Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1922)

Photoplay Magazine— Advertising Section husband, Mr. Fairbanks, about the same. Chaplin has been selling his pictures to the First National organization, which paid him $500,000 for "The Kid" and $200,000 for each of his two-reelers. His profit, then, is the difference between the actual cost of making the pictures and the amount paid him by the distributing company. He will soon complete this contract and become an active contributor to the United Artists' circuit. IN the heyday of business, Nazimova received $10,000 a week and various personal expenses from the Metro company. She is now an "independent," gambling on her own ability to make and sell boxoffice attractions. Harold Lloyd recently signed a contract with Pathe whereby he will turn over to that distributing organization five pictures during the ensuing twelve months. In return he will receive one million and a quarter — in gold, not rubles. Thus he will clear for himself something between a quarter of a million and a half million in one year. Now and then a producer will go wrong in his estimation of a star's potential value, but he usually makes it up on another star. Mary Miles Minter, for instance, was signed by the Paramount organization a few years ago at a contract which, at its close, called for $7,<oo. Luck, as well as business sagacity, was on Miss Minter's side at the time the contract was made. She came forward just as Mary Pickford was leaving the ParamountArtcraft combine and the officials were in desperate search for some one who might take her place. Miss Minter was young, pretty, and possessed of Pickfordian curls. Physically she answered the specifications. But for some reason she failed to make a profitable appeal to the public. It is generally conceded in the industry that the company employing her has stood a brave loss. On the other hand, the same company signed Bebe Daniels when she was known only as a foil for Harold Lloyd in his comedies. She was not famous, nor was she regarded as a particularly rich prospect; hence she was secured at a very low figure. Today we learn that Miss Daniels has not only been leading all the Realart stars but has been selling better than all of them combined. On what basis, then, may one determine the potential value of a star as a boxoffice attraction? Surely it is not acting ability. If such were the gauge, Theodore Roberts, Mary Alden, Raymond Hatton and other expert minds would be receiving greater remuneration than most of those we have listed. But we know that they do not. Even Lillian Gish, whom most critics declare the finest actress of the day, has never been classified with the millionaire gentry. No, it is not acting ability which brings the line to the boxoffice. We do not reward a star for what she can do but for what she is — plus what we think she is. We are an idolatrous nation. We idolized Georges Carpentier, the fighting Apollo from France, not because we esteemed him a better fighter than Jack Dempsey, but because we were enamored of his personality. Resurrecting the words of an old song, the ladies chanted of — his hair, his eyes, his lips, his smile. In addition, he appears to have the manly attributes which we require of a he-idol. He is a world-war hero, a husband and a father, an athlete with the graces of a gentleman. We howled for him; the ladies prayed for him; and some went so far as to bet on him, sentiment deluding judgment. All this because we admired him as a man, not as a fighter. That was typically American. Carpentier has the thing we call "boxoffice attraction." It was he, not Dempsey, that filled the Jersey acres with a hundred thousand strong. And in that throng there were almost as many birds of paradise as there were derbies. Every now and then we declare that the day of the matinee idol is over. As evidence we point to the fall of Francis Xavier Bushman, Crane Wilbur, and Farle Williams. They, we said, were matinee idols. But what of the sturdy Thomas Meighan who comes striding after them? You say he is an entirely different type. True, but he's an idol none the less; the public has simply elected a different type. That's all. Never in the history of the screen has the public fallen so suddenly prostrate before an idol as it has before Rodolph Valentino. On a pilgrimage from coast to coast, I found the worshippers in awed and ecstatic attitudes. You would have thought the pope had just passed by. They chanted fervently, nor of his histrionic skill, but of his hair, his eyes, his lips, his smile. One votary spoke of his sturdy throat and another went so far as to admire his classic limbs as revealed in "The Sheik." He is to schoolgirls and virginal spinsters, alike, the personification of torrid romance. "Ah," sighs the elderly maid, "to be swept off one's feet, despite one's good morals, by such a Sheik!" Rodolph, a sensible fellow, who has endured vicissitudes that would make even the pilgrim fathers shudder, suddenly finds himself canonized, a starry halo about his head and a contract in his hand. Each Saturday at evensong the caliph of the Lasky exchequer humbly presents him with $1,200, I'm informed. And next year it is to be $2,500, and the third year $3,000. I may err by a few paltry hundred, but such are the approximate figures. Needless to say, devotees of star-worship are mostly women. As in church attendance, so in movie devotions, the zealots are preponderately feminine. You seldom hear a man express regard for a star. When he does it is usually a sportive enthusiasm for Chaplin or Fairbanks or Charlie Ray. Chaplin strikes the universal chord of humor — and pathos, too. He is one star who is adored for being, not himself, but an artist. Fairbanks appeals to the swashbuckling, get-there, do-or-die spirit that is our national pride. He comes close to being the American Ideal; a movie adaptation of Theodore Roosevelt. It was not what Roosevelt did that made him popular with the crowd but what he was as a personality. And so with Doug. Charlie Ray has the ability of turning back the hands of time and momentarily reluming the tragiocomedy of our youth. As Chaplin reveals the Universal Comedy of Man, so Ray reveals the Youth of Man, particularly the Youth of America. "pROM the beginning of history Man has * shown an instinct for idolworship. In the beginning he worshipped idols of wood and clay; today he finds a good substitute in the movie stars. In times of old when he found his idol out, — realized that it was not superhuman but a thing of earth, — he destroyed it with a fearful vengeance; today when he discovers a human blemish in a golden calf of the silver-screen he straightway o'ertopples the deity, his hate flaming as high as his love previously did. A pretty favorite of the studio hot-houses can be blighted in a single night by one breath of scandal. It may be rumor without foundation, but the fan, with the same iconoclastic impulse that prompted his ancestors to bust their idol in the ruby eye, demands that the star be forever dimmed. Film celebrities may complain of injustice and intolerance, they may argue that their private lives are their own to do with as they please, but here they err! They have been created gods and goddesses, with their own permission. They have accepted the position in the spotlight and courted the publicity which later, like a boomerang, may return to slay them. 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