Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

25 The Boy Grows Older And considerably wiser. A story about Charles Ray and the jinx he managed to conquer, at last. By Margaret Reid T HIS is a story of the gamest loser I have ever known. It is about a boy who staked everything he had for an ideal ; about a valiant young gambler who cut the cards with a flourish — and lost. Lost completely, smilingly — like a gentleman. About Charlie Ray. Of course, children, you all remember the time Charles Ray left the secure, but hampering confines of Thomas Ince's company. With a lot of money, amassed during the days of his early and greatest success, and a heart full of courage, he moved away. He bought a very unpretentious old studio on the shabbier outskirts of Hollywood and hung up a shiny sign, "Charles Ray Studio." Here he fell to with gusto, trying to make into pictures all the ideas and dreams he had kept bottled up so long. It wasn't easy — there were a thousand added griefs and worries for one added joy — but he stuck to it. He was working toward doing the things he had longed to do, at last. He made some good pictures — and some very poor ones. Yet, if the Demon Jinx had not been at his heels, all might have come out well. But Charlie sank deeper and deeper — debts rattling their chains on every side of him. Each picture, he thought, would be the one that would "clean up" and put him on his feet again. So he went on with the gambler's desperate persistence, working his brow into careworn furrows from dawn until midnight. Hollywood confreres pointed derisive fingers at him, for his foolhardiness and the seriousness with which they said he took himself. With the failure of his beloved "Courtship of Miles Standish" to ring the bell he gave up. Not because there was no fight left in him, but because his hands were tied behind his back. Grimly he set to work for other companies again, for money to pay the mountains of debts surrounding him. A few months ago, the newsies along the Boulevard began a profitable day with cries of "Char-r-rles Ray Dee-clares Bankerpcy !" In Hollywood it had been expected for a long time. It would have been impossible for any one short of a financial genius to surmount the difficulties that faced Ray. And Charlie is not a financial genius. So he finally went bankrupt. But not without a fine struggle — one that has been given too little credit. Photo by Witzel Charlie Ray has not become embittered by his reverses. For twenty-two months, after his own company foundered on the rocks, Charles Ray fought against bankruptcy. He lived meagerly and cautiously, though still clinging to the lovely home in Beverly Hills that was the pride of his heart. Twenty-two months of working here and there, in pictures that didn't count for much and never reached the better theaters. An actor must keep up appearances, and this he struggled to do. But often there was scarcely enough to buy gas for the one remaining car — for Charlie was living on twenty per cent of his interest and applying eighty per cent on his debts. At the outset he had borrowed $750,000 from the banks — and with plucky determination and scrimping he got it down to $80,000. Bills here and bills there were gradually diminished, and never for an instant did the shoulder behind the stubborn, heavy wheel falter. And then Fate injected what is called her irony — but what might better be named one of her scurvy tricks. At a meeting of Ray's creditors, most of whom were willing to wait a little longer and let things go on slowly, one man dissented. Shortly afterward the beautiful home that Charlie had built was empty and all its luxurious furnishings attached. On a hurried, desperate trip Continued on page 100