Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

Horse Cents The screen's first equine star talks for publication. By Emma-Lindsay Squier BLACK BEAUTY glanced up from the manger where he was having lunch as I appeared at the door of his stable. "Come right in and sit down," he said cordially, cocking his ear at me and waving a friendly tail in greeting. "Will you have a bite of bran mash or a barleywater cocktail?" I said that I had had my lunch and seated myself on a convenient bale of hay to wait until he had finished. "I suppose this is the first time you've interviewed an equine star, isn't it?" he asked, turning a velvety brown eye upon me. I admitted that it was. "Yes," he went on, trying to be modest about it. "I believe I'm the first of my kind to be featured in a five-reel picture — and you notice that I have the title role, too. "Of course," he continued, flicking his long tail at an audacious fly who was using his satiny flank for a skating rink, "Jean Paige and Jimmy Morrison are in the picture, too — but they really amount to very little. I am the featured player." He munched his oats daintily and nibbled at a wisp of hay as if it were an asparagus salad. "Then your name is Black Beauty?" I asked him, and he shook his head. "No, in private life my name is King, but since taking the part of Black Beauty here at Vitagraph, everyone has commenced to call me by that name, and I rather think I shall retain it indefinitely." He shifted around so that I could get a clear view of his black velvet body and his one white hind foot. "Do you notice how closely I resemble Black Beauty of the novel?" he asked. I said I did. "I assure you the Vitagraph people trotted around quite a bit before they found me. They not only had to have a horse who answered the description of the one in the book, but who was also gentle, talented, intelligent, and wouldn't set the director too hard a pace. / answered the description," he finished complacently. I was properly impressed and asked him next how he happened to break into pictures. It is the customary question to ask of a star, and I knew he would expect it. "Well, when I was a colt," he answered, "I never could seem to reconcile myself to the prospect of the domestic life of double harness or even the single blessedness of a bachelor stable. So I ran away from my home pasture and went on the race track. Far be it from me to praise myself unduly — I have too much horse sense for that — but I did make rather a record, doing a mile in 2.16. It was then that I attracted the eye of 'Chick' Morrison, who was trying to find an equine star for this story, and he at once engaged me for the picture." "Speaking of horse cents," I interrupted, "I suppose you get quite a salary." "Oh, to be sure," he said with studied nonchalance. "You can well believe that when I tell you that I'm insured for fifty thousand dollars until this picture is completed. But if I told you how many buckets of oats my contract calls for you'd hardly believe me, however far be it from me to get on my high horse about it. Neigh ! Neigh ! Why this minute I'd love to go back to the livery stable where I was born and swap tales with horses I knew when I was a colt. Ask any one on the lot, and they'll tell you I'm not the least bit temperamental. I haven't demanded publicity, I haven't whinnied for close-ups, and I haven't kicked about a thing; and if there's any other star about whom you can say the same thing, I'll eat my blanket." I inquired about Black Beauty's likes and dislikes. He pawed the ground and wrinkled his nose as if thinking deeply. "Well, in the main," he said, and I looked to see what was in his mane, but that wasn't what he was talking about, "I like loaf sugar, carrots, currycombs, and pretty women, and I dislike whips, Klieg lights, and iron bits." I jotted that down, and he glanced over my shoulder to see if I was forgetting anything. "Be sure and put down that I have four doubles in this picture," he told me, and I looked up in surprise. Most stars are lucky if they only have one. "Four doubles," he repeated proudly, "and they all had to be black with a white hind foot. They had to Continued on page 1 00