Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1922)

"I think," said she, launching bravely upon the conversational seas, "that I ought to adopt a — a pose. I'm not — very — individual." After a little thought she finally exclaimed that she would like to be just like Gloria Swanson. Did I know Gloria? I pretended, of course, that I did. She regarded me with great respect. As it was necessary for Miss Colleen to go to the Goldwyn studio to have her hair dressed, I asked if I might be dropped at the Harold Lloyd studio, where I had an interviewing appointment. "My!" she ejaculated as I stepped from the car, "it must be wonderful to know all the stars!" Entirely feminine, essentially feminine. So I mused as I kicked my heels together outside the Lloyd studio an hour later. . . . She had said she would be back in half an hour. Entirely feminine, essentially feminine. Finally the car whirled up. The door jarred open excitedly. "Look at me — look at me!" gasped the lady within. She made a little bravado gesture and struck a pose. Her hair was piled in grand and fearful style, as near like Gloria Swanson 's as it could be. "I tried it another way first," she confided. "You know how she does it now — parted on the side and combed down over one cheek — so! But it didn't look right. . . . My nose. . . . My nose looked funny." I was enthusiastic in my admiration. "But wait — wait!" she exclaimed, chucking me boldly, like a robin pecking for a crumb. "Wait until I get the right expression." She turned away to get it, then turned her head swiftly around. Her chin was uptilted in the grand manner, her cheeks glowing brighter than usual, the Irish snub nose sticking high in the air like the twig to an apple. "Who do I look like? — quick! — Who do I look like?" she demanded. "Like — like an apple!" I exclaimed triumphantly. "O — oh!" she wailed, the fine hauteur melting. "I guess I'm hopeless. But — honest — didn't I look a little bit like Gloria?" I shook my head cruelly. "Well," she ruffled. " I can be dignified — almost all evening, — " then — "but toward the end my hair gets mussed — and I lose it all." "Your hair?" — alarmed. "No, the dignity." {Concluded on page 118) WHY THEY GET FABULOUS SALARIES By Herbert Uolve WHENEVER a star's salary is mentioned some one invariably gasps that it's more than the president gets, and isn't it awful. The inference being, I suppose, that the president of the United States is a worthier performer than a movie star. One of my colleagues, however, swears sacrilegiously that if Warren Harding gets $75,000 a year Wally Reid ought to get a million. Yet my friend cannot be called a Reid admirer. There's logic to his argument. We pay the president only $75,000 straight salary, 'tis true, but that doesn't take care of such little incidentals as wars and things in which he may choose to indulge himself. A movie star has no such expense account. He may not do a great deal of good but he can't do nearly as much harm as a chief executive. Consider the billion dollar bills that Mr. Wilson ran up as against the trifling amount on which Charlie Chaplin gets along. And even the most fervent Woodrow fan must admit that Charlie gave us a lot more fun for our money. There's no room for argument here. As for brains, I should say it was a case of about fifty-fifty. I don't know why the president's salary is taken as a standard of wage with which to compare salaries of movie stars. No one ever thinks of drawing a comparison between John D. Rockefeller's stipend and that of Douglas Fairbanks. John certainly gets more than Doug, and yet we've never seen him do half as much. And, vice versa, no one gets at all excited when told that John receives many times more than does Warren Gamaliel. They probably figure that his gas is worth many times more. Perhaps the reason we always think of the president's pay envelope when considering a star's is that we pay them both. There may be some question — particularly among the persons called "Reds" — as to whether or not we have anything directly to say about government expenditures, but A Whale of a Picture! r HAT'S what it's going to be. Elmer Clifton, ambitious young director, has decided that there's just one way to outdo Griffith and Von Stroheim in the way of stellar magnitude, and that is — to star a whale! So Elmer has gathered together a company of hardy players and set sail for the whale's paradise somewhere south of Haiti. He has chosen Raymond McKee for the role of whaleador — that is, the one who harpoons the whale. D. W. Griffith, who has been sort of a directorial father to Elmer, is of the opinion that his protege will end up by making the picture off Coney Island with a rubber whale. He's jus! jealous, he is. But that's nothing compared to the outraged feelings of Dorothy Gish. You see Elmer used to direct Dorothy. "And so," wails Dorothy, "he says he ought to be able to direct a gentle little whale!" the most colorful of us cannot deny that we do fix the wages of movie stars. If there ever was a direct primary, the box-office is the polling place. Don't think for one moment that Mr. Jesse L. Lasky or Mr. Samuel Goldwyn are philanthropists who strew money with indiscriminate gestures. It may look that way sometimes when they bestow a handsome contract upon a dumbbell who does not qualify, but they have a good commercial come-back for so doing. If one dumbbell gets over, why not another? Even Solomon, with all his wisdom and experience with women, would never be able to tell in advance just what direction the public thumbs might take in reference to stars. 'YW'ALLACE REID receives $3,000 a week every week in th? year, an annual income of $156,000. And every year of hi i five-year contract he receives a nice little hike of five hundred or a thousand per week. He gets it because he earns — or collects, anyhow — many times that sum for the officials and stockholders of the company which employs him. There's nothing personal aboui it. It's simply the old economics of supply and demand. There's a world demand for Wally Reid, and there's only one of him. Therefore he is multiplied as swiftly as the camera can click and wholesaled throughout the universe. He sells like Ford cars, and who says a Ford isn't a good business proposition— for Mr. Ford? It is plain to see why we buy Fords. What would the world be like if we didn't have something to occupy us? And a Ford certainly does that. Well, so does a movie star. But, in addition, it may be said that a Ford sometimes gets you somewhere, whereas a movie star doesn't add a jot to your mental, moral or spiritual progress. Yet you pay him just the same. I cite Mr. Reid's salary as an example because it is a known quantity. There are others who receive a great deal more, but the figures are not so easily computed because they are not on a regular salary basis. (Continued on page 118) U8