Moving Picture World (Jan-Mar 1914)

io66 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD The Screen Children's Gallery By W. Stephen Bush In opening this gallery of the most famous and interesting children of the Screen, the Moving Picture World wishes to pay a well-deserved tribute to the clever and gifted little boys and girls who have helped with such skill and sincerity to make the motion picture true to life. Talent unconscious of its merit and value is the most charming because the rarest sight in the whole world of amusements. The gifted child seems more natural and less self-conscious before the tiny eye of the camera than before the crowded audience. The screen has developed much juvenile talent in new ways much to the delight of millions of spectators and much to the profit of the art in general. His Natural Smile. Matthew Roubert. MASTER M.J^TTHEW ROUBERT, who has appeared in many productions and whose success in the filmed version of "John Barleycorn" has been commented upon by experts, has just reached the age of seven. The interview with Master Roubert had been most carefully arranged and was looked forward to both by the stern parent and the interviewer as a somewhat elaborate and ceremonious affair. We all built on the theory that Master Roubert would be induced to concentrate on the subject-matter of the interview. He, however, distinctly refused to so concentrate but rather occupied himself with testing the opportunities for climbing afforded by the handsome office furniture. I asked him in what I intended for my most formal .ind compelling manner whether he liked to act in moving pictures. He professed a willingness to wager on the proposition and did it in two short Saxon words. Pressed for details of his professional work Master Roubert declared that in "John Barleycorn" he carried a can of beer. "It wasn't beer," he added quickly, "it was sarsaparilla." After assuring the interviewer that he drank the sarsaparilla as soon as he had withdrawn from the camera's eye, the young artist broke forth into enthusiastic eulogies of his parent, proclaiming him to be the best father that ever lived. "Mv papa would give me anything I want, if I asked him for a hundred dollar bill he would give it to me." The parent plainly embarrassed by this supreme confidence of his offspring and not unreasonably anticipating a practical and immediate test directed the conversation into more conventional channels. Master Roubert is a charming little fellow with a mass of nutbrown hair cut in the style a la Buster. He has bright black eyes and pleasing regular features. I feel he will be in much demand as a portra3'er of character parts. Master Roubert did not hesitate to voice his opinion that more pictures should be made "with children in them." He thinks that nothing is too hard for him and he looks forward to new parts waking and sleeping. The pictures that go with this brief biographical sketch show the young man's natural laugh and his ability to Before the Camera. be funny in costume. Master Roubert, it is said, will shortly join the Universal forces. Adelaide Lawrence. INTERVIEWED Adelaide Lawrence, aged seven, in the Kalem studio. Adelaide was chaperoned but not coached by both her father and mother, indeed, much of the biographical data were gathered from Adelaide while she was seated on her mother's knee. Around the Kalem studio little Adelaide is not a bit less popular than she is with her thousands of screen admirers. The reason is simple. The little girl, though very evid e n 1 1 y possessed of good gifts, is quite modest and goes about her business in a most winning oldfashioned manner. As a desirable specimen of the child of the screen littleAdelaide ranks high. The young lady expressed a decided preference for comic parts, a most unusual thing in an artist of tender years. As a rule, girls of that age want to play Juliet or Lucia of Lammermoor or Lad}' Macbeth. Stranger still Adelaide has acted in many of the famous companies but is now likely to remain a good while with the Kalems, where her father is a successful director. She has made a decided hit in such pictures as "The Highborn Child and the Beggar," "The Influence of a Child," "The Haunted House." Adelaide is quick to perceive all the possibilities of her part at once. Once she gets before the camera she is absorbed by her task and needs no more than a nod from her father. "I am, of course, recognized by a good many people when I travel around the city," said little Adelaide, "and everybody is so nice to me. Offer people will stop me and speak to me, calling me by the name under which I happened to appear in some popular picture." Adelaide Lawrence. \ ^1 #^^ i J 1 j8?. ' ■p i i-e*^^ 'm s ^^ 8 1 ^ies^ Ik'' r m sf <t 1 va»y. ■ill -r ^ M:m 1 flu -.<,:. \ « a^y «»> s '.»>■-. ■y ;'..\: -t : ( I I Miss Lawrence in Action. i