The Moving Picture Weekly (1916-1917)

-THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY ■21 with Ruth Stonehouse SOMETHING ABOUT THE HEROINE OF THE CURRENT RED FEATHER PRODUCTION. lACETIOUS persons when asked their favorite book are apt to reply with "Pocket book" or "Bank book" or some such witticism, but if you ' asked the classic question at Universal City, just now, nine actors out of ten would respond without hesitation, "Eat and G-row Thin." Players, scenario writers and directors all go about with copies of the authoritative work in their hands, and peruse it faithfully in odd corners. At the restaurant during the luncheon hour, you will see devoted lunchers, religiously consulting its pages instead of their own fattening preferences. Among the directors there are no more devoted disciples than Henry McRae, who has taken over the direction of "Liberty," and Fred A. Kelsey, who is directing Harry Carey in Western pictures. But among the players, Ruth Stonehouse bears away the palm for rigid adterence to the dictates of her mentor. The little actress — she is only five feet two inches tall — has a passion for thinness. When she arrived at Universal City last spring, from Chicago, where she had made a big reputation as an Essanay star, she was horrified to find that the change of air had given her a most unaccustomed appetite. She weighed herself in alarm, and discovered the dreadful fact of an increase of two ounces in two weeks. This was most disconcerting, and something had to be done about it at once. Her normal "lightness" (one cannot call it weight) is about ninety-five pounds, and she can't sleep at night if she finds herself nearing the three-figure mark. Miss Stonehouse replies to all inquirers who demand why she is so severe with herself: "Well, you see, I want to be ready for everything. If my director says, 'Miss Stonehouse, creep into my pocket,' or, 'Slide through that knothole,' or 'Slip into that cigarbox,' I want to be ready to obey him. And just think how I would look, at my height, if I were fat. A puff-ball would describe my figure!" Since her arrival at Universal City, the little actress has made herself exceedingly popular, by her friendliness, and imperturbable good nature. She won her first engagement by smiling and looking pretty while feeling very determined inside; and she has stuck to this method of procedure ever since, finding it most satisfactory. She was only a school girl when she decided that she could not 'be happy off the screen, and she used her school friendship with the daughter of the president of a big film company in order to land the coveted position. She got herself into his august presence by making capital of the fact that she was a close friend of his daughter, and she dimply refused to leave until he promised to give her a try-out in the studio. Then she went in as an extra, kept "her eyes open and her mouth shut, absorbed all she could, Nellie Gleason plays her role well. and when the chance of a better role came, she was ready for it, and made good. That has been the history of her career — a series of opportunities which came to her after patient waiting and studying for them, and then the improvement of each of them to the utmost, and promotion to something better. And all the way up to stardom she has never neglected the chance to hold out a helping hand to the one below her on the ladder of success. There is probably hardly a player in the profession who has reached the top with fewer enemies and more friends than the heroine of the Red Feather Photoplay, "Kinkaid, Gambler." McCULLEY BACK FROM MEXICO. yYHEN William T. McCulley drove into Universal City on day this week on a big truck after a long, hard ride from the Mexican border, where he had been serving with the troops in the quartermaster's department hauling supplies to General Pershing from Columbus, New Mexico, to the General's headquarters at Mexico, he was given a rousing welcome by the automobile drivers who had veen advised of his coming. McCulley has long been in the motion picture game and at one time was the director of Cleo Madison.