Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1926)

How I Broke Into the Movies By SPEC O'DONNELL IN the first place, I didn't want to break into the movies. 1 wanted to become the world's greatest first baseman and my education in that line was already begun. I was mascot for the Madeira, California, baseball club, and I was learning fast. Well, I did, and it happened in this way. A friend of mine had a friend in Hollywood who had a friend at the studio, and this friend had another friend somewhere on the inside who had a lot to say about how pictures were to be made. It took my friend a whole week to round up all those friends of friends, ct cetera. We finally found out that the friend who had so much influence with the nabobs was a policeman. So we decided to try Mr. Copper. We found him directing traffic one day. My friend pulled out a letter and gave it to the cop. When he read it he looked at me. "So you're the kid what wants to bust into the limelight, eh? Well, now if you had been here just two minutes earlier I could have introduced you to one of the biggest ducks in the pond. Sam Warner, friend of mine. Can have anything I want from Sam." So believe it or not, if that cop didn't take us up to the Warner studio that afternoon I'll go without a bath for a year. It was a lucky visit, too, for Warners were just working on that tool book that Strangler Lewis, the wrestler, had written. You know the book ; it made a lot of fun out of us country folks, "Main Street," that's it. I came into the studio, and the director saw me with all my freckles. "You're the 99999999999th kid that's come here with freckles," he said. "Now, get out, or I'll throw you out, and your friend, too." We were about to get out when the policeman butted in. "Apple sauce," he says to the director. "Sam Warner told me to bring this yokel in here for a tryout Now, you try him out mucho pronto." The director not knowing how brotherly this policeman and Sam Warner were to each other, decided not to take any chances. So lie calls me over and says: "All right, kid. I'll give you a try-out" I must have made a hit in that picture, for a few weeks after "Main Street" was finished, my friend was kept busy making appointments for me. All this time I was becoming well acquainted with directors. The friendships I had made helped a lot. Then one day I got the thrill of my life when someone from Mary Pickford's studio called my friend and wanted to know if I'd try for a part in "Little Annie Rooncy." We rushed to Mary's studio in about fifteen seconds flat. I went right up to the casting director, and when he saw me with a million freckles he threw his hands up. "An Irish boy for a Jewish part ! Now that's a crazy joke," he said. For a moment I thought it was all off. Then I got my dander up and said : "Just give me ten minutes and I'll show you something." "Make it snappy," he said. It took me ten minutes to hide my freckles and make my nose a little longer. When I came out of the dressing-room, the director didn't know me. "Say, you're the kid I want," he says to me. "I know it," I says. "Only a few minutes ago you didn't know it." When I told him I was Spec O'Donnell and that he had given me the raspberries a fewminutes before, he nearly dropped dead. He gave me the part 'f Abie Levey. Wli'n you v Advertising Section <tttmotion picturi 11101 I MAGAZINE I GIRLS! THROW AWAY YOUR FAT! Look Your Best this Summer on the Beach Start Today — Simple, Easy, Harmless way. TRY IT AT OUR EXPENSE! "If you are ashamed of your figure, especially in a bathing suit, decide to take off that extra fat and look your best on the beach this summer. Why don't you do it? I did. 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