Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1924)

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Among Those Present 65 THE ONLY ONE OF HER KIND MILBA K. LLOYD bears the distinction of being the only woman plaster-molder in the Hollywood studios, for the plaster shop, where they turn out everything from ornamental ash trays and decorative bathtubs to leering gargoyles and Egyptian sphinxes of bronze,, is usually man's domain. Trained in the Liverpool School of Art and the London Royal Academy, Miss Lloyd has received many commissions from England to model heads. "In motion-picture work I first design my statuary in clay, then execute it in bronze molding," Miss Lloyd explained in her workshop atop the big Paramount stage. "Some of the bric-a-brac and statuary for film scenes is made of a porous plaster of white-dust preparation that makes the completed piece not so heavy or cumbersome as when made of marble or bronze, but many of the larger figures are made from small clay models into the big bronze statues, with as much care as if intended for some art gallery exhibition." Perhaps her most skillful work was modeling the thirty-five foot statues of Ramcses used in the settings for "The Ten Commandments." Often she must execute reproductions of famed statuary on exhibition in European salons, or enshrined in cathedral — pieces so well known to art students all over the world that accuracy is necessary. Working from photographs and measurements, she fashions her clay models, from which the plaster shop M makes the large statuary. hoto by Freulicb A SUCCESSFUL PORTRAYER OF FAILURES ANY years ago a man stood in a theater called La Scala, quite the finest in Milan, conducting the orchestra while a young girl sang. Destiny is strange ; in the long, changing years, the girl became a great success. Her name is Mary Garden. Another friend the man had, a comrade of his boyhood. His name was Enrico Caruso. And the orchestra leader? To-day he is playing pathetic old fellows, life-beaten but happy-spirited failures, in the movies. And the peculiar thing about him is that he, himself, isn't a failure at all, for Cesare Gravina owns a string of theaters in Brazil and other South American countries. He might live in quietude and comfort there at home, but he prefers to stay in Hollywood and work. In "Merry-Go-Round," he gave the screen one of its finest moments. You surely remember him as the old clown who, dying, kept right on smiling for the children, and doing his funny tricks so they wouldn't see his suffering. Such a polite, odd little fellow, Cesare Gravina! With the self-effacement of the old who realize that this busy younger generation hasn't much time to bother, he stands aside, begs your pardon apologetically if you shove against him. Always smiling, always bowing, always saying, "Si, si," it is only in his expressive pantomime that he tells you things — a hint of sorrow, somehow, even though he laughs, and perhaps a vague suggestion of adventure behind that veil that he never lifts. But to nobody here has he told why he gave up his beloved music to start all over again in the movies.