The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

Their First Jobs away. Promise you won't do that,' lie said. I promised. He took me, and I was quite mad with joy. "My particular part of the performance was to let the magician take my head off! The job paid fifty cents a for three shows, and with my first day's earnings I bought not only the much desired Jew's harp, but a bag of bananas, some candy, and from a boy I knew a pocket-knife with two half blades and one whole one. "The magician remained in our town a week, and I became so proficient at having my head removed that I was offered the job for the whole summer, traveling through the small towns of Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana." Mary Nolan '' 'YT'OU'RE a great big girl, fourteen 1 years old, and you ought to be earning your own living!' "That's what my grandfather, with whom I was living in New England, said to me. Grandmother was kind, but I couldn't forgive that stinging rebuke, and I ran away to make a living for myself. I had two pairs of shoes, one a Sunday pair, and the other old, and I never put on the good ones except when I expected to see somebody of importance. "Of course, I went to New York, where I was just a frightened child. I looked for work everywhere, but seemed unable to land anything." It was Mary Nolan speaking. "On a street-car one day — I was about down to my last nickel, but the place I was going to that day was too far to walk — I noticed a picturesque looking man looking at me very attentively. It made {Continued from page 126) me nervous to have him stare at me so, but finally he came over and spoke to me. He said he was an artist, and would I like to pose for him? I was pretty scared. He gave me his card, and next day I went to see him. He really was an artist, and he really gave me work. "I posed for Arthur William Brown, Harrison Fisher, Childe Hassam, James Montgomery Flagg, Charles Dana Gibson and other prominent artists. They helped and encouraged me to go on. I shall never forget the five dollars I earned for my first half day's work! Nothing I have ever earned since has seemed so big." Hoot Gibson "T BROKE my arm earning my first A money!" exclaimed Hoot Gibson. "You see, it was this way. My father told me if I would break a wild mustang pony, he would give me a dollar. I was only ten then, but I went at it with zeal. I was to break the colt to bridle and saddle. I broke the colt all right, but in turn it threw me into a pile of rocks and broke my arm. "Knowing the way of mustangs, I got up and climbed on and rode him until the pony was glad to stop, but it was pretty hard on me. I was laid up with my arm for a long time, but when it finally got out of the sling, father gave me the promised dollar — also the mustang!" William Powell WHEN I was going to school, I felt it was necessary to earn money for my clothes," said Bill Powell. "So, when I was sixteen, I took a job as salesman in the gents' furnishing de fill' fti: ^-Mt^iimtt^Ali. While John McCormack was making his big singing film for William Fox he occupied this lovely thatched cottage, erected especially for him at the FoxMovietone Beverly Hills studios. It was designed in the true Irish spirit of the film. 128 partment of the Emery Bird Thayer Dry Goods Store in Kansas City. 1 earned fifty dollars a month, working after school and on Saturdays. "I didn't like the job very well, but was, I guess, rather successful, as the manager offered to make me a buyer within a year, if I'd stay." Richard Arlen SOMEBODY gave me a bicycle, and I thought I ought to use it somehow to make money," Richard Arlen told me. "So I got a paper route. That was when I was eight years old. I lived at Manitou Island, and every morning I rose at five thirty and supplied 165 houses with papers. My salary was eight dollars a month. "The next winter I got a snow route. That means that I had a certain number of houses which I kept cleared from snow, and from these I got five dollars per winter each. "About five or six years ago, I decided to come to California for pictures. At one time I lived on fourteen cents a day, while I searched for work. Finally I got into a film laboratory." Reg Denny I GOT my first stage job and earned my first money when I was six years old," Reginald Denny related. "My father and mother were in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas in England, and whenever there was a little child needed, or could be thrust in, that little child was myself. "A funny thing happened to me when I was eight years old. I was always standing about listening to the plays, and I was soon familiar with every role. One of the cast was ill, and an understudy was reading his lines. I forget the play, but I remember that I. dashed onto the stage, without realizing what I was doing, and told that actor his lines ! The audience went wild." John Barrymore MY first job lasted just fifteen minutes! During that time I was cartoonist on The New York Telegraph. My first sketch was also my last. But I never have thought, just between you and me, that it was such a very bad sketch." John Barrymore was relating his working experiences. "You see, I always wanted to be an artist rather than an actor. I went to Europe to study, in company with my brother Lionel. But the money ran short, and we had to come home. "So I thought I'd try the stage. I was just twenty-one when I played the part of Max in 'Magda,' in Chicago. I think I was terrible. So discouraged was I with my acting ability that I quit the stage and went to New York to try to find work as a cartoonist. That's when I landed my short-lived Telegraph job. "But I tried another journal with more success. I did weird sketches to illustrate editorials. "On the night of a sensational murder I was inadvertently absent from my desk. The editor sent searchers for me, and finally found me in a Broadway cafe. I drew a picture to accompany {Continued on page 130)