The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

Their First Jobs Alice White MY first job was as stenographer in a real estate office," explained lively little Alice White. "You see, I was in Hollywood High School, where I was studying the commercial course. The call cam* to the school for a typist, and I was sent to take the position. "The name of that real estate office I shall ever keep dark. But I'll tell you this: My boss had a jealous wife. She also wore the trousers of the family. I lost my job. It had lasted exactly three weeks. "I held several secretarial jobs after that, and finally landed a job as a script girl in Charlie Chaplin's studio." Fred Niblo WHEN I was fourteen I found it necessary to go to work. So I went and got a job as an office boy down in the wholesale district of New York. I earned $3 a week, and had to pay $1.25 of it for a furnished room. On the rest I managed to eat, though eating was rather slim sometimes. The room was away up under the roof, and terribly cold in winter, as there was no heat provided. I nearly asphyxiated myself when I rigged up a contrivance to try to heat my room with gas." It was Fred Niblo recounting his experiences. "I walked the four miles to and from my work daily. I didn't stay there very long, but got another job as cashier, or rather assistant cashier in a restaurant. There I earned four dollars a week and my lunch. I had to be there to open up the place at seven o'clock in the morning, and I seldom left before eight o'clock at night." Corinne Griffith WHEN I was fifteen I sold my first painting," says Corinne Griffith. (Continued from, page 51) "It was a bowl of roses and for it I received $50. From my earliest days I had been torn between a desire to become an artist and a hankering to be a classic dancer. "As a child in school, I used to make sketches in colored pencils on the margins of my books. My father was connected with the old Vanderbilt line railroad in Texas, and we used to travel about a good deal, and sometimes a private teacher went with me. From her I studied art. Twice I received honorable mention at art exhibits, once in Texas and another time in New Orleans. "But the great blow to my art ambitions came when my family went back on me with regard to them. When I was sixteen I became interested in painting portraits. I painted a life-sized nude figure of a young girl and gave it to my mother as a birthday present. It was to be a surprise. But as it turned out, the surprise was largely on my part. For the family was shocked, and insisted on chiffon draperies for the figure. Then they hung the painting in a back room, without framing it, but spiking the canvas with four nails. The corners of the canvas finally curled, and that was the end of my art career, I being a sensitive soul. I gave away my paints and brushes to my artistic friends. "Soon after, my family met with reverses, and then my father died. It was terribly hard for us all. We came to California, my mother and I, to try to sell our California real estate. "One night I went to a public dance pavilion in Santa Monica with some friends to dance. Quite unknown to me a contest was being held, with a prize to be given the best dancer and the prettiest girl. Suddenly a man stepped up, stopped us, and told me there was a silver cup for me. He went over and got it, handed it to me, and I was sup The first camera glimpse of Milton Sills and his wife, Doris Kenyon, in two years. Mr. Sills has been very ill in the East but he is returning to pictures, completely recovered, in a William Fox production. Miss Kenyon next will be seen in Radio Pictures' "Strictly Business." posed to bow to the crowd which I did. "One of the judges of the contest turned out to be Roland Sturgeon, then a director at Vitagraph. He invited me to come to his studio the following morning for a test." Jack Oakie MY very first job was as telephone clerk on the New York Stock Exchange. I felt it was very important when I took it. I was about fifteen, just out of school. I got ten dollars a week. "I used to get a big thrill out of the big operations that were going on. "We often had important visitors, too. Once the Prince of Wales came and sat in the gallery to watch us. He seemed very alert and deeply interested. "But I guess I was a natural born dancer, because even then I found myself making up new steps when I wasn't busy. And I liked to show off to members of the stock exchange, who laughed at my antics. "One day one of the members asked me if I Avould like to take part in an amateur show that he was putting on. I said, 'Yes, sure!' fresh as mountain air! I danced and kidded and monologued and wise-cracked, and got by fine. After that I was invited to take part in a lot of little shows. Finally I met the agent, May Leslie, who put me into the show business." Fifi Dorsay I WAS a stenographer. And I was a good one, too, if I do say it myself— an expert at the age of fifteen. I've always been a little bit proud of that fact." Of course, Fifi Dorsay spoke with an accent, as we sat at lunch together in the Munchers' Club at the Fox Studio. "I lived with my family in Montreal, Canada, and as I spoke both English and French fluently, and could write them both equally well — even in shorthand!— I soon got a job." Harry Carey "]\/fY first money was forty-five cents IV 1 an hour — pretty good for a seventeen-year-old kid — and I worked as a section hand just after I left school and before I entered college. It was on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad." Harry Carey, who is coming back in "Trader Horn," was sitting on a grass mat on the set at the studio. "As my next job, during a summer vacation, I drove a horse-car in New York City. Then I worked as a longshoreman on East River." Glenn Tryon 1WAS inspired to go to work at the tender age of nine, because I wanted to buy a Jew's harp!" Glenn Tryon told me, as he grinned over his youthful experiences. "My people weren't very keen about my working, but one day a traveling magician came to our town, Pendleton, Oregon; I followed him about until he noticed me, and then begged him for some sort of job. " 'Well, I had a boy once, and he ran (Continued on page 128) 126