The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

February), 192 1 33 got up on his haunches. Then Jean extended her hand. The bear put out a huge paw tentatively and slapped it aside playfully. The little lady was delighted. "See," she laughed, "he wants to play. Why he is only a great big dog." In a few minutes the star was scratching the bear's ears and he was sniffing her coat in a most friendly manner. So there you have the gallant spirit of Bonnie Jean. The bear scene in the cave was worked out dramatically due to the nerve of the game girl who cultivated Bruin until the animal was her slave. But that wasn't all in the way of thrilling stunts. Imagine the dainty girl being pushed up a dirty chimney, and emerging on the roof covered with soot. But Jean was not feazed in the least, — and besides it was another startling effect. She also climbed down a rope made from bedclothes, a matter of three stories, and jumped on the back of a bronco. To make her escape she drove him at full speed into a lake. All attempts at suggesting "doubling" failed. Jean obeyed the author's script to the letter. On another occasion, according to the story, her father is incarcerated in the tower of a lighthouse. Jean Paige and Joe Ryan go to release him and with the aid of a huge derrick they arrive halfway up the face of the lighthouse and secure a precarious foothold on the narrow coping. It was a dizzy spot even for a daredevil of Ryan's type, but for Jean her part in the scene was nothing short of heroic. Then Ryan casts a rope to the top of the tower and Jean and he ascend and rescue the prisoner. Then all descend via the rope to the rocks below, and make their getaway in a motor boat. When I saw the scene projected it gave me vertigo. "Good night," a friend exclaimed, "I wish Jean would go back to features. At this rate it won't take long to break her neck." But the preceding events are tame compared to a feat Jean has just accomplished. It won for her the unending admiration of Joe Ryan and all her friends on the Vitagraph lot and for sheer daring and nerve has probably never been equaled by a girl serial star. In the role of the heroine, Jean Paige goes to the bank to secure some important papers. She is followed by her enemies and to elude them enters a church. They pursue her and she takes refuge in the tower, closing and bolting the trap door. The villains then set fire to the church and to avoid the flames Jean climbs out on the outside and clings to the cross on the steeple. In a few minutes, she is almost obliterated by smoke. An aviator who is flying close by sees her predicament and darts toward her in his airplane with the speed of an eagle in full flight. As he approaches, he lets down a rope ladder and circles the steeple. With each spiral he draws closer to our heroine. As he came nearer and nearer Jean reached out a hand tentatively to gauge the distance and the crowd below gasped. They thought she had missed. "Why did they let her try this stunt?" one girl extra wailed, "she will be killed." The camera staff almost forgot to continue grinding but were brought back to life by the director, who, with white lips shouted, "Keep it up boys, she will do it." With the next spiral the rope ladder came within reaching distance of Jean and she grasped it firmly. In less time than it takes to tell, she was on the ladder bobbing up and down some one hundred feet in the air as unconcerned as if she were in a hammock close to terra firma. Then she climbed the ladder and got into the cock-pit. When she reached the ground the aviator grasped both her hands. "Miss Jean, you are the pluckiest kid in the world. Phew!" He wiped the perspiration from his forehead; "Believe me, I was in mortal terror until I saw your smiling face over the top of the cock-pit. Some stunt!" "It was nothing," Bonnie Jean replied. "I am paid to follow the script and it is all in a day's work. Thank you a thousand times for your part in the scene. If you hadn't handled the airplane so beautifully there might have been an accident." And if you should ask what everyone on the Vitagraph lot thinks of Jean Paige, the consensus would be that "she is the whitest, cleanest, most lovable and pluckiest girl in the universe." And personality — her smile would melt the grouch of the most confirmed pessimist. Jean is exactly one hundred and fifteen pounds of compact and beautifully rounded womanhood. She is essentially feminine but possesses the direct frankness of a fascinating boy. When we allude to her as Bonnie Wee Jean we cover a wealth of complimentary description. And now comes the happy news. Jean is to be the featured player in the Vitagraph special, "Black Beauty," adapted for the screen from the famous animal-classic by Anna Sewell, and directed by David Smith. All her ingenuous charm will have full play in the quaint costumes of the early seventies and what is more fitting, her love of animals will have a grateful outlet in this photoplay — the biography of a horse. Jimmy Morrison plays the leading male role and his perennial freshness is a characteristic that will keep apace with Jean's girlish loveliness. This will be Jean's first appearance as a star in a big special and marks a well deserved success in the dainty film actress' {Continued on page 51) Bonnie Wee Jean and Jimmy Morrison, the eternal juvenile, in a scene from Vitagraph's production of Anna Se•well's "Black Beauty"