Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

What Chance in the A question that is asked daily of casting swered frankly — and authoritatively, and "Plain Girl" than she By Gordon Photo by Evana Mary Alden, who is conceded to be the greatest character actress on the screen, says that it is to the plain girl that the movies of to-morrow will look for their support. TO-MORROW is the day of the "plain" girl in motion pictures. Therefore, take heed, those of you whose hair is inclined to be straight, whose lips are minus cupid's hows, and whose eyes are small and dark, yet who have deep yearnings toward a screen career. Your chance is coming, and very soon, little Miss Plain Girl, for I have it on good authority that the standard future of movies in America rests on the shoulders, not of the baby vamp, but the sturdier shoulders of her bigger sister — the plain girl. There are no "buts" in this radiantly golden future for the little gray mouse against whom it has been popularly believed the doors of the studios were closed forever. It rests within herself, and there is no limit to the heights she may climb in the next few years. And it is not a matter of theory, but a matter of fact. If you are a plain girl and want a chance to make a living in motion pictures, there are certain very definite things you must do to accomplish this desire, but they are things which every girl can do, no matter if she lives in Dubuque, Iowa, or Los Angeles, California. There is a little girl who lives in our block who is not pretty. In fact, she is quite drab, with her straight brown hair, her lusterless brown eyes, her prominent chin, and her heavy eyebrows. But she has wanted and wanted to "get into the movies." One day she asked me, a magazine reporter, if I could help her. The outlook seemed rather glum. She seemed like such a colorless little flower when I thought of all the radiant beauties I saw every day riding about the streets of Hollywood to and from their work at the studios. But she shyly asked me so many times to find some path that would lead her into the movies that finally I turned to my friend, Mary Alden, who is conceded now, since her work as the mother in "The Old Nest," to be the greatest living character actress on the screen. I thought that she might have some solution to the problem confronting the ambitious little plain girl down the street. And she did. This marvelous actress, whose heart beats for the girls of the small towns and the side streets of the big towns, says that it is to the plain girl that the movies of to-morrow will look for their support. "If you had a sister who was not beautiful, but who wanted to get into the movies, how would you go about it to prepare her for a success such as you have achieved?" I asked Miss Alden when we were comfortably settled in the living room of her apartment in Los Angeles, which has a wide vista of the mountains from its windows. "Teach her how to brush her teeth, keep the luster in her hair, and the sparkle in her eyes !" replied this young character actress in her characteristically cryptic manner. I mean more than that. In the first place, almost no girl is truly 'plain' unless she chooses to think she is. If Geraldine Farrar appeared on the stage or screen with her hair dull in luster, her teeth also dull from lack of attention, her eyes lacking a vital sparkle, and her mouth drooping — you would call her a plain woman. You would say the same of Dorothy Dalton if she did not radiate health and good American pep. 'Plain' is as 'plain' does." You can discover for yourself how important this is ; try to imagine your favorite motion-picture actress, not in the surroundings where motion pictures place her, but in the surroundings of girls you know. Picture her, not as the well-groomed, exuberant creature that you know on the screen, but dressed like some girl you know and occupying herself with the same interests. Wouldn't she seem much more "plain?" If Elsie Ferguson's manner was less gracious and more hurried, would she seem so beautiful? And if Mabel Ballin's eyes didn't sparkle with interest would you be so quick to notice their beauty? The education of the plain girl for the screen should rightly begin in the cradle, says Miss Alden, but if "No