first leading role, and losing it was the bitterest disappointment I have ever faced. (Below) Miss Joy as the casting directors of Hollywood knew her a few years ago Photograph by Evans, L. 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