Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

64 I Dolores del Rio. WAS mostly afraid of the confusion around me, when I started. All the lights, the hustle, the shouted directions, the crank of the camera — everything confused me. Once when Mr. Carewe was directing me and cried, "Look around !" I looked right at him, forgetting the camera, and asked, "You mean me?" Imagine that, with the camera grinding all the time ! I thought that would end my screen career, but Mr. Carewe understood how I felt, and the scene was retaken. Then, once I tripped over a wire, and hurt my knees. But I have acquired the studio air now, and get around easily. Mary Brian. I learned much in a year of the mechanics of movies — make-up and the like. And I think I have absorbed a goodly amount of direction since the day when I first appeared on a set, clad in a nightgown — for it was bedtime for the Darling children in "Peter Pan" — and yet, though I have played in several pictures, I feel I am still just a beginner. I learn something every day and hope to keep on learning. Picture work is not all honey — there is a bit of vinegar, too. There are heartbreaking moments as well as happy moments, but I have yet to hear a director complain if you are doing your best, and at least trying hard. A girl in pictures might take a leaf from the book of a famous football team, which reads : "A game that won't be beat, can't be beat." Joyce Compton. I was afraid at first of the lights. I had heard so much about Kleig eyes, I thought I'd get them the first day — and I almost did. The novelty of the blue lights fascinated me, and I couldn't draw my eyes away. After a few days, however, the} became accustomed to the glare. And I was very selfconscious. I thought everybody on the set was there to judge my I didn't realize that they all had business to attend to the same as I. So I felt rather fidgety. Imagine being an unknown girl one day, and a motion-picture player under contract to First National the next, and you can appreciate the scared feeling that I had at first. Photo by Potter acting. Photo bp Ellis My First Year Some of the younger girls who long look back over that initial period Dolores Costello. My first year in pictures was probably different from that of any other gir! who has entered the movies. It was none the less wonderful for me. It was different, I think, because pictures weren't all new to me. My father, Maurice Costello, was in the movies for many years, and so I saw much of the studios as a child. There was not a great deal of newness for me in the lights and the cameras and the make-up. But there was a tremendous thrill, because it was like a dream come true. Do you know the small boy who, asked to define heaven, said, "It is just supposin' turned into really truly." I was playing in a stage production — my first role — when James Montgomery Flagg saw me and asked me to pose for his illustrations of the movie-girl heroine of "The Skyrocket." That brought me a little fame. Then, a Warner Brothers scout saw my sister and me in the "Scandals" in Chicago, and we were suddenly drafted into pictures. I found myself playing opposite John Barrymore, in "The Sea Beast." I do not know what technique is. If I thought I had any, it would scare me. I am easily frightened. I was so nervous the week before I started in "The Sea Beast," and during the first week of my work, I just drank milk, that's all. And now, being starred, I am more frightened than ever ! Arlette Marchal. Although I had appeared in a number of pictures made in France, I really experienced my greatest thrill when I came into American pictures. My first role in an American film was with Gloria Swanson in "Madame Sans-Gene." Although I am now in the movies, it was a real thrill to me at first to see walking around in real life the actors and actresses who are so popular on the screen in France — Jack Holt, Wallace Beery, the gorgeous Pola Negri, Ernest Torrence, Bebe Daniels, and scores of others. And there are such facilities over here, too. In making French' pictures, I had always done my own coiffure. But here, there are expert hairdressers ! thoto by Bor