Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

16 Photo by W. F. Seely Nancy Smith, mother of Dorothy Dwan, right, has done much toward putting Dorothy where she is on the screen, and now acts as her press agent. MOVIE mothers were under discussion — those ambitious mothers who hang around the sets watching their darling daughters work. They have been much criticized, and as a whole are not a bit popular at the studios. It has been said that they are — pests. But Nancy Smith, the younglooking and attractive mother of Dorothy Dwan, had taken up the cudgel and was ardently defending the poor movie mothers, while a group of us sat lingering over dinner at the Studio Club. "They have been unfairly criticized," she insisted. "Some, perhaps, have made themselves pests, but even these have most of them learned discretion by now. "Those who belittle us poor mothers and criticize us for just hanging around and living off our daughters' earnings do not consider the sacrifices and self-denials that many mothers have had to endure to make it possible for their daughters to gain a foothold in this land of promise and promises. "Where would Mary Pickford, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and the Talmadge girls be to-day if it hadn't been for their mothers' backing?" Nancy mentioned triumphantly several other mothers who had provided much of the power which had driven their clever and attractive daughters on to success. "I wonder how many of those who disparage the mothers of movie actresses ever stood behind the counter of a department store, like one mother I know of, or worked at other thines Is Mother a Pest? The mothers of movie actresses have had to put up with a lot of criticism. They have been accused of getting in the way around the studios, of interfering in their daughters' careers, of living in ease while their children slave. Some of these mothers now speak up, and show how unjustly they have been judged. By Myrtle Gebhart through years of worry, that their children might be educated and started upon the careers for which they showed talent ? "It is common knowledge that Mrs. Pickford slaved for her children, and we all admire Mary now because she is not ashamed of her humble beginning, and because she lavishes worldly comforts upon her mother. "Among the younger girls to whose mothers should go much of the credit for their advancement in pictures are May McAvoy, Patsy Ruth Miller, Olive Borden, Madge Bellamy, Betty Bronson, Mary Brian, Mary Philbin, Alice and Marceline Day. In some instances the mother has served only in a background capacity — in character building and home-keeping and clothesmaking and encouragement. Others have combined the duties of financier, manager, friend, adviser, press agent, housekeeper, and seamstress, with many a heartache accompanying hours of toil, that their daughters might shine in the spotlight. "I personally have not had a financial struggle, but I've worked like a Trojan for Dorothy just the same. And she has repaid me, not in money, of which I have no need, but by giving me a job that has kept me from settling down into the usual tedious routine of middle age." Nancy is Dorothy's press agent. She had the job thrust upon her. When Dorothy — through her mother's management— obtained her first roles, and the boys in the publicity departments asked for data about her, Nancy used to write it — crudely and amateurishly, at first. Gradually there unfolded a talent for writing which she had never dreamed she possessed. Eventually, by asking innumerable questions, accepting gratefully every bit of advice as to "the ropes," and by making friends, Nancy found herself, as Dorothy progressed, in the position of her publicity representative. Then she reached out and garnered the "accounts" of other players, until now she has built up quite a nice little business for herself as a press agent. "She looks more like Dorothy's sister than her mother," it is often said of Nancy. Thirty-seven years old, she dashes about now with a spirit that for the first time has a chance fully to express itself. Her husband was Lieutenant-Colonel George Hugh Smith, chief ordnance officer of the 28th Division, and Nancy used to lead a humdrum life at