Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1912-Jan 1913)

CHATS WITH THE PLAYERS 123 on the stage," as she expresses it, and soon developed great aspirations, aiming at nothing less than becoming a Mrs. Leslie Carter ! Her aspirations are certainly no lower now than they were then, altho they may have changed objectively. Fortunately for us, this longing for the stage was fostered by a doting mother, despite fatherly protests, and the years saw Miss H JMBSBHBJJJ&fliiHBBB B!P* ^H Prescott in many roles. -'..* fm3£E&M3u^B& Finally there came a summer pause in the theatrical profession, and Motion Pictures were suggested to her one morning by no less an agent than the columns of the Dramatic Mirror. A photograph and a friend at court elicited a call from the Biograph Company that very afternoon, and in fear and trembling she went down to the studio, all unbeknown to her family. The disappointment written on the manager's face, as he saw her, caused a corresponding sinking of her heart. "But, Miss Prescott, you're such a tiny girl!" he exclaimed. "I expected, from your picture, that you would be tall." She may have been small, but she was not insignificant, as the manager evidently soon saw, for he found a place for her in one of his pictures, and Vivian Prescott, like so many others before and since, fell victim to the charms of Motion Picture acting, altho in her case it took a peremptory summons and a hurry call with an automobile to finally win her. And now she "loves" Motion Picture work, and couldn't be persuaded to go back to the stage, despite the fact that her family would rather see her there. For two years she remained with the Biograph Company, playing the athletic girl, the boarding-school girl, the college girl, enjoying the out-of-door life and fun and gaiety the parts demanded, and for which she is so well suited, and, of course, she "loved" it. She declares that she has been a bride "one thousand times," and I suppose she loved that, too. But I'm sure there's only one man in the real-life case (and a real-life case there must be, for nobody who so lOves to love could escape when all the world loves to ~b& loved), and he has a motor-car, and, need I say, he's mighty lucky? After the Biograph years, there appeared, upon the horizon of her destiny, the Imp, Now imp, with a small i, may mean innumerable things, but Imp with a capital / means one and only one — Independent Motion Pictures. This purposeful ogre got her in its clutches, and now Miss -Prescott is one of the Imps. What particular propensities in that line she showed early in her career I must leave for the Biographers to determine. At any rate, altho she does not love comedy less, she now appears in tragedy more, with "Cigarette," "Fanchon, the Cricket," and "Leah, the Forsaken" standing out especially in her memory. She often writes her own scenarios, and she must be delightful in the Spanish and Gypsy parts she described to me. Whatever Imp, as a name, may suggest in the way of frivolity, it certainly stands for solid work. There isn't an unutilized space in the studio, a superfluous article, or a spare moment. Here Miss Prescott works and plays, and is an inspiration in herself. And I left her at the close of a hard day's work with her irrepressible spirits unconquered and unclouded. Gladys Roosevelt. Mother Goose Up to Date By LILLIAN MAY This merry Christmas day, Is it cranberry sauce that makes him so cross He wont go out to play? He pounds the floor and kicks the door. Forgetting 'tis Christmas day, But see, his smiles come scampering back, He has found bis nickel down in a crack, He's off to the Photoplay.