Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

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Big Boy Bancroft {Continued from page 6?) "They shave it thinner and thinner," George went on to explain, "until you can positively see through it." "Dear! Dear!" I commiserated him. He seemed to be terribly upset. "But the public can't know!" he sighed. I was sure the public couldn't. " Now about playing romantic lovers," he went on abruptly. "What I mean is this! Now you might see me — in the type of role I usually play — and say that you could never care for me. Never! "And yet — you are a society girl. Beautiful. No, not beautiful," he amended, hastily, "but nice." (This was still more hasty.) "Cultured, refined, dainty," he went on in a dreamy tone. I was beginning to feel quite flattered. But it developed that he was not talking about me at all but about some potential leading lady. Oh, well ! "You see me," he repeated. "I am not of your world. I am a stevedore, perhaps. Or a gang leader. Something like that. Dirty. Grimy. Uncouth. "But as you look at me — suddenly there is something. A spark! You see — or you feel — that there is something in me which interests you. Some possibility. And you say, ' I should very much like to know that man!' "You want to know what it is — that quality in me which has interested you. "So — -being a woman — and all women are mothers at heart — you come to know me. And the maternal quality in you wants to look after me. You come to see the man under the grime " He paused to admire the phrase. "You come to see the man under the grime — and a great love is born. It transcends the differences between us . "That's what I mean when I say I can play romantic lovers!" "Is this really you — or the men. you play in pictures?" I wanted to know. "The real me. Now I am the sort of man to whom all women are like my mother was. It would make no difference," he cried, eagerly, " how low you should sink. I would still know you for the woman you were." "I want to be kind to people," he said. "I don't want to seem 'high hat.' Someone told me the other day that I would get into trouble being nice to people like that." "Like what?" (I had given up trying to tell whether he was talking as George Bancroft or as a character in a picture. I thought he was sometimes a bit confused himself about which he was.) "Oh — people around here." He waved his arm with a gesture which seemed to include most of Los Angeles County. "I don't know anything much outside of my work," he confided, suddenly. "I have been around the world three times and yet — I just know my work, really. Perhaps that's why I am sort of — sort of — easy ! ' ' There, I thought, he had probably explained himself. For Bancroft is a fine actor. There can be no doubt of that. And his vagueness, his kindliness, his generosity are, perhaps, proofs, in a way, of his bigness. Emil Jannings and Wallace Beery both have something of that fluidity of personality. Perhaps it is one of the things which enables them to fit themselves easily into the diversity of roles which come their ways. But if Bancroft has difficulty in expressing himself in words, he has none in expressing emotions upon the screen. And that, after all, is the thing that counts in motion pictures. She Thought She Was Dunn (Continued from page 71) That was the beginning of the end — almost. Jo reported at the school, learned how to make up, walk across a set, sit down in a prop chair, register love, hate, laughter and tears. It was good training. She says so herself. And in due time she was graduated with honors. She acquitted herself so well in the Paramount School's own picture that Lasky signed her on a contract; and the first thing she knew she was playing the leading role in "Love's Greatest Mistake," surrounded by such old-timers as Evelyn Brent and Bill Powell. On top of that they liked her work so well that they shipped her out to Hollywood along with Thelma Todd and Buddy Rogers when the Long Island plant ceased operations. Jo was all set to become a star and get temperamental and everything. She rented herself a little Spanish bungalow. She bought a shiny coupe — on time. She looked around and liked it so well that she wired her family to come to the Coast and live with her and enjoy the fruits of her success. Then all of a sudden, for no reason that anybody has ever found out, she was fired. It might have been funny — if it hadn't been so darn tragic. She's got a great sense of humor and she might have snickered it off, but snickers don 't pay for shiny coupes. The really bad part about it was the psychological effect it had on the other studios. Studios may be rivals in business but they're clubby in sentiment. The other companies figured that if Paramount fired Josephine Dunn for no reason to the eye, that there must be something wrong somewhere. They dodged her as if she had the measles. For six months she wandered in and out of various Poverty Row productions. Now and then some company engaged her for a . small part in support of a Western star or something like that. But it looked like Josephine Dunn 's day had come and gone. And then the telephone rang. It was M.G.M. They said they wanted to test her for the leading role opposite William Haines in "Excess Baggage," and would she come out immediately? You might have thought she would be excited and glad. But she wasn 't. She was cynical. She figured there must be a catch in it somewhere. You can imagine her embarrassment when she landed the part. She brightened at the very memory of it. " It was so wonderful I went around in circles for days. I simply couldn 't seem to get it through my head that I was playing with William Haines in one of the best pictures, and best parts, of the year. But the nicest thing about it was to feel that they wanted me again. I had begun to think I had something catching like the jinx — or the mumps. Even now I don't like to get too excited about it." She sighed. "What do you suppose Mr. Mayer could want?" "Maybe it's a raise," I suggested bright "Hmmmm," grunted Jo. I tried another idea. "Maybe Warner Brothers called up to tell him how good you were in Al Jolson's new picture and he wants to tell you about it himself." But she didn't take to that, either. "I'll bet it's bad news," she insisted^ I didn 't want to argue with her because she wasn't in the mood, but I 'm willing to bet it was something nice. 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