Paramount Pep (1923)

12 Paramount Pep All Ready to Sail Antonio Moreno Signs Five-Year Contract Jesse L. Lasky announced at Hollywood recently that Antonio Moreno had signed a fiveyear contract to play leading roles in our pictures. As previously stated by Mr. Lasky, he will be co-starred with Bebe Daniels in “The Exciters,” which Richard Ordynski will direct at our Long Island studio, and this will be his first engagement under the new contract. “In signing Antonio Moreno we have acquired the services of one of the foremost figures of the screen,” said Mr. Lasky. “I have followed his work for several years and am convinced that he has a truly brilliant future. We have wanted him as a permanent addition to our organization for some time but negotiations were only concluded today. In proof of the high regard in which we hold him we are planning to entrust to him many of the biggest roles in our forthcoming special pictures.” The career of Moreno is one of the most interesting and romantic in the annals of the screen. He was born in Madrid, Spain, of poor but aristocratic parents, his father being a non-commissioned officer in the Spanish army and his mother a daughter of one of the oldest and best known families in Spain. His father died when Antonio was quite young and he was obliged to terminate his schooling in Cadiz at the age of nine and go to work. He and his mother moved to Algeciras, a village opposite Gibraltar, and the boy found employment delivering bread. It was in Campamento, where they subsequently moved, that Antonio met many tourists, among them Benjamin Curtis, nephew of Hon. Seth Low, former mayor of New York and president of Columbia University, and Enrique Zanetti, both Americans. They became interested in him and sent him to school in Gibraltar, and later he toured Spain with Mr. Curtis. His two friends eventually brought him to America and he was sent to school in Northampton, Mass. After his schooling he went to work for the Electric Light and Gas Corporation in that city, and it was an errand to the local theatre that marked the turning point of his career. Maude Adams was rehearsing “The Little Minister” there, and he begged for a small part in the show. He got it, and stayed with the company during the entire run of the play. The “Sister of Jose” was produced by I'rohman, followed by “Peter Pan,” in both of which Moreno appeared in support of Miss Adams. For several years he appeared in leading New York productions and in repertoire on the road and was finally coaxed into pictures, in which his success is well known. After long series of pictures with Vitagraph, Pathe and other companies, he was engaged a few months ago by Paramount to plav opposite Gloria Swanson in “My American Wife,” Cameraman caught Cecil B. De Mille aboard his yacht, The Seward, prior to his departure for a six weeks tour of the Infernal Channel off the shores of lower California. Their destination is Tiburon Island where it is thought man-eating cannibals exist. Mr. De Mille can handle a ship like a veteran ; in fact, yachting is his hobby. A Well-Known Factor “If we were all as great as we think we are, this old world would be paradise.” “Yes, but the competition would be hell.”