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83
The
Lists Are Full!
Every possible type of human being that the movies might demand is on instant call in Hollywood. This article tells you how this army of types is kept at work — part of the time.
By A. L. Wooldridge
HOLLYWOOD teems with fat men who believe they should be in pictures because they are fat. It has flocks of thin men who believe they should be in pictures because they are thin. It has one-legged men, cross-eyed men, bald-headed men, glass eaters, sword swallowers, professional dynamiters and mule drivers. Ten thousand names are on the "live list" at the Screen Service bureau where the declaration is made that any type of character from a Clemenceau to a cannibal or from a Lloyd George to an Eskimo can be obtained on an hour's notice.
"What we haven't got on our books, simply ain't!" is the way the manager expresses it.
_ So great has been the influx to cinemaland that the Screen Service bureau recently announced that it was accepting no additional registrations.
"We can't find work for any more," the manager protested. "We absolutely have all the extras we can use. We don't have steady employment for those here now."
But without this enormous throng of extra men and women, pro
Tom Wallace, a onelegged man, is kept quite busy at the studios because he can act.
When selecting types for "The Thief of Bagdad" Douglas Fairbanks and Raoul Walsh put them in costume and reviewed ihem repeatedly before giving employment.
ducers would be hard put sometimes for types needed in scenes. On the other hand, the types are hard put oftentimes to devise ways and means by which to eat. How many of the extras registered for work in motion pictures manage to live, is a mystery.
There are, for instance, three hundred baldheaded men on the bureau's lists whose principal reason for seeking work in the studios is that they are bald. There are#>ne hundred one-legged men waiting for employment principally because they are minus one limb. There are a dozen men who are as cross-eyed \ as Ben Turpin and as many women \ similarly marked. There are fifty / professional gamblers or ex-gamP biers capable of dealing roulette,
~ faro, or any game known to Monte '
Carlo and one hundred and fifty others, not gamblers but with sufficient knowledge of how to deal, who are on call. There are hundreds of men with whiskers ready to act because they possess a hirsute facial • adornment and scores seeking roles because of their long, flowing hair. There are cowboys who claim ability to ride steers without saddles and cowgirls ready to demonstrate their accomplishments on bucking broncs.
Within the past year another classification has been added to the lists — "Longhaired Women." Bobbed heads outnumber them by ten to one. The bureau's rolls contain the names of scores of women who assert they are types of the underworld. They list hundreds of gray-haired matrons who want to play mother parts and conversely, an equal number of children whose parents want to throw them into the great vortex which yawns in cinemaland.
Six telephone operators are on duty at the Screen Service offices taking orders from the studios and summoning persons