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

44 Photo-Play Journal Bagdad to Maine ELINOR FAIR likes the cows and chickens. Yet she honestly admits a preference for the gayety of congenial companions, the contagious thrills of jazz bands and the joy of a wonderful floor and a graceful partner! Elinor is just a girl. She is only twenty. And she refuses to hide the pleasures she most relishes — the pleasures all girls relish — under the somber light of a screen celebrity. For she is a celebrity — this slender, lithesome, talented girl. Her career began several years ago, when she arrived in New York from her home in Richmond, Virginia, and calmly went about making a name for herself. She was succeeding famously, and was soon featured as a special dancer in musical comedies. Then the "silent drama" talked deaf and dumb language to her. She not only heard ; she understood — oh, how she understood ! So she forsook her first love, the stage, for motion pictures. And therein lies the "from Bagdad to Maine" with Elinor Fair. From small roles, she graduated into leads opposite many wellknown stars. She co-starred with Al Ray in a series of pictures, followed by the role of the wealthy girl in "The Miracle Man." Lew Cody was preparing to make "Occasionally Yours," so who else but adorable Elinor should be engaged to play with him? She remained with Cody to make a second picture, "Wait For Me." ■ Then followed the Oriental fantasy, "Kismet," starring Otis Skinner. Elinor was selected to play the prominent role of Marsinah, beloved and beautiful daughter of Bagdad's whimsical beggar. It was in this role that Elinor found the keenest pleasure. "Of course," she said to us in her New York apartment, apropos of this picture, "there was a harem. Whoever heard By DOROTHEA B. HERZOG of a wealthy oriental home in a city like Bagdad minus its gorgeous galaxy of fascinating females? "It is chiefly because the old villain in 'Kismet,' who hates my father, throws me into hiswell-filled harem with the intention of making me 'one of the crowd' that all the excitement begins. "Quite a bit of it was not scheduled, though," laughed Elinor — and when Elinor laughs, there is a display of small, even teeth and a cunning crinkling up of merry, brown eyes that just makes you join in the fun, whether you know what it is all about or not. "The scene is in a barbarically sumptuousharem in Bagdad," pictured Elinor. "Beautiful women in sensuous attire loll invarious and sundry postures on cushions and lounges. "I, dressed in beautiful robes, am thrust, roughly, into the harem. I shrink into myself, so to speak, in fear and shame. "The director is immensely pleased with the effect. He shouts to the cameraman: 'Shoot that scene.' "But at this critical moment," she gurgled, gleefully, "Nature shook! "'Another earthquake!' shrieked the harem, aghast, eyes popping. "Again nature shook. All Hollywood trembled. "Nature subsided. The earthquakes that had rocked Los Angeles for the past few days ceased with that final, violent upheaval. "But the harem was scared to death," confided Elinor, drolly. "Scantily robed girls scampered wildly out into the open, only to continue to see-saw with the quakes and to hug themselves in shivering consternation." She sighed, blissfully reminiscent. And while Elinor "reminisced," we were attracted by a snapshot of her standing by an airplane near a forest of trees. "Oh, that!" she remarked, brightly, coming out of her dreams as quickly as she went into them. "That is a 'snap' of an airplane I went up in in Maine while on location with Eugene O'Brien in his latest picture. Yes, that was after 'Kismet.' I call the difference in location and time in those two pictures — 'from Bagdad to Maine.' " It sounds that way, at all events. "I remember the day that 'snap' was taken," she recalled. "I had just finished a number of scenes in this picture with Mr. O'Brien, was told my work for the day was over. It was rather early, so I rambled about to see something of that glorious Maine country. "I came to a wide, open space, encircled by a cordon of trees. A faint whir-r-rrr noise that had been growing in volume now became a thunderous zzz-z-z-zzz, and, looking up, I saw an airplane about to land. "Naturally, I decided that the pilot had landed to ask me to ride! So I accepted the invitation without waiting for it to be couched in words. Which rather startled the pilot," she added mischievously. "He told me he was in charge of a Government airplane that does fire patrol duty in the Maine woods.