Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1927)

Breakini into the Movies I was inside, on the lot, going to work, going to win a pay check. I was wearing a makeup which a character actress at the Studio Club had put on me, carrying a make-up box one of the girls had instructed me to buy, running along with a key of Dressing Room 15, Women's Dressing Room Building 2, in my hand, on the lot, in the movies, ready for night work, momentarily victorious. It is a thrill. I defy anybody to escape it. I defy anj'body once put in touch with it all not to feel it. All that dreaming, all that romance, all that wealth, and all that beiuty mean are jiresent o;i a Hollywood movie lot. California with its e.xotic atmosphere is e.Kquisite when clothed in the darkness of night. I walked across the lot in the coc 1, blue-black air, the scent of roses and mimosa floating up to me. The vague outlines of sets were visible, the vague bulk of covered stages, occasional swift flashes of light, and the subdued chatter of voices. How poignantly, at that moment, I understood the girls who starve and steal and suffer shame to get into movies, to remain in them. WH.\T a real newcomer would do at First National I don't know. Obviously the first law of the e-\tra world is shift for yourself. I had been told to be there at seven. I was, but no one was in the casting office except the boy who had given me my dressing room key, and a Central Casting check, which I had to present at the wardrobe department to get my costume. There was no one in the wardrobe department save the property man, who looked me over as he might a horse, disappeared, and came back with a costume, complete from shoes to hair switch, aU the right size; handed it to me without a word. There was no one on the lot when I left the wardrobe and went along looking for the right dressing room building. I passed the little bungalow which is Colleen Jloore's dressing room. I passed the leading players' building, the men's building. Finally I discovered Building 2, and Room !5, a neat, brightl\' lighted little dressing room with a window that opened on a rose garden. I fancied many bright things in that dressing room, imagined everything except that which really happened. The character actress had given me a good makeup, but my costume extinguished me completely. Dan Kelly had told me I was to be a London woman of the streets. I looked it completely. I had been instructed to be on the set at seven-thirty. The time came and went, but nobody called me. The dressing room building w-as silent, except for an occasional slamming door. I ventured out finally in the direction of the lights. The set was a series of streets in Limehouse, London, drab little alleys winding crookedly into one another. The narrow sidewalks edged themselves past tiny shops with dull windows dressed with Chinese curios. Street lamps burned Read on, little movie aspirant, 'w.'ho believes -work in the movies to be romantic, easy and golden. Here is a graphic report of the vi/ork and •wearying hours demanded of extra ■workers. Every -word of it is abso' lutely true. Study it thoroughly before you buy your ticket for Hollywood. James R. Quirk feebly on the corners and the roadways were muddy with water, as the scene was to be l>holographed through gauze to resemble fog. I shivered. It was too real for me. Poverty hung in the air, and liopelessness. California faded into London as a strange depression settled upon me. The other extras came in slowly, sle[)ping o\'er electric coils and puddles. Ten women, twenty men, char.acters, all of them. They came in singly, sitting down here and there on doorsteps and curb, each alone and silent. Electricians moved toward the lights, stepping around extras as impersonally as they stepped around doors and boxes. The extras did not notice. They just waited to be called to work. There were no stars, no leading actors, to give the scene life. We waited. I had come prepared to act for the glory of " Twinkletoes." I had expected to see camaraderie, bohemianism. Now I tried to still my excitement, which somehow seemed unmannerly, excessively naive in this assemblage. I felt that surely some sparkling person would come along and vitalize us. We waited. I spoke to one or two women near me. They were polite, but I met with no encouragement, and the conversation died. The night lay dark and blue over the hills as the moon climbed the sk\'. I looked at ray watch. We had been waiting two and a half hours. SUDDENLY there was movement. Charles Brabin, the director, came on the set. Women, who had sat with their eyes staring out at nothing at all, were swiftly vivacious. Men. who had not even smoked, slapped one another on the back. Their fierce, terrible desire to please, to be noticed, was heartbreaking. The assistant rushed about giving orders. "You two," he said, grabbing me and a tall woman, "come out of this store as I count 4. Walk into the center of the road, turn and disappear through that second gate over there." The tall woman eyed me. Her | coxtixued o.s pace 130) With what art — and a broom — I played a French peasant in "The Silent Lover !' ' The ritzy gal is Natalie Kingston u