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96
Photoplay Magazine
etry, French poetry, very bad indeed. But friends assured me my center of song rested below my brain, so I went to Chicago to become a grand opera singer. Vocal work there made me suspicious of my friends.
"Then I went into caucus with myself, and the result was a visit to New York to get work on the stage. I wanted to act, always have wanted to act. and always will. I was fortunate in getting a part in the cast of 'Caesar and Cleopatra,' in which Sir Johnstone Forbes-Robertson was starring. I played for a season, and followed with another season in 'Strongheart.'
"But my friends impressed me with the loss the operatic stage was suffering through my clinging to straight acting. So I martyred my ambitions for my well-wishers and gaily spent my patrimony with a flattering vocal teacher in New York.
"I got discouraged and decided to put myself to the test, so went into musical comedy, playing the part of Tit a in James Powers' 'Havana.' One season of that, and I wrapped my vocal ambitions in a sheaf of cancelled checks and tucked them away for memoirs.
"All I knew was that I wanted to act. Then someone told me about motion pictures, how drama was filmed. I was fascinated. I like mechanics anyway. I hunted all over New York for a studio — and couldn't find one.
"At last a super told me a man named Griffith was doing pictures for the Biograph company. I promptly went there.
"Mr. Griffith Avasn't in. His assistant was. I told him my stage experience. He ignored it, scorned it. 'We want to know what you can do before a camera,' he said.
"I said: 'If you get me on my Scotch day, I can't do anything, but if you get me on my French day. I can do 'wop' parts. He told me he would see what could be done."
Griffith summoned Miss MacPherson by telephone, and the result was one year of constant labor under his directio n. Mostly she played emotional parts.
Then the Universal offered her a splendid advance. On a Scotch morn
ing she accepted, and on a French afternoon she made good. She came West with the company, still doing "wop" parts, a leading lady with an unusual technical knowledge of the work.
At Universal City a dearth of scenarios developed. Miss MacPherson began employing her literary talent and dramatic ability by writing scenarios for other Universal companies, when the need was extreme. Next she was writing them for herself.
One was "The Tarantula." When it
Miss
MacPherson as a
director — you can almost see the
directorial lace boots.