Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

22 Can You Break Into the Movies? A fioiiiedy company is a hard training school, but they offer the / perhaps, for the beginner. /' The director quashed her engagement. He said he could not take care of her morals or of those of the other girls in the picture. She had to do that. But that girl was in the position of trying to put her "nice" world into the studios. It can't be done. By patient weeding you will find your kind of people in the studios, for the studios are big enough to have all kinds of jicople. But you will have to take them as you find them and know every one as you go along. The risk comes in many ways, partly because girls have to think constantly of their bodies, partly because they have to do a good deal of semipublic dressing and undressing, which is certainly not a part of the business of shoe factories or carpet factories or wholesale drug shops. And if a girl is as attractive as she ought to be to be in pictures at all, men are going to like her and make all kinds of advances to her. She will have these from two sets of men, those inside the studio and those out. There is no question that there are studio hangers-on, as there are stage hangers-on, and women who have worked long with clubs for girls at Hollywood say frankly that there ifi a set of men, some very rich, some moderately so, who hang about, waiting to get acquainted with the girls who work at the studios. A wise girl will leave them entirely alone. Men in high-powered touring cars are not safe playmates for working girls. Then there are the men who are her companions, who work with her. She can very soon and very easily make them understand just where she stands. She may be a bit lonely tor a time, but she will find her own kind of men sooner oi later. She won't have to buy promotion or a place with her body; that is certain. She may do it if she wants to ; perhaps there are still directors and assistant directors who do that kind of thing, but as a whole the industry is worked along clean lines, and any girl who believes anything else is foolish indeed. If it were my daughter who was starting in I would say to her : "Decide where you intend to stand. Decide that people can be lovable and pleasant and yet far from conventional moraHty. Steer clear of such vintil after many years you can take them at their real worth. You cannot best opportunities. now. Decide that because you have to undress in semipublic manner in the studios is no reason for being careless of your body at any other time. Try not to be a prig or a prude, but don't be the least afraid of being called one." Mr. Hampton advises bringing your mother, aunt, or some motherly, elderly lady with you. This is always good advice — I wonder if he would give it about the carpet factories — but many, many girls, and young men, too, who would be better off for their mothers will have to come alone. Lack of money and confessing failure are the two most potent reasons for a girl going wrong. Don't come without the money. And if you are going to be ashamed when you fail don't tell the neighbors why you are coming. Tell them you are coming out for your health. It is better far to lie about that than to stick on and on and do unmentionable things because you are ashamed to face them. And when you have failed don't hang about one morrient. Go home, or go somewhere else and earn your living. It's fatal to morals, to your whole progress, to hang on and on. How can you tell? Mr. Louis M. Goodstadt, casting director at Famous Players-Lasky, who supplied me with much information for this article, says that this is the test. I quote him : "After six months you should have engagements as an extra, enough of them to provide a wardrobe and help pay for your board, if not wholly pay for it. You began on five dollars a day ; you ought to be getting from seven and a half to ten dollars a day as an extra. After the first year you ought to be getting small parts at from seventy-five to one hundred and twenty-five dollars a v/eek. If 3'ou are doing this you have the right to hang on." At the end of two years you will know whether you want to stay on, even if you never become a star or a player of prominence. There are some men and women Vi'ho like the profession in itself and who are wil!in<;" to keep on whether they succeed or not, beyond the making of a comfortable income, which is a success in itself. Los Angeles is a pleasant place in which to live, a thing which many former stage actresses and actors have already found out. For this reason older people stand little chance of getting into the business. There are always on hand ex-vaudevillians enough to give a goodly supply for the older parts, experienced peo]:)le, and to these are added every year screen actresses and actors who are growing old. ^ , With every motion-picture company using three men to one woman, a young man is likely to know his chances long before two years have passed. Now — suppose you like the profession and want to work about motion pictures and you cannot make good as an actor or actress. Is there anything else you can do? Yes. A mighty poor actor sometimes makes an excellent director. There are assistant directors who become directors who have started as actors. Many of the camera men, electricians, scenery men, carpenters, et cetera, have been would-be actors at one time. Although there are few women Continued on page 110