The Moving Picture Weekly (1916-1917)

THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY 11 The Camera's Truthfulness EDITH ROBERTS. STAR DETECTIVE. £DDIE LYONS and Lee Moran, the comedians of the Nestor Universal Company, are willing to bet that as a sleuth their leading lady, Edith Roberts, out-Sherlocks the great Holmes himself. And this is the reason of their recommendation. She did not have to dress in this costume to do it, either. That was for another purpose. Cute boy, eh? They were all working on a Nestor called "The Bright Lights," one unusually warm afternoon, and Eddie had to bribe the cafe proprietor, played by an extra man, to lend him a waiter's garb. He had some stage money in one pocket, and his real roll in the other, and in mistake he gave the man the wrong roll. The extra man pocketed the bills and left the stage, his work finished, for parts unknown. In a few minutes, a desperate, wild-eyed comedian was rushing up and down the set, crying: "Seen anything of a big extra man with a roll of real money in his stage clothes?" The afternoon had been so warm that the two comedians had planned to skip to the beach as soon as their work was over, and their trip depended on the recovery of the money. Moran aided the search, and the two frantically interrogated every one they met. Seeking consolation, they recited their tale of woe to Edith Roberts, their little leading lady, describing the extra man in terms more forcible than elegant. "Wait here till I come back," said Edith cryptically and dashed away. Presently she returned, waving the bills triumphantly aloft. "Where did you find them, life-saver?" demanded the boys. "Why," she replied, "you went every^vhere but the right place. The extra man did not know it was real money, and of course, he forgot all about it. I found it over in the wardrobe building in the pocket of his costume." Edith and her mother were then promptly voted in on the beach party. THE LITTLEST GROWN-UP IN PICTURES. Violet McMillan. yiOLET McMillan is one of the most successful impersonators of children who plays for the screen. One reason for this is that Violet stopped growing while she was still a child's size and that she has the smallest "adult" foot in the world outside of the Chinese Republic (or is it Empire this week?). She is the champion Antrim Short. "in and outer" of the films, dividing her time between vaudeville and the screen. Just now she is at Universal City making five reelers, under the direction of Eugene Moore. On another page in this issue will be found the story of the Victor, "Like Babes in the Wood," in which Violet plays the child as only she can play it. The cut is taken from a five-reel picture called by the working title of "Nancy's Baby," which was written by Judge Willis Brown, the famous educator, and promoter of "Boy's Cities." Violet is a little girl who impersonates a newsboy in order to earn enough to keep her baby sister from the "Children's Home." All last year Violet was a headliner on the Orpheum Circuit, the elite stamping grounds of the two-a-day. She billed herself as The Universal Girl and in her act showed bits of the films she acted in last year when she was at Universal City. She is working now under a director new to Universal City, Eugene Moore, and her cameraman is George W. Lawrence, who shot "The Nature Man." Edith Roberts. ANTRIM IS GROWN-UP. ^NTRIM SHORT used to be classed among the child actors, but he is really almost grown up now, as his work in the recent Bluebird, "A Jewel in Pawn," opposite Ella Hall, proved. In this he began as a paper boy, and ended as the married hero! That was certainly going some for Antrim. He is so big now that he has difficulty in convincing the directors that he is a boy at all, and he certainly makes a very manly young man. As a kid he made his biggest hit in a single reel Lois Weber picture called "There's No Place Like Home," and another Lois Weber picture, "The Flirt," a five-reel Bluebird. "There's No Place Like Home" is a classic. Some time the Universal will issue a catalogue of wonderful pictures of this kind, and this one will be near the top of the list.