Moving Picture World (Nov-Dec 1923)

102 MOVING PICTURE WORLD November 3, 1923 O'Hara Knows How to Save His Face WHEN Film Booking Offices decided to put a series of H. C. Witwer prize-fighting stories on the screen and call them “Fighting Blood,” they picked out young O’Hara to provide the fighting blood. They couldn’t have a regular pug with a broken nose and an ear that looked as though it had been chewed by a calf doing love scenes with two such lovely girls as Mary Beth Milford and Louise Lorraine. They had to have an attractive, wholesome, handsome young actor who looked athletic. As the Witwer stories are a serirl. George has to fight all the time. Wnil the terrific blows of Joe Rivers, Kid McCoy, George Lavigne, Ad Wolgasc and other boxers in the champion class have been chowered on George’s face dangerously near that perfect Grer i i nose, the young star has always bcJn able to protect it. Under the training of Frankie Adams, veteran fighter, George has developed a defensive style of boxing designed especially to enable him to protect himself above his shoulders. George is congratulating himself that his face is still intact as the second series, which marks the end of his strenuous work, draws to a close. The young star has repeatedly refused to wear a face guard during the film rehearsals. If O’Hara intended to continue his moving picture career in fighting pic:'ircc, it might be entirely correct for L— ii to collect a cauliflower ear or a flattened beak during the course of his highly exciting adventures. But critics tell him that there is a future awaiting him in the higher fields of drama, so George is doing his best to preserve the lace that Nature gave him. GEORGE O’HARA Just Comes Natural for Mary Mary beth milford, who plays the leading feminine role in the sdcond series of H. C. Witwer’s “Fighting Blood” stories, adapted for the screen by F. B. O., is a native of El Paso, Texas. She was brought up and educated in Los Angeles. Miss Miiford comes by her talent naturally, being the daughter of a professional reader. As a student of Ernest Belcher, she danced for several years in Los Angeles, where she appeared before the camera in “The Little Princess” with Mary Pickford, and “Pursuit of the Phantom.” In 1918 she went East to fill an engagement with the Greenwich Village Follies. After that she appeared in Gus Edwards’ 1920 Revue and the 1921 Music Box Revue of Irving Berlin. During her career in the East, she took part in “The Virgin Paradise,” with Pearl White; “Footlights,” with Elsie Ferguson, and in “The Old Oaken Bucket.” Beside acting and dancing, MARY BETH MILFORD Miss Milford plays the piano, rides horseback and is one of the best girl fencing artists on the stage. Her grandfather, John Collier, who is thriving at the age of ninety, founded the first college in the State of Texas. Ex-Governor Cox of New York is her grand-uncle and Judge Adolphus Regan of New York is her uncle. While thousands of moving picture fans are wondering which of the girls in the “Fighting Blood” two-reelers is going to marry George O’Hara — Louise Lorraine, the brunette, or Mary Beth Milford, the blonde, even those young ladies are in the dark as to the outcome of their double romance. Beatrice Van, adaptor of H. C. Witwer’s stories of the ring, refuses to divulge the secret, and Witwer is away in the High Sierras. Meantime, a spirit of unselfishness pervades the “Fighting Blood” company. In fact,, each of the two girls is graciously trying to outdo the other in politely giving way to the other. There is a complete absence of professional jealousy. From Convent to the Film Studios JANE NOVAK, “old-fashioned girl” of the movies, whose latest starring picture for Film Booking Offices is “The Lullaby” entered on a motion picture career in 1914, when only fifteen years old. Miss Novak arrived in Los Angeles fresh from Notre Dame convent, at St. Louis. Of Bohemian parentage, Miss Novak was born and educated in the Missouri metropolis. Her aunt. Ann Schaefer, a well-known Vitagraph actress of that day, persuaded her to go to California, to join Vitagraph’s Western company. Miss Novak broke into the movies with the old Kalem company, however. The afternoon after her arrival Miss Novak had gone visiting her aunt and met Puth Roland, who immediately used her in a scene for a test, with the result that she was immediately engaged at the over whelming salary of fifteen dollars a week. Finally Miss Novak was selected as the ideal spirit of womanhood for the big Selig-Rork production of "The Rosary,” and then came the opportunity for deserved stardom in Chester Bennett productions. “The Snow-Shoe Trail” was followed by “Colleen of the Pines”; her third starring picture was "Thelma" : and then came “Divorce.” the first society drama in which she ever appeared.