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Following in Father's Footsteps
45
worship — really, it is that — has taught him many beneficial things."
Considerable publicity has been printed to the effect that Douglas, Sr., is helping to start him on his picture career, advising, guiding his youthful feet over the first rocks. This his mother says is untrue. It is known that his father did not welcome the boy's debut as a movie actor. Not every player of heroic roles would care to have such a strapping young son out as a star — it brings home to one, and doubtlessly will to many, how the years are flying. When queried upon the matter, Fairbanks saidi: "I did not want the boy to go into pictures until he had completed his education but I am willing to help him all I can, now the step has been taken."
"Each year, when Douglas persisted, I'd hedge, 'Next year, son, maybe,' " his mother continued. "I knew that those offers which came to me so frequently for his services were bred solely by the desire to commercialize his name and I did not think it fair either to the child or to his father to take advantage of them. So I promised him, 'When you are capable of standing on your own two feet and making good on your own account, I'll let you try.' I tried to interest him in other things. He'd study a bit, quickly tiring of everything except painting and modeling" in clay, which he does with more than a little talent, and his athletics.
"He attended boys' private schools in Pasadena and in New York and each year I've taken him abroad, not only that he might speak f oreign languages with the familiarity possible only through constant usage and close association and that he might see the world, but also to take
Photo by Donald Biddle Keyea
Making pictures is great fun for him but Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., likes to have his mother along to take care of the interviewers.
his mind off the movie career he wanted. But it was no use. So finally, when Mr. William Elliott, formerly of Elliott, Comstock & Gest, and a friend of ours for years, took his side and promised to look after him as a father would, I consented.
"Naturally he is enthusiastic about being in the movies at last. He's very athletic. At Watch Hill, Rhode Island, they have summer training and meets' in all kinds of athletics — swimming, football, hurdling, marathon-running— the boy making the most points as an all-round athlete winning the cup. Douglas won it two summers. Otherwise, he is just like any other boy, wildly excited over the thing of the moment. Now, this story being laid mostly in Turkish locale, he's crazy about Turkish customs, asking innumerable questions of the technical expert and regaling me with all of his information every night."
His first picture, "Stephen Steps Out," an adaptation of Richard Harding Davis' story, "The Grand Cross of the" Crescent," is the logical expression of his personality.
"This fellow, he's a regular one," Doug, Continued on page 86