Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

The Best Answer to Criticism "Well, anyway," Miss Wilson went on, "there was the approbation which I had been working for and it was three months old before 1 saw it. For three months I had been striving to please you, and here I had already done it. Think of it !" "We are thinking," we replied, "and there's a lesson in that, we think. Just subscribe immediately to all the publications we write for. And now let me speak my speech. I want to defend my platform." "You don't need it," she laughed. "It is all right with me; and( there is William de Mille calling me away to be 'Only 38.' May McAvoy, here, is my child." "And we're just the same age," added Miss: McAvoy. But we insist on defending our stand, or at least on explaining our viewpoint. Since the girl from Bridgeport took umbrage at our mode of expression, perhaps others have done so, too. And we do not like to be misunderstood. Miss Wilson is what one would call a nice girl. She seems especially designed by Providence to make some man a wonderful wife, and when you hear the words "a woman's place is in the home" your mind immediately flies to Lois Wilson. She has a pleasant, homy look. You feel that if her hand ever rocked the cradle then it might indeed rule the world, but not otherwise. Miss Wilson is the epitome of womanliness, but she is not the stuff that vamps are made of. In short, she is a perfectly charming girl, but a plain one. Every line of her, from her intelligent forehead to her efficient hands and her sensibly shod' feet, breathes reliability. When we say plain we mean relatively so, for we probably never should have thought anything about it if we hadn't been asked to accept her as an irresistible creature who drove men to "Midsummer Madness" with her sheer loveliness. Now, the whole plot of that particular picture depended for its plausibility on whether the spectators would believe that any woman could be dazzling enough to make a nice quiet married man' — the kind Conrad Nagel always portrays — forget everything in one mad moment when "he swept her into his arms." It was after we saw that picture -that we said Miss Wilson was "plain" and unless we are mistaken we added, "Who ever conceived the brilliant idea of making a screen star out of her, anyway?" Even now, knowing Miss Wilson as we do, we feel that we were justified. It seems, too, that the person most concerned was not the only person who agreed with us. For right after that Miss Wilson was taken away from pretty parts and. was cast for "homy" roles. She did "What Every Woman Knows," and every woman knows that Maggie Wylie was a plain little thing whose chief characteristic was fidelity. We missed the picture but they did say that Miss Wilson was excellent in it, and we can believe it because later we saw her give a corking performance as Miss Lulu Bctt, one of the world's most famous martyrs of fiction ; and more recently in "Only 38," when she played the martyred widow of an intolerant, and apparently intolerable, D. D., though he was defunct when the story started. In both of these she was' wonderful, but this statement is not incompatible with our previous one. We do not remember it, but Miss Wilson says that we once suggested her suitability for a school-teacher role. "It was funny," she added, "because that was just what I escaped from when I got into screen work. I didn't think I was suited to> it, even if you do. "So there is one thing about which we do not agree." Miss Wilson lived in Birmingham, Alabama, and it was there she became a schoolma'am. As a matter of fact, she was a teacher of English and expression or elocution or something which is next door to drama, if it isn't silent drama. And Miss Wilson's debut was in the spoken drama. She became a member of a stock company and went to Chicago. Here she met Continued on page 99 ^llllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllUIIIIIIIIIH Following in Father's Footsteps Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., not only aims to make pictures like his father's, but wants to be like him in every way. By Myrtle Gebhart THE announcement that Famous Players-Lasky had signed Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., on a starring contract occasioned much speculation as to the talents and personality of Doug's son. Inasmuch as this is the first instance of the second' generation in filmdom, of a star's son being brought prominently before the public, it not only awakens our wonder as to the capability and; personal charm of this boy over whom they are making so much fuss but it also brings realization of the swiftly passing cinematic years. That Paramount has what is considered within the ranks "a good bet" one feels the moment one approaches Doug's set. They are making a great deal of to-do over him, over the glamour that surrounds him. Even the blase stenographers peek in to see what Doug's son is like. I couldn't help wondering, as I watched this youngster enacting a scene with Harry Myers, what would have been his lot had he come to the screen untrumpeted. But the slight annoyance that I felt over this acclaiming of a youngster who himself has as yet done nothing to win plaudits passed when I talked with him, for he shows no evidence of conceit. "I'm tickled to death over acting and — well, every thing," he began heroically but ended lamely, his blue eyes taking on a look of panic. "Yes, I like to read sometimes' — aw, gee, mother, you talk to her." Thus passing the buck to mother, he fled forthwith, it being clear that his first interview was a trial he would gladly escape. I rather liked1 his boyish bashfulness. "It has been said, and unfairly too, that I've been training Douglas for a movie career, to exploit him," his mother told me. "From the time he was a tiny kiddie he has been wild about the movies. His1 father is his idol. He'd see Mr. Fairbanks' pictures and then invariably come home and try to copy the athletic stunts his hero had performed. "I have encouraged this adoration of his father. I might, as other mothers similarly placed sometimes do, have turned him against Mr. Fairbanks. But that would have been ungenerous and not fair, either. I've tried to teach him fair play and I had to illustrate that ideal myself or he would have lost respect for me. Yes, it hasi been a problem. But every boy must have some idol, some older man to imitate, to look up to. And I'm glad that Douglas' ideal has been his father. This