Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

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His Own Bosd Bill Duncan directs doesn't believe in At one time the chief exports of Dundee, Scotland, were )ute, marmalade and Bill Duncan. HO WD you like to be your own director? Handle the megaphone and kid yourself into acting and performing other stunts you wouldn't dream of doing if someone else were back of the camera? Bill Duncan — who calls him William? Nobody — Bill directs his own serials for Vitagraph; stars in them, too. And he says it isn't as simple as it .sounds. "I tell myself to do some daredevil stunt and I always go through with it. I might discuss it with some other director but .seeing it's only me, I've got to make good.'' He came from the land of crags and Haigs, where bare knees abound as in the "'Follies" but of a different gender. The first episodes of his adventurous life were enacted on the sands o' Dundee. Dundee is noted for jute and marmalade, and the Tay bridge, and William Duncan. 'The chief exports are the aforementioned jute and marmalade, but the most important, so far as pictures are concerned, is Duncan. Samuel Johnson wrote, "The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads to England." Bill Duncan says Sam had better orient himself, that the direction rif the high road is toward New York. Holding this view of (he noblest prospect. Bill bid "farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, — the country of valor, the country of worth." while still a lad in kneclcss breeches. But he lost no time in changing his short kilts for long pants when he reached the grand terminal of the high road. Nor did he lose any time in exchanging his Scottish dialect for straight American. "I tell myself to do some daredevil stunt to make good as a director first. Above, ground— probably estimating ho-sv long a in the next This was effected at the University of Pennsylvania, where Duncan won his degrees on cinder track, gridiron and as high priest of such fraternity rites as "keg parties." At the end of his sophomore year he had won several athletic cups, several battles with the townspeople and an equal number of argumentative combats with professors. He felt that he had gone as far as he could; the faculty felt the same way. "Soph" Duncan transferred his entire scholastic properties from the "gym" locker to the MacFadden Physical Culture Health Home, there to transmit some of his own energy to the patients by acting as physical director. He also became a staff writer on Physical Culture Magazine, thus refuting the theory held by the "U'' professors, namely that his claim to collegiate accomplishments was in his track shoes. Duncan is now capitalizing on his college experiences by presenting them in a new Vitagraph serial, "Smashing Barriers." This thrill-a-week drama opens with a football game, in which the star made good the title by smashing three ribs, the only barriers between himself and hardbaked soil. Bill Duncan was born a serial star. His life has been just one stunt after another from the time he learned to chin himself on that Tay bridge, which with jute and marmalade did for Dundee what a lately bereaved product did for Milwaukee. Following his handspring through college and his subsequent landing in the Health Home, he opened an athletic emporium of his own in Philadelphia. .As diversion, he did a little professional wrestling. On one of these occasions. Sandow, the strong man of vaudeville, saw him and instantly made overtures to secure him for his act. He declared Duncan to be a perfect physical specimen. Another ambition which "the perfect specimen" had harbored since his marmalade-jute days was to be an actor. Now jostling hundred pound weights, lifting six men and a platform on your back and supporting a